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Hurricane Kate (1985)
| 1,171,705,540 |
Category 3 Atlantic hurricane
|
[
"1985 Atlantic hurricane season",
"1985 natural disasters in the United States",
"Category 3 Atlantic hurricanes",
"Hurricanes in Cuba",
"Hurricanes in Florida",
"Tropical cyclones in 1985"
] |
Hurricane Kate was the final in a series of tropical cyclones to impact the United States during 1985. It was the eleventh named storm, seventh hurricane, and third major hurricane of the 1985 Atlantic hurricane season, Kate originated from the interaction of an upper-level trough and tropical wave northeast of Puerto Rico on November 15. Though the system tracked erratically during the first hours of its existence, the intensification of a region of high pressure to the cyclone's north caused Kate to turn westward. A favorable atmospheric pattern allowed the newly developed system to intensify to hurricane intensity on November 16, and further to Category 2 intensity three days later.
Kate made its first landfall on the northern coast of Cuba at this intensity prior to emerging as a slightly weaker storm during the evening hours of November 19. Once clear of land, it began to strengthen quickly, becoming a Category 3 and reaching its peak intensity of 120 mph (195 km/h) the following day. On November 21, a cold front moving across the Mississippi Valley resulted in a north and eventual northeast turn of the cyclone, and on November 22, Kate came ashore near Mexico Beach, Florida, as a minimal Category 2 hurricane with winds of 100 mph (160 km/h) . Gradual weakening ensued as the cyclone moved along the Southeast United States coastline, and Kate transitioned to an extratropical cyclone on November 23, a day after exiting the coastline of North Carolina. Kate was the most recent hurricane to make landfall in Florida during the month of November until Hurricane Nicole in 2022.
The threat of Hurricane Kate in Cuba prompted the evacuation of 360,000 people. Heavy rainfall in Cuba caused numerous mudslides and flooding, killing 10 people and leading to severe agriculture damage. Wind gusts over hurricane intensity resulted in widespread power outages, significant building damage, and major crop damage. Damage totaled roughly \$400 million, making it the most damaging hurricane to strike the island in many decades. In preparation for the system's arrival, many hurricane watches and warnings were put into effect. Hundreds of thousands of residents were evacuated, and Florida governor Bob Graham declared a state of emergency for six counties; this was later cancelled following the relatively minor impacts of Kate. In addition, many shelters were opened.
When Kate struck the Florida Panhandle, it became the first hurricane to make landfall in that location since Hurricane Eloise in 1975. Storm surge and flooding rains destroyed much of the oyster industry, causing many people to lose their jobs in the weeks after the storm. Gusts over 100 mph (160 km/h) contributed to downed trees and building damage, while the combination of wind and rain led to downed power poles. Across the remainder of the southeast United States, several inches of rainfall led to flash flooding, damage to roadways, and major tree damage. Overall, Kate resulted in 15 fatalities and \$700 million in damage.
## Meteorological history
Before the formation of Hurricane Kate, a ridge was located across the southeastern United States for much of the autumn of 1985; concurrently, a major trough persisted across the western portion of the country. As a result, weather conditions across the Gulf of Mexico and western Atlantic Ocean in November were more typical of the pattern in late September, including sea surface temperatures of 81 °F (27 °C). On November 13, a weak tropical wave began interacting with a trough to the northeast of the Lesser Antilles. It gradually organized due to the favorable conditions, and on November 15, a Hurricane Hunters flight into the area indicated the development of a tropical cyclone. As gale-force winds were already present, the system was immediately declared Tropical Storm Kate, about 240 miles (385 km) northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
With a ridge to its north, Kate tracked westward after developing, and an upper-level low developed to the southwest of the storm. The combination of the two provided favorable outflow, allowing Kate to quickly intensify. On November 16, the storm attained hurricane status while moving through the southeastern Bahamas. After continued strengthening, Kate made landfall at 0600 UTC on November 19 over north-central Cuba with a well-defined eye. When it moved ashore, Kate had a pressure of 967 mbar (28.6 inHg) and winds of about 110 mph (180 km/h). The hurricane maintained its well-defined eye while moving across northern Cuba, and about 12 hours after making landfall, it emerged into the southeastern Gulf of Mexico just east of Havana. Over the next 24 hours, Kate re-intensified off the southwest coast of Florida as it passed about 85 mi (135 km) southwest of Key West. On November 20, the Hurricane Hunters observed winds as strong as 125 mph (200 km/h), and a buoy recorded a gust of 136 mph (219 km/h); this was the highest recorded wind gust from a buoy in the Gulf of Mexico until Hurricane Lili in 2002. Based on these observations, it was estimated that Kate attained peak winds of about 120 mph (190 km/h) around 1200 UTC on November 20.
Hurricane Kate maintained peak intensity for about 18 hours. On November 21, a cold front moving through the Mississippi Valley deflected the hurricane to the north and northeast. The combination of cooler waters and wind shear from the front weakened Kate to an intensity of 100 mph (160 km/h) by the time the hurricane struck Crooked Island near Mexico Beach, Florida late on November 21. After landfall, Kate continued to the northeast, crossing into Georgia and weakened into a tropical storm. Kate emerged from North Carolina into the Atlantic Ocean late on November 22. Encountering even colder waters and continued shear, the storm weakened further while turning to the east-southeast. On November 23, Kate transitioned into an extratropical cyclone to the west of Bermuda, terminating at 1800 UTC that day.
Until 2011, Kate's was considered the second-latest hurricane landfall in the United States, behind only a cyclone in 1925 that struck on December 1; however, a systematic reanalysis indicated that the 1925 system was only a tropical storm. In turn, Kate took the record. With Kate's landfall, the 1985 season had six hurricanes that struck the United States, only one short of the record seven in 1886.
## Preparations
By November 18, a hurricane warning was in effect for the southeast and central Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Flood warnings were issued for northern Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. In preparation for the hurricane's arrival, officials forced 360,000 people to evacuate in north-central Cuba.
While Kate was moving through the Bahamas, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) issued a hurricane warning from Jupiter to Fort Myers, Florida, including the Florida Keys. Then-Governor of Florida Bob Graham declared a state of emergency for six counties in South Florida. However, it was reversed following the relatively minor effects in the area. Officials recommended evacuation of the Florida Keys, leading to heavy traffic on the Overseas Highway and prompting the Red Cross to open 12 shelters. Three shelters were opened in Key West, but only 500 individuals utilized them during the storm. Most residents chose to endure the storm in their homes. In Fort Lauderdale, schools were closed and residents of mobile homes were required to leave.
Shortly after the storm reached its peak intensity on November 20, the NHC issued a hurricane watch from Grand Isle, Louisiana, to Cedar Key, Florida. Later that day, a portion of the watch area was upgraded to a warning from Bay St. Louis, Mississippi to St. Marks, Florida. About 20,000 employees on oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were evacuated, many by helicopter. The USS Lexington left port from Naval Air Station Pensacola to ride out the storm in open waters, and aircraft in the region were flown inland. About 100,000 people along the Florida Panhandle were told to leave their houses after Governor Bob Graham issued evacuation orders in 13 counties. About 2,000 people stayed in 34 shelters in Panama City. Roads in the region suffered traffic jams from the large volume of evacuees. Portions of the Florida Gulf Coast had been threatened by Hurricane Elena earlier in the season, and some evacuees of that storm intended not to leave during Kate due to the poor shelter conditions that they had experienced. Governor Graham activated 300 members of the Florida National Guard to prevent looting and to assist in evacuations. One person died from a stress-induced heart attack in Chipley after evacuating. Outside of Florida, about 2,200 people fled Grand Isle, Louisiana.
After Kate moved ashore, the NHC issued gale warnings along the East Coast of the United States from St. Augustine, Florida to Chincoteague, Virginia.
## Impact
### Caribbean and Turks and Caicos Islands
Early in its duration, Hurricane Kate sank one boat near Puerto Rico and disabled three others. The crew of five on the sunken boat were rescued after 17 hours. Several homes in northern Puerto Rico were damaged, forcing hundreds to evacuate. Flooding was also reported in the Dominican Republic, including around the capital Santo Domingo.
Heavy rainfall and winds up to 60 mph (97 km/h) were reported in the Turks and Caicos Islands. In Jamaica, heavy precipitation caused mudslides, which in turn blocked 23 major and minor roads and destroyed many bridges, culverts, and drains. Flooding in general caused severe damage to agriculture, especially in Clarendon, Manchester, Saint Ann, Saint Elizabeth, and Trelawny Parishes. Seven fatalities were reported, while the cost to repair damage was approximately \$3 million (1985 USD).
As Kate moved across northern Cuba, it produced strong winds that peaked at 75 mph (120 km/h) in Sagua La Grande. Wind gusts peaked at 104 mph (167 km/h) in Varadero, and winds in the capital of Havana reached 70 mph (110 km/h). In Havana, high winds caused power outages and destroyed buildings. Waves of 9 feet (2.7 m) affected the city's waterfront. Outside of Havana, the hurricane damaged sugar mills and much of the sugar cane crop; throughout the island, the winds destroyed 3,653 miles<sup>2</sup> (9461 km<sup>2</sup>) of sugar cane and 34,000 tonnes (37,000 tons) of sugar. The storm also destroyed 141,000 tonnes (139,000 long tons; 155,000 short tons) of bananas and 87,078 tonnes (85,703 long tons; 95,987 short tons) of other fruits and vegetables. Across the island, Kate damaged 88,207 houses and destroyed 4,382 others, affecting 476,891 people. Many public buildings, including schools, were damaged. Throughout the country, Kate killed 10 people and injured about 50 people. Damage was estimated at \$400 million, which was the highest total from all landfalling hurricanes from 1903 to 1998, unadjusted for inflation.
### Florida
As Kate passed to the southwest of Key West, the storm produced winds of 47 mph (76 km/h) there, with unofficial wind gusts of 104 mph (167 km/h). Rainfall totals in southwest Florida were generally around 1 in (25 mm), although Key West reported 2.08 in (53 mm) of precipitation. High winds downed trees and power lines, leaving areas between Key West and Big Pine Key without power. Electrical outages contributed to a mobile home being destroyed by fire, and one person died through electrocution. Above-normal tides caused minor flooding and erosion along the Florida Keys. Two people died after their boat capsized in the lower Keys.
Kate was the first hurricane to make landfall in the Florida Panhandle since Hurricane Eloise in 1975. In the region, the hurricane dropped heavy rainfall along its path, peaking at 8.32 in (211 mm) in Panama City. While moving ashore, Kate produced an 11 feet (3.4 m) storm surge at Cape San Blas, causing beach and dune erosion in Gulf County. Storm surge flooding left 150 houses uninhabitable in Wakulla County. The hurricane damaged a bridge to St. George Island that had been rebuilt after Hurricane Elena, and large portions of U.S. Routes 90 and 98 were washed out or damaged. Just two months after Elena ravaged the Apalachicola Bay shellfish harvesting industry, Hurricane Kate destroyed remaining oyster beds, leaving many oystermen in the area without jobs.
Strong winds buffeted the Florida Panhandle, accompanied by one tornado and several funnel clouds. In Panama City, wind gusts reached 78 mph (126 km/h), damaging two houses, a motel, and a fishing pier. The winds were strong enough to remove the roof of a two-story federal building. Sustained winds blew 74 mph (119 km/h) at Cape San Blas, with gusts up to 108 mph (174 km/h). Across the area, Kate severely damaged 242 buildings, mostly in Franklin County, where the storm ranked as the most devastating of the late 20th century. The storm compromised about 5.4 mi (8.7 km) of roads in the county, and throughout the region many roads were washed out. The intense winds brought down numerous trees, some of them onto adjacent structures. One fallen tree struck a car, killing one person and injuring another. The winds also downed power poles and lines. About 90 percent of Florida's capital Tallahassee, or about 80,000 people, lost power, and along the coast from Panama City to Apalachicola, the storm left about 30,000 homes and businesses without electricity. Overall, the hurricane destroyed 325 homes along the panhandle, and about 500 buildings were severely damaged.
### Elsewhere
Light rainfall of around 1 in (25 mm) from the hurricane extended into southeastern Alabama. Rainfall was much heavier in Georgia, peaking at 7.73 in (196 mm) in Bainbridge. Portions of southwestern Georgia experienced heavy damage from flash flooding and winds, and several secondary roads were washed out. Gusts of 80 mph (130 km/h) downed thousands of trees, and one fallen tree killed a man west of Thomasville. The cotton, soybean, and pecan crops suffered heavy losses, estimated at \$50 million. Property and utility damage was also assessed at \$50 million, and damage from flash flooding was estimated at \$1 million. There were scattered power outages in southern Georgia, affecting fewer than 3,000 customers by Georgia Power Company's estimation. While moving across southeastern Georgia, Kate produced a 62 mph (100 km/h) wind gust in Savannah. The city also reported 1.73 in (44 mm) of rainfall.
Farther northeast, Charleston, South Carolina reported a wind gust of 50 mph (80 km/h). The highest rainfall total in the state was 6.56 in (167 mm) in Hampton. The rains caused flash flooding that washed out secondary roads and a bridge. The storm knocked tree limbs onto power lines, leaving about 48,000 people without power. In Beaufort, trees fell onto four cars and a mobile home, and high waves sank a boat. In Wilmington, North Carolina, the storm dropped 1.99 in (51 mm) of precipitation. Rains across the state caused generally minor flooding, although several cars were swept off roadways. Rising floodwaters prompted the evacuation of a nursing home in Kannapolis. Rainfall extended northward into Virginia. Damage throughout the United States was estimated at \$300 million.
As an extratropical cyclone, Kate moved north of Bermuda and produced wind gusts of 26 mph (42 km/h) on the island.
## Aftermath
In the month after Hurricane Kate struck the island, the government of Cuba issued a request to the United Nations (UN) World Food Council for international assistance. In response, various UN member nations collectively provided \$60,000 for pesticides; \$250,000 for herbicides, fungicides, and potato seeds; and \$1.381 million in cooking oils and beans to fulfill the dietary needs of over 475,000 people for 60 days. The Soviet Union also donated about \$15 million worth of rice and wheat flour.
Hurricane Kate delayed a runoff mayoral election in Key West by two weeks. Shortly after the storm, the police departments of both Leon and Jackson Counties ordered a nightly curfew. Two disaster relief centers were opened in Franklin County, one in Apalachicola and the other in Eastpoint. On December 3, 1985, President of the United States Ronald Reagan declared seven Florida counties as disaster areas, making them eligible to receive federal aid.
Due to the widespread power outages along the Florida Panhandle, electrical companies enlisted extra workers to repair downed lines. Officials had put a curfew in place for Tallahassee due to power outages created by the hurricane, and the curfew was lifted on November 24 after power was gradually restored and roads were cleared of debris. Police officers in the city arrested 20 people for violating curfew or creating unrest.
Some sections of coastline already suffering from severe erosion lost additional swaths of beach to a 10-foot (3 m) storm surge and strong waves. Many fishermen before and after the storm encountered diminished fish catches after the hurricane.
## See also
- List of North Carolina hurricanes (1980–1999)
- List of Florida hurricanes (1975–1999)
- Other storms of the same name
- Hurricane Michael (2018) – Category 5 that devastated the Florida panhandle
|
1,469,245 |
Knowle West
| 1,172,476,196 |
Neighbourhood in Bristol, England
|
[
"Areas of Bristol",
"Places formerly in Somerset",
"Radburn design housing estates"
] |
Knowle West is a neighbourhood situated on a low plateau in the south of Bristol, England, about 2 miles (3 km) from the centre of the city. Historically in Somerset, most of the area is coterminous with the Filwood ward of Bristol City Council, although a small part of the estate lies within Knowle ward to the east. To the west are Bishopsworth and Hartcliffe. To the north are Bedminster and Windmill Hill and to the south Whitchurch Park and Hengrove. In 2008 the population was estimated to be 11,787. The area is approximately 1.26 square miles (3.3 km<sup>2</sup>).
There is evidence of late Iron Age and Roman settlements in the area. At the time of the Domesday Book, Knowle was a rural area assessed at a taxable value of two geld units. Knowle West remained rural in character until the 1930s, when a council housing estate was developed to provide homes for people displaced by slum clearance in the centre of the city.
Famous former residents include the musician Tricky, the England rugby player Ellis Genge, the boxer Dixie Brown and late 1950s rock and roll band the Eagles. There are two schools and two churches in Knowle West, as well as a number of open spaces, community centre,no clubs and no shopping facilities at Filwood Broadway except a news agent, a cafe and a chemist. Community organisations include the Knowle West Media Centre, the Residents' Planning Group and the Knowle West Health Association. There are no major employers in Knowle West and very little local enterprises it has no infrastructure but have larger businesses on nearby trading estates. The closure of the Imperial Tobacco factory at nearby Hartcliffe in 1990 caused a large number of job losses. Just under a third of the residents are classed as economically inactive and the area is the most economically deprived in Bristol.
## History
There is evidence of late Iron Age and Roman settlement at Inns Court and Filwood Park, which lie within Knowle West. In 1086, the area that is now Knowle West was assessed by the Domesday survey as part of Knowle in the hundred of Hartcliffe. The survey shows Knowle as being under the lordship of Eadnoth the Constable who had 30 holdings in Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire before the Norman conquest. After the conquest, Knowle became part of the holdings of Osbern Giffard, who was lord, or tenant in chief, of holdings throughout Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Wiltshire and Somerset. The Domesday Book shows Knowle as having eleven households, three ploughlands, one cob (small horse), eight cattle, twenty five pigs, a meadow of 16 acres (6.5 ha), pasture of 20 acres (8.1 ha) and a woodland area of 2.5 furlongs (500 m) by 1.5 furlongs (300 m). For taxation purposes, the whole was assessed at two geld units. Filwood Park, in the southern part of the area was part of the parish of Whitchurch until incorporated into Bristol in 1930. In Anglo-Saxon times Filwood Chase was part of the royal hunting estate known as Kingswood Forest, which encompassed a large area around Bristol.
Inns Court and Filwood farms have medieval origins. The surviving parts of Inns Court, originally Inyn's Court, are now part of the former Holy Cross Inns Court Vicarage and the staircase turret is now a Grade II\* listed building. The building is in the process of repair and is on the "at risk" register. An isolation hospital was built at Nover's Hill in 1892, eventually superseded by a new hospital at Ham Green, near Pill, which opened in 1927. The site is now occupied by the Knowle DGE (DGE standing for Discovery, Guidance and Enjoyment) Special School. In the 1920s, the area was still rural in nature, mostly agricultural and allotment land, including Filwood Farm, Inns Court Farm and Hengrove House. The old field boundaries influenced the subsequent development.
Knowle West was built in the 1930s as a council housing estate. It was constructed on garden city principles, with large gardens and "an abundance of fresh air and daylight." The aim of the development was to provide new homes for those who needed to be relocated as a result of clearance of inner-city slums in Bristol and "to provide healthier living conditions for large families on low incomes.
A new wave of development commenced in the 1960s at Inns Court, occasioned by the need for more homes following the further clearance of inner city areas which had been devastated by the Bristol Blitz. Prefabricated homes, which had been erected since World War II at Filwood Park were demolished in the 1960s. Subsequently, new homes were built on the Radburn principles. "Common features were grouped houses arranged around a cul-de sac street layout thus the street layout broke away from the conventional street grid pattern", but this style of development is now considered to be a failure, due to the lack of "a safe and well-overlooked environment." The layout of housing built around short cul-de-sacs "has resulted in a physical environment that contributes to isolation rather than facilitating community interaction", according to a 2009 city council report on the area. By 2008, around 45 per cent of the 4,475 homes were owner occupied. Plans were announced in 2010 for demolition of 1,000 homes in Inns Court. Local residents were opposed to this, and following their campaign, the council withdrew the plans and met with residents to discuss plans for redeveloping Filwood Broadway with new shops and a supermarket.
## Location
Modern Knowle West has an area of approximately 1.26 square miles (3.3 km<sup>2</sup>), located on a plateau about 215 feet (66 m) above sea level, south of the centre of Bristol, between the districts of Knowle on the east, Whitchurch Park and Hengrove to the south, Hartcliffe and Bishopsworth to the west and Bedminster and Windmill Hill to the north. There is steeply sloping land to the north and west, which together with Pigeonhouse Brook, a tributary of the River Malago, creates a natural barrier to adjacent areas. The underlying bedrock is of the Lias Group, a mixture of mudstones, marine limestones, sandstones and clays. The Bedminster Great coal seam lies some 2,952 feet (900 m) below the area, but it is considered unlikely that coal was mined underneath Knowle West.
The local council Filwood ward is roughly coterminous with Knowle West, but two small areas of the estate lie in the neighbouring Knowle ward. Definitions of the area of Knowle West vary, with some residents in the eastern fringes preferring to identify with Knowle.
## Notable residents
The boxer Dixie Brown lived in Knowle West from the 1930s until the 1950s and was a regular at the Venture Inn, a public house in Melvin Square. He was frequently visited by black American troops during World War II.
The Eagles were a rock and roll band who formed in the late 1950s at the Eagle House youth club and featured in the 1962 film Some People.
The musician Tricky was a member of the Wild Bunch sound system and a contributor to Massive Attack's first two albums. Born in 1968, Tricky grew up in Knowle West in the 1970s and 1980s and was educated at Merrywood School. He named his 2008 album Knowle West Boy, in tribute to the area's influence on him and his music.
The England International rugby player Ellis Genge grew up on the estate.
## Amenities
### Education
There are three primary schools in Knowle West; Greenfield Primary School, Oasis Academy Connaught, and the School of Christ the King. In addition there is Knowle DGE Special School (formerly the Florence Brown Community Special School), which serves pupils of all ages who have learning difficulties or social and emotional behaviour difficulties. There is also a nursery, Knowle West Children's Centre.· Secondary school students are educated in adjacent areas, following the closure of Merrywood School in 2000, after a critical report by Ofsted in 1997. The nearest secondary schools are Oasis Academy John Williams in Hengrove, St Bernadette Catholic Secondary School in Whitchurch, Bridge Learning Campus in Hartcliffe and Bedminster Down Secondary School. Ongoing adult education is provided at the Park Centre and nearby Bedminster and Marksbury Road libraries.
### Health
There is a National Health Service walk-in centre for treating minor injuries on the Knowle West Health Park site. Doctors may be consulted at the adjacent GP walk-in centre and there are general practitioner (GP) led health centres nearby in Knowle, Bedminster and Hartcliffe. Dentistry is provided at practices in Bishopsworth, Knowle and Bedminster. The nearest hospital is Bristol Royal Infirmary in Bristol city centre. South Bristol Community Hospital in nearby Hengrove opened in March 2012.
## Community activities
There are a number of community activities, including a community website, knowlewest.co.uk, showing the latest events and news in the area. A community newsletter called The Knowledge is produced by Community in Partnership (CIP), facilitated by the Knowle West Media Centre. The Knowle West Future planning forum was established in 2013 to work on a regeneration plan, based on the positive attributes of the estate.
The Knowle West Media Centre won a Queen's Award for Services in the Community in 2006 and the Knowle West Health Association won a Queen's Award for Voluntary Service in 2010.
Community enterprises include Re:work, who run construction, gardening, and furniture renovation projects, including their store on Filwood Broadway. They work with volunteers and support young people in skills development. Knowle West Health Park includes a GP service, a healthy living centre (which includes a studio with activities such as keep fit and dance activities), children's park, outdoor sports facilities, and a one-mile walk. Nearby nature walks include the Northern Slopes, including Novers Common, Glyn Vale/Kingswear and Wedmore Vale.
Local amenities include The Park Opportunity Centre, which offers a number of courses and programmes. The area has local shopping facilities, cafés and community centres and youth clubs such as Filwood Community Centre, Eagle House, Broadplain House, Novers Park,The Mede and KWMC (Knowle West Media Centre).
### Churches
Churches include Christ the King (Roman Catholic), built in 1952; Destiny Knowles Pentecostal Church (Pentecostal); St Barnabas (Church of England), built in 1938; Holy Cross (Church of God of Prophecy); and the Salvation Army.
## Transport
Knowle West is served by four council supported bus services, which connect the area to Totterdown, Broadmead, Hotwells, Bedminster and Brislington. In addition First West of England run two services, which connect with Withywood, the city centre and Hengrove. The nearest railway station is at Parson Street in Bedminster.
Journey times from Knowle West to the city centre have been identified as hampering employment opportunities for residents and proposals for a Greater Bristol Bus Network and a rapid transit scheme have noted the need to provide better connectivity for the area. A journey from Filwood Park to the city centre takes around 50 minutes and from Inns Court to Broadmead takes over 30 minutes. Proposed extensions to the A4174 ring road, which would pass along the southern part of Knowle West, have been claimed to reduce delays across the Greater Bristol area by 6%, and lead to a 9% increase in public transport use. The plans were approved by the Department for Transport in December 2011.
## Demographics
The population estimate for Filwood ward, as of 2008, was 11,787. There were 3,007 under 15 years old and 1,651 were of pensionable age. 7,316 were Christian, 2,925 had no religion and there were small numbers of Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh residents. 96.2 per cent were described as white and 3.8 per cent as being of black minority ethnicity.
Even in 2011, the Filwood ward was still an area with a relatively small amount of ethnic minorities, with 85.8 per cent of the 12,267 residents being White British.
### Employment
There are a number of small community enterprises in the area, but most of those in work need to drive to other parts of Bristol. The Bristol City Council Baseline Briefing notes that employment opportunities for those without a car are limited There is a retail park on the former Imperial Tobacco factory site in Hartcliffe, which has plans for further development. In addition, South Bristol Business Park was built on the former Filwood playing fields in the early 21st century. It was reported that 2,300 residents had local employment in 2008 and 3,264 were classed as economically inactive; that is to say they were not employed and not actively seeking employment. 71 per cent of jobs were in service industries. 213 residents were claiming unemployment benefits.
### Deprivation
Six out of eight areas in Knowle West are ranked as being economically deprived. The closure of the Imperial Tobacco factory at nearby Hartcliffe in 1990 meant the loss of 5,000 jobs and an estimated further 20,000 jobs in service and supporting industries throughout South Bristol. A House of Commons report noted that this had a seriously negative effect on the area as many people in Knowle West and neighbouring areas lost the opportunity for "manual and semi-skilled employment". The Independent in 1995 noted high drug use and associated crime and reported on the establishment of Knowle West Against Drugs, led by local parents concerned about these problems. In 2006, BBC News said "Knowle West has more than its share of social problems. The highest number of kids in care of any council ward in Bristol. The lowest number of young people with any qualifications (under half). A major petty crime problem, drug addiction, and add to that people are fed up with bad housing." Shawnie, a 2006 novel by social worker Ed Trewavas, written from the point of view of a 13-year-old girl living in Knowle West, documents some of the deprivation he encountered in his work. One of the novel's characters "describes Knowle West ... as a 'shit hole' populated by 'yokels, cider-heads, junkies, dole-scammers, slappers and failed wide boys, all interbreeding and nicking their cruddy possessions off of each other in some giant, dismal rota.'"
The Guardian in 2007 reported "Fed up with the media's view of their community as a hub for drug use, crime and antisocial behaviour, the residents of one of Britain's most notorious housing estates decided to fight back." The article noted that projects such as Knowle West Media were having a positive impact, "Those kids coming out of the media centre aren't the criminals and layabouts everyone expects from Knowle West; they're film-makers, photographers and designers." According to police statistics the levels of crime and anti-social behaviour (ASB) in Knowle West are above average for England and Wales, with 241 crimes and ASB incidents reported in June 2011. A 2007 report for the Community Foundation Network, looking at the work of voluntary sector groups, found that three-quarters of the super output areas in Filwood ward are amongst the 10% most deprived in England. The report also found a strong sense of community within the area with "a history of community activity".
## Politics
Since 2015, the two Bristol City councillors for Filwood ward have been Labour Party members. The MP for the Bristol South constituency, since 2015, is Karin Smyth, of the Labour Party. Prior to that, the constituency was represented from 1987 by Dawn Primarolo, now the Right Honourable the Baroness Primarolo. Prior to Brexit in 2020, Filwood was represented in the European Parliament by the six MEPs of the South West England constituency.
## Environment
Open spaces include Glyn Vale Open Space, part of the Northern Slopes; Filwood Playing Fields and Filwood Park; Airport Road Open Space; Inns Court Open Space, which all are proposed Sites of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI), with areas of grassland, scrub and broad-leaved woodland. There are also three children's playgrounds and a few small open spaces, mostly grassed areas between buildings or at road junctions. There are 42 acres (17 ha) of natural open space and 69 acres (28 ha) of what is described by the city council as "informal open space", such as wide road verges, roundabouts and playing fields, in Knowle West. The average number of bird species per garden is two and 41 per cent of residents reported frogs in gardens or allotments. Proposals for development of open spaces were made in 2009 by Bristol City Council and opposed by residents. On the Northern Slopes, tree species recorded include hazel, blackthorn, alder, and hawthorn; bird life includes robins, blackbirds, chiffchaffs, house sparrows, starlings, and thrushes; wildflowers include cowslips, primroses, agrinomy, and knapweed; and mammals include rabbits and foxes as well as pipistrelle and noctule bats.
## See also
- Knowle Bristol
|
3,700,887 |
Anodyne (album)
| 1,166,390,666 | null |
[
"1993 albums",
"Albums produced by Brian Paulson",
"Sire Records albums",
"Uncle Tupelo albums"
] |
Anodyne is the fourth and final studio album by alternative country band Uncle Tupelo, released on October 5, 1993. The recording of the album was preceded by the departure of the original drummer Mike Heidorn and the addition of three new band members: bassist John Stirratt, drummer Ken Coomer, and multi-instrumentalist Max Johnston. The band signed with Sire Records shortly before recording the album; Anodyne was Uncle Tupelo's only major label release until 89/93: An Anthology in 2002.
Recorded in Austin, Texas, Anodyne featured a split in songwriting credits between singers Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy, plus a cover version of the Doug Sahm song "Give Back the Key to My Heart", with Sahm on vocals. The lyrical themes were influenced by country music and—more than their preceding releases—touched on interpersonal relationships. After two promotional tours for the album, tensions between Farrar and Tweedy culminated in the breakup of Uncle Tupelo. Well-received upon its initial release, Anodyne was re-mastered and re-released in 2003 by Rhino Entertainment including five bonus tracks.
## Context
Uncle Tupelo's third album, March 16–20, 1992, was released through Rockville Records on August 3, 1992. On the release, the band eschewed the growing popularity of alternative rock by playing acoustic folk and country songs "as a big 'fuck you' to the rock scene". Drummer Mike Heidorn had a reduced role on the album; because it was an acoustic album, Heidorn added only brush-stroke percussion on a few songs. Heidorn wanted to leave the band to spend more time with his wife and two young children. Though band manager Tony Margherita announced that several major labels were interested in signing Uncle Tupelo, Heidorn decided to permanently leave the band.
Rockville Records refused to pay Uncle Tupelo any royalties, even though the band's first two albums, No Depression and Still Feel Gone, sold a combined 40,000 copies. Consequently, Margherita was trying to find a new recording deal for the band. On a recommendation by singer Gary Louris of The Jayhawks, talent scout Joe McEwen pursued the band for a contract with Sire Records. McEwen was impressed by how the band was willing to go against trends, calling the band "an alternative to the alternative". Executing an out-clause in their contract with Rockville, Uncle Tupelo signed a seven-record deal with Sire in 1992. The deal guaranteed the release of at least two albums, with a \$150,000 budget for the first.
Before releasing their first album with Sire, Uncle Tupelo needed a drummer. Farrar and Tweedy interviewed twenty-four candidates and were both impressed with Ken Coomer and Bill Belzer. Belzer was chosen and Uncle Tupelo embarked on the European segment of the promotional tour for March 16–20, 1992 as the opening act for Sugar. Belzer was dismissed from the band after six months, and Coomer was hired as his permanent replacement. Coomer was not the only new member added after the tour—Uncle Tupelo sought to expand beyond a trio for the Anodyne recording sessions. They recruited multi-instrumentalist Max Johnston and bassist John Stirratt—Stirratt's presence enabled Tweedy to become a full-time guitarist on the songs that he wrote.
## Recording
Anodyne was recorded from May to June 1993 at Cedar Creek studio in Austin, Texas. Uncle Tupelo liked the studio because it "just seemed really kind of homey and small and cheap". The album was produced, mixed, and engineered by Brian Paulson. The now-expanded lineup inspired Tweedy to spend more time with his bandmates. After Tweedy wrote each song, he would play it to Stirratt, Coomer, and Johnston to get their opinions. Farrar interpreted these practice sessions as a sign of Tweedy's increasing arrogance. At live shows, during this time, tensions between Tweedy and Farrar increased and led to verbal altercations.
The album was recorded live in the studio, and each song was recorded in only one take. As a result, the recording sessions for Anodyne were completed in two weeks. Anodyne was the only Uncle Tupelo album to completely lack overdubbing. Sire was pleased with the album; according to McEwen, "everybody [at the label] considered it a step up from what they'd done before." Farrar wrote six of the songs on the album and Tweedy wrote five, though all the new material was credited to both songwriters. While on tour, Uncle Tupelo met Texas Tornados singer Doug Sahm at the Hotel Phoenix in Boston, Massachusetts. Farrar invited him to join the band in the studio for a cover of Sahm's "Give Back the Key to My Heart", which Sahm contributed lead vocals to.
The lyrical content of Anodyne was influenced by 1950s and 1960s country music, particularly Ernest Tubb, Buck Owens, and Lefty Frizzell. Tweedy included several songs referencing aspects of the music industry. One example was "Acuff-Rose", a paean on the music publishers of Acuff-Rose Music. He also wrote "We've Been Had", which was intended to chastise bands such as Nirvana and The Clash who were "all just show biz" in his opinion. Tweedy was also the author of "New Madrid", a song about Iben Browning's erroneous prediction of an apocalyptic earthquake in New Madrid, Missouri. Farrar was less comfortable discussing the lyrics that he wrote, claiming that his songs frequently change their meanings. Like other Uncle Tupelo albums, Farrar and Tweedy wrote their own lyrics, and played them for each other a week before the recording sessions. In comparison to the rest of the Uncle Tupelo catalog, Coomer described the music of the album as "some of [the band's] earlier crunch with the acoustic subtlety of March 16–20, 1992".
## Promotion and reception
Anodyne was Uncle Tupelo's only recording to appear on the American Billboard Heatseekers chart. Despite the lack of a single to promote the album, sales eventually surpassed 150,000 copies. A promotional tour for the album began later that year, including a sold-out show at Tramps in New York City. Most shows on the tour sold over one thousand tickets. The success of the tour encouraged the label; according to Sire executive Bill Bentley, "people here thought we were going to have platinum records from Uncle Tupelo."
Despite the label's aspirations, Jay Farrar announced his intention to leave Uncle Tupelo in January 1994. Farrar kept his reasoning secret until fall 1995, when he claimed in an interview that "it reached a point where Jeff and I really weren't compatible." As a sign of loyalty to band manager Tony Margherita, who had acquired a \$3000 debt on behalf of the band, Farrar agreed to do another promotional tour. Physical altercations between Tweedy and Farrar began two weeks into the tour and continued throughout—many were due to Farrar's refusal to play on Tweedy's songs. Despite Farrar's reservations, Uncle Tupelo performed Tweedy's "The Long Cut" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, the band's only network television appearance. The band played their final concert on May 1, 1994, at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis, Missouri. The remaining members of the Anodyne sessions formed Wilco a few weeks later.
The band re-mastered and re-released the album on March 11, 2003, through Rhino Records. The new version included two previously unreleased songs: Farrar's "Stay True", Tweedy's "Wherever". It also included a cover of Waylon Jennings' "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?", with vocals by Joe Ely, a song previously released on the 1993 compilation Trademark of Quality. Live cover versions of "Truck Drivin' Man" and "Suzy Q" were also included on the re-issue.
Anodyne was well received by critics domestically and internationally. AllMusic writer Jason Ankeny wrote, "Uncle Tupelo never struck a finer balance between rock and country than on Anodyne". Mark Kemp wrote for Rolling Stone that the band "[has] an intuitive sense of the simplicity and dynamics of a country song." German music periodical Spex compared the album to Neil Young and to Little Feat's debut album. CMJ's Jim Caligiuri praised Anodyne as "another austere, inspired collection". Karen Schoemer of The New York Times found that the album "is certainly derivative, but Uncle Tupelo isn't seeking to reinvent its sources, merely to honor them". At the end of the year, Anodyne placed at number twenty-eight on The Village Voice'''s Pazz & Jop critics' poll and at number nineteen on the Spex critics' poll. Greg Kot praised Max Johnston's contributions in the 2004 book The New Rolling Stone Album Guide and called the album "Tupelo's finest effort." Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet listed Anodyne in 1999 as one of "The Best Albums of the Century". In 2008, Rolling Stone critic Tom Moon listed Anodyne among the 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die.
Although the majority of the album's reviews were positive, some critics disagreed. Q's reviewer gave the album three stars out of five and noted that the band needed to "shed some of the Neil Young obsession." Tom Moon of Rolling Stone gave the 2003 re-release all five stars, but commented that the bonus tracks there were "pleasant but inconsequential." Robert Christgau perceived the album as neither a "dud" nor worthy of "honorable mention".
In 2016, Paste ranked Anodyne'' at number one in its list of "The 50 Best Alt-Country Albums".
## Track listing
Songwriting credits from the 2003 reissue.
1. "Slate" (Farrar) – 3:24
2. "Acuff-Rose" (Tweedy) – 2:35
3. "The Long Cut" (Tweedy) – 3:20
4. "Give Back the Key to My Heart" (Doug Sahm) – 3:26
5. "Chickamauga" (Farrar) – 3:42
6. "New Madrid" (Tweedy) – 3:31
7. "Anodyne" (Farrar) – 4:50
8. "We've Been Had" (Tweedy) – 3:26
9. "Fifteen Keys" (Farrar) – 3:25
10. "High Water" (Farrar) – 4:14
11. "No Sense in Lovin'" (Tweedy) – 3:46
12. "Steal the Crumbs" (Farrar) – 3:38
### 2003 CD reissue bonus tracks
1. <li value=13>
"Stay True"\* (Farrar) – 3:29
2. "Wherever"\* (Tweedy) – 3:38
3. "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way"\* (Jennings) – 3:01
4. "Truck Drivin' Man (Live)" (Fell) – 2:13
5. "Suzy Q (Live)" (Hawkins/Lewis/Broadwater) – 7:13
\*Tracks 13–15 previously unreleased studio outtakes.
## Personnel
Uncle Tupelo
- Ken Coomer – drums
- Jay Farrar – vocals and guitar, mandolin on "Acuff-Rose"
- Max Johnston – fiddle and lap steel guitar; banjo on "New Madrid", dobro on "Fifteen Keys"
- John Stirratt – guitar, bass guitar
- Jeff Tweedy – vocals, bass guitar, guitar
Additional musicians
- Joe Ely – vocals on "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?"
- Brian Henneman – vocals on "Truck Drivin' Man"
- Lloyd Maines – pedal steel guitar
- Doug Sahm – guitar and vocals on "Give Back the Key to My Heart"
Technical personnel
- Dave C. Birke – graphic design, art direction
- Dan Corrigan – photography
- Scott Hull – mastering
- Brian Paulson – production, engineering, mixing
|
44,359 |
Gary Cooper
| 1,173,885,017 |
American actor (1901–1961)
|
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"1961 deaths",
"20th-century American male actors",
"Academy Honorary Award recipients",
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"American male film actors",
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"American people of English descent",
"Best Actor Academy Award winners",
"Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners",
"California Republicans",
"Catholics from Montana",
"Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism",
"Deaths from cancer in California",
"Deaths from prostate cancer",
"Grinnell College people",
"Male Western (genre) film actors",
"Male actors from Montana",
"Paramount Pictures contract players",
"People educated at Dunstable Grammar School",
"People from Brentwood, Los Angeles",
"People from Dunstable",
"People from Helena, Montana",
"People from Holmby Hills, Los Angeles"
] |
Gary Cooper (born Frank James Cooper; May 7, 1901 – May 13, 1961) was an American actor known for his strong, quiet screen persona and understated acting style. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice and had a further three nominations, as well as an Academy Honorary Award in 1961 for his career achievements. He was one of the top-10 film personalities for 23 consecutive years and one of the top money-making stars for 18 years. The American Film Institute (AFI) ranked Cooper at number11 on its list of the 25 greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema.
Cooper's career spanned 36 years, from 1925 to 1961, and included leading roles in 84 feature films. He was a major movie star from the end of the silent film era through to the end of the golden age of classical Hollywood. His screen persona appealed strongly to both men and women, and his range included roles in most major film genres. His ability to project his own personality onto the characters he played contributed to his natural and authentic appearance on screen. Throughout his career, he sustained a screen persona that represented the ideal American hero.
Cooper began his career as a film extra and stunt rider, but soon landed acting roles. After establishing himself as a Western hero in his early silent films, he appeared as the Virginian and became a movie star in 1929 with his first sound picture, The Virginian. In the early 1930s, he expanded his heroic image to include more cautious characters in adventure films and dramas such as A Farewell to Arms (1932) and The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935). During the height of his career, Cooper portrayed a new type of hero, a champion of the common man in films such as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Meet John Doe (1941), Sergeant York (1941), The Pride of the Yankees (1942), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943). He later portrayed more mature characters at odds with the world in films such as The Fountainhead (1949) and High Noon (1952). In his final films, he played nonviolent characters searching for redemption in films such as Friendly Persuasion (1956) and Man of the West (1958).
## Early life
Frank James Cooper was born in Helena, Montana, on May 7, 1901, the younger of two sons of English parents Alice (née Brazier; 1873–1967) and Charles Henry Cooper (1865–1946). His brother, Arthur, was six years his senior. Cooper's father came from Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire, and became a prominent lawyer, rancher, and Montana Supreme Court justice. His mother hailed from Gillingham, Kent, and married Charles in Montana. In 1906, Charles purchased the 600-acre (240 ha) Seven-Bar-Nine cattle ranch, about 50 miles (80 km) north of Helena near Craig, Montana. Cooper and Arthur spent their summers at the ranch and learned to ride horses, hunt, and fish. Cooper attended Central Grade School in Helena.
Alice wanted her sons to have an English education, so she took them back to England in 1909 to enroll them in Dunstable Grammar School in Dunstable, Bedfordshire. While there, Cooper and his brother lived with their father's cousins, William and Emily Barton, at their home in Houghton Regis. Cooper studied Latin, French, and English history at Dunstable until 1912. While he adapted to English school discipline and learned the requisite social graces, he never adjusted to the formal Eton collars he was required to wear. He received his confirmation in the Church of England at the Church of All Saints in Houghton Regis on December 3, 1911. His mother accompanied her sons back to the U.S. in August 1912, and Cooper resumed his education at Johnson Grammar School in Helena.
When Cooper was 15, he injured his hip in a car accident. On his doctor's recommendation, he returned to the Seven-Bar-Nine ranch to recuperate by horseback riding. The misguided therapy left him with his characteristic stiff, off-balanced walk and slightly angled horse-riding style. He left Helena High School after two years in 1918 and returned to the family ranch to work full-time as a cowboy. In 1919, his father arranged for him to attend Gallatin County High School in Bozeman, Montana, where English teacher Ida Davis encouraged him to focus on academics and participate in debating and dramatics. Cooper later called Davis "the woman partly responsible for [his] giving up cowboy-ing and going to college".
Cooper was still attending high school in 1920, when he took three art courses at Montana Agricultural College in Bozeman. His interest in art was inspired years earlier by the Western paintings of Charles Marion Russell and Frederic Remington. Cooper especially admired and studied Russell's Lewis and Clark Meeting Indians at Ross' Hole (1910), which still hangs in the state capitol building in Helena.
In 1922, to continue his art education, Cooper enrolled in Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. He did well academically in most of his courses, but was not accepted into the school's drama club. His drawings and watercolor paintings were exhibited throughout the dormitory, and he was named art editor for the college yearbook. During the summers of 1922 and 1923, Cooper worked at Yellowstone National Park as a tour guide driving the yellow open-top buses. Despite a promising first 18 months at Grinnell, he left college suddenly in February 1924, spent a month in Chicago looking for work as an artist, and then returned to Helena, where he sold editorial cartoons to the local Independent newspaper.
In autumn 1924, Cooper's father left the Montana Supreme Court bench and moved with his wife to Los Angeles to administer the estates of two relatives, and Cooper joined his parents there in November at his father's request. After briefly working a series of unpromising jobs, he met two friends from Montana, who were working as film extras and stunt riders in low-budget Western films for the small movie studios on Poverty Row. They introduced him to another Montana cowboy, rodeo champion Jay "Slim" Talbot, who took him to see a casting director. Wanting money for a professional art course, Cooper worked as a film extra for \$5 a day, and as a stunt rider for \$10. Cooper and Talbot became close friends and hunting companions, and Talbot later worked as Cooper's stuntman and stand-in for over three decades.
## Career
### Silent films, 1925–1928
In early 1925, Cooper began his film career in silent pictures such as The Thundering Herd and Wild Horse Mesa with Jack Holt, Riders of the Purple Sage and The Lucky Horseshoe with Tom Mix, and The Trail Rider with Buck Jones. He worked for several Poverty Row studios, but also the already emergent major studios, Famous Players–Lasky and Fox Film Corporation. While his skilled horsemanship led to steady work in Westerns, Cooper found the stunt work, which sometimes injured horses and riders, "tough and cruel". Hoping to move beyond the risky stunt work and obtain acting roles, Cooper paid for a screen test and hired casting director Nan Collins to work as his agent. Knowing that other actors were using the name "Frank Cooper", Collins suggested he change his first name to "Gary" after her hometown of Gary, Indiana. Cooper immediately liked the name.
Cooper also found work in a variety of non-Western films, appearing, for example, as a masked Cossack in The Eagle (1925), as a Roman guard in Ben-Hur (1925), and as a flood survivor in The Johnstown Flood (1926). Gradually, he began to land credited roles that offered him more screen time, in films such as Tricks (1925), in which he played the film's antagonist, and the short film Lightnin' Wins (1926). As a featured player, he began to attract the attention of major film studios. On June 1, 1926, Cooper signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn Productions for \$50 a week.
Cooper's first important film role was a supporting part in The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926) starring Ronald Colman and Vilma Bánky, in which he plays a young engineer who helps a rival suitor save the woman he loves and her town from an impending dam disaster. Cooper's experience living among the Montana cowboys gave his performance an "instinctive authenticity", according to biographer Jeffrey Meyers. The film was a major success. Critics singled out Cooper as a "dynamic new personality" and future star. Goldwyn rushed to offer Cooper a long-term contract, but he held out for a better deal - a five-year contract with Jesse L. Lasky at Paramount Pictures for \$175 a week. In 1927, with help from Clara Bow, Cooper landed high-profile roles in Children of Divorce and Wings (both 1927), the latter being the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. That year, Cooper also appeared in his first starring roles in Arizona Bound and Nevada, both films directed by John Waters.
Paramount paired Cooper with Fay Wray in The Legion of the Condemned and The First Kiss (both 1928), advertising them as the studio's "glorious young lovers". Their on-screen chemistry failed to generate much excitement with audiences. With each new film, Cooper's acting skills improved and his popularity continued to grow, especially among female movie-goers. During this time, he was earning as much as \$2,750 per film and receiving 1,000 fan letters a week. Looking to exploit Cooper's growing audience appeal, the studio placed him opposite popular leading ladies such as Evelyn Brent in Beau Sabreur, Florence Vidor in Doomsday, and Esther Ralston in Half a Bride (all 1928). Around the same time, Cooper made Lilac Time (1928) with Colleen Moore for First National Pictures, his first movie with synchronized music and sound effects. It became one of the most commercially successful films of 1928.
### Hollywood stardom, 1929–1935
Cooper became a major movie star in 1929 with the release of his first talking picture, The Virginian (1929), which was directed by Victor Fleming and co-starred Mary Brian and Walter Huston. Based on the popular novel by Owen Wister, The Virginian was one of the first sound films to define the Western code of honor and helped establish many of the conventions of the Western movie genre that persist to the present day. According to biographer Jeffrey Meyers, the romantic image of the tall, handsome, and shy cowboy hero who embodied male freedom, courage, and honor was created in large part by Cooper in the film. Unlike some silent-film actors who had trouble adapting to the new sound medium, Cooper transitioned naturally, with his "deep and clear" and "pleasantly drawling" voice, which was perfectly suited for the characters he portrayed on screen, also according to Meyers. Looking to capitalize on Cooper's growing popularity, Paramount cast him in several Westerns and wartime dramas, including Only the Brave, The Texan, Seven Days' Leave, A Man from Wyoming, and The Spoilers (all released in 1930). Norman Rockwell depicted Cooper in his role as The Texan for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post on May 24, 1930.
One of the most important performances in Cooper's early career was his portrayal of a sullen legionnaire in Josef von Sternberg's film Morocco (also 1930) with Marlene Dietrich in her introduction to American audiences. During production, von Sternberg focused his energies on Dietrich and treated Cooper dismissively. Tensions came to a head after von Sternberg yelled directions at Cooper in German. The 6-foot-3-inch (191 cm) actor approached the 5-foot-4-inch (163 cm) director, picked him up by the collar, and said, "If you expect to work in this country, you'd better get on to the language we use here." Despite the tensions on the set, Cooper produced "one of his best performances", according to Thornton Delehanty of the New York Evening Post.
After returning to the Western genre in Zane Grey's Fighting Caravans (1931) with French actress Lili Damita, Cooper appeared in the Dashiell Hammett crime film City Streets (also 1931), co-starring Sylvia Sidney and Paul Lukas, playing a westerner who gets involved with big-city gangsters to save the woman he loves. Cooper concluded the year with appearances in two unsuccessful films: I Take This Woman (also 1931) with Carole Lombard, and His Woman with Claudette Colbert. The demands and pressures of making 10 films in two years left Cooper exhausted and in poor health, suffering from anemia and jaundice. He had lost 30 lb (14 kg) during that period, and felt lonely, isolated, and depressed by his sudden fame and wealth. In May 1931, Cooper left Hollywood and sailed to Algiers and then Italy, where he lived for the next year.
During his time abroad, Cooper stayed with the Countess Dorothy di Frasso, the former Dorothy Cadwell Taylor, at the Villa Madama in Rome, where she taught him about good food and vintage wines, how to read Italian and French menus, and how to socialize among Europe's nobility and upper classes. After guiding him through the great art museums and galleries of Italy, she accompanied him on a 10-week big-game hunting safari on the slopes of Mount Kenya in East Africa, where he was credited with more than 60 kills, including two lions, a rhinoceros, and various antelopes. His safari experience in Africa had a profound influence on Cooper and intensified his love of the wilderness. After returning to Europe, the countess and he set off on a Mediterranean cruise of the Italian and French Rivieras. Rested and rejuvenated by his year-long exile, a healthy Cooper returned to Hollywood in April 1932 and negotiated a new contract with Paramount for two films per year, a salary of \$4,000 a week, and director and script approval.
In 1932, after completing Devil and the Deep with Tallulah Bankhead to fulfill his old contract, Cooper appeared in A Farewell to Arms, the first film adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway novel. Co-starring Helen Hayes, a leading New York theatre star and Academy Award winner, and Adolphe Menjou, the film presented Cooper with one of his most ambitious and challenging dramatic roles, playing an American ambulance driver wounded in Italy, who falls in love with an English nurse during World War I. Critics praised his highly intense and emotional performance, and the film became one of the year's most commercially successful pictures. In 1933, after making Today We Live with Joan Crawford and One Sunday Afternoon with Fay Wray, Cooper appeared in the Ernst Lubitsch comedy film Design for Living, based on the successful Noël Coward play. Co-starring Miriam Hopkins and Fredric March, the film was a box-office success, ranking as one of the top-10 highest-grossing films of 1933. All three of the lead actors – March, Cooper, and Hopkins – received attention from this film, as they were all at the peak of their careers. Cooper's performance, as an American artist in Europe competing with his playwright friend for the affections of a beautiful woman, was singled out for its versatility and revealed his genuine ability to do light comedy. Cooper changed his name legally to "Gary Cooper" in August 1933.
In 1934, Cooper was lent out to MGM for the Civil War drama film Operator 13 with Marion Davies, about a beautiful Union spy who falls in love with a Confederate soldier. Despite Richard Boleslawski's imaginative direction and George J. Folsey's lavish cinematography, the film did poorly at the box office.
Back at Paramount, Cooper appeared in his first of seven films by director Henry Hathaway, Now and Forever, with Carole Lombard and Shirley Temple. In the film, he plays a confidence man who tries to sell his daughter to the relatives who raised her, but is eventually won over by the adorable girl. Impressed by Temple's intelligence and charm, Cooper developed a close rapport with her, both on and off screen. The film was a box-office success.
The following year, Cooper was lent to Samuel Goldwyn Productions to appear in King Vidor's romance film The Wedding Night with Anna Sten, who was being groomed as "another Garbo". In the film, Cooper plays an alcoholic novelist who retreats to his family's New England farm, where he meets and falls in love with a beautiful Polish neighbor. Cooper delivered a performance of surprising range and depth, according to biographer Larry Swindell. Despite receiving generally favorable reviews, the film was not popular with American audiences, who may have been offended by the film's depiction of an extramarital affair and its tragic ending.
That same year, Cooper appeared in two Henry Hathaway films: the melodrama Peter Ibbetson with Ann Harding, about a man caught up in a dream world created by his love for a childhood sweetheart, and the adventure film The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, about a daring British officer and his men who defend their stronghold at Bengal against rebellious local tribes. While the former, championed by the surrealists became more successful in Europe than in the United States, the latter was nominated for seven Academy Awards and became one of Cooper's most popular and successful adventure films. Hathaway had the highest respect for Cooper's acting ability, calling him "the best actor of all of them".
### American folk hero, 1936–1943
#### From Mr. Deeds to The Real Glory, 1936–1939
Cooper's career took an important turn in 1936. After making Frank Borzage's romantic comedy film Desire with Marlene Dietrich at Paramount, in which he delivered a performance considered by some contemporary critics as one of his finest, Cooper returned to Poverty Row for the first time since his early silent-film days to make Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town with Jean Arthur for Columbia Pictures. In the film, Cooper plays Longfellow Deeds, a quiet, innocent writer of greeting cards who inherits a fortune, leaves behind his idyllic life in Vermont, and travels to New York City, where he faces a world of corruption and deceit. Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin were able to use Cooper's well-established screen persona as the "quintessential American hero" – a symbol of honesty, courage, and goodness – to create a new type of "folk hero" for the common man. Commenting on Cooper's impact on the character and the film, Capra observed:
> As soon as I thought of Gary Cooper, it wasn't possible to conceive anyone else in the role. He could not have been any closer to my idea of Longfellow Deeds, and as soon as he could think in terms of Cooper, Bob Riskin found it easier to develop the Deeds character in terms of dialogue. So it just had to be Cooper. Every line in his face spelled honesty. Our Mr. Deeds had to symbolize incorruptibility, and in my mind Gary Cooper was that symbol.
Both Desire and Mr. Deeds opened in April 1936 to critical praise and were major box-office successes. In his review in The New York Times, Frank Nugent wrote that Cooper was "proving himself one of the best light comedians in Hollywood". For his performance in Mr. Deeds, Cooper received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
Cooper appeared in two other Paramount films in 1936. In Lewis Milestone's adventure film The General Died at Dawn with Madeleine Carroll, he plays an American soldier of fortune in China who helps the peasants defend themselves against the oppression of a cruel warlord. Written by playwright Clifford Odets, the film was a critical and commercial success.
In Cecil B. DeMille's sprawling frontier epic The Plainsman, his first of four films with the director, Cooper portrays Wild Bill Hickok in a highly fictionalized version of the opening of the American western frontier. The film was an even greater box-office hit than its predecessor, due in large part to Jean Arthur's definitive depiction of Calamity Jane and Cooper's inspired portrayal of Hickok as an enigmatic figure of "deepening mythic substance". That year, Cooper appeared for the first time on the Motion Picture Herald exhibitor's poll of top-10 film personalities, where he remained for the next 23 years.
In late 1936, Paramount was preparing a new contract for Cooper that would raise his salary to \$8,000 a week, when Cooper signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn for six films over six years with a minimum guarantee of \$150,000 per picture. Paramount brought suit against Goldwyn and Cooper, and the court ruled that Cooper's new Goldwyn contract afforded the actor sufficient time to also honor his Paramount agreement. Cooper continued to make films with both studios, and by 1939, the United States Treasury reported that Cooper was the country's highest wage earner, at \$482,819 (equivalent to \$million in ).
In contrast to his output the previous year, Cooper appeared in only one picture in 1937, Henry Hathaway's adventure film Souls at Sea. A critical and box-office failure, Cooper referred to it as his "almost picture", saying, "It was almost exciting, and almost interesting. And I was almost good." In 1938, he appeared in Archie Mayo's biographical film The Adventures of Marco Polo. Plagued by production problems and a weak screenplay, the film became Goldwyn's biggest failure to date, losing \$700,000. During this period, Cooper turned down several important roles, including the role of Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind. Cooper was producer David O. Selznick's first choice for the part. He made several overtures to the actor, but Cooper had doubts about the project, and did not feel suited to the role. Cooper later admitted, "It was one of the best roles ever offered in Hollywood... But I said no. I didn't see myself as quite that dashing, and later, when I saw Clark Gable play the role to perfection, I knew I was right."
Back at Paramount, Cooper returned to a more comfortable genre in Ernst Lubitsch's romantic comedy Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938) with Claudette Colbert. In the film, Cooper plays a wealthy American businessman in France who falls in love with an impoverished aristocrat's daughter and persuades her to become his eighth wife. Despite the clever screenplay by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, and solid performances by Cooper and Colbert, American audiences had trouble accepting Cooper in the role of a shallow philanderer. It succeeded only at the European box-office market.
In the fall of 1938, Cooper appeared in H. C. Potter's romantic comedy The Cowboy and the Lady with Merle Oberon, about a sweet-natured rodeo cowboy who falls in love with the wealthy daughter of a presidential hopeful, believing her to be a poor, hard-working lady's maid. The efforts of three directors and several eminent screenwriters could not salvage what could have been a fine vehicle for Cooper. While more successful than its predecessor, the film was Cooper's fourth consecutive box-office failure in the American market.
In the next two years, Cooper was more discerning about the roles he accepted and made four successful large-scale adventure and cowboy films. In William A. Wellman's adventure film Beau Geste (1939), he plays one of three daring English brothers who join the French Foreign Legion in the Sahara to fight local tribes. Filmed in the same Mojave Desert locations as the original 1926 version with Ronald Colman, Beau Geste provided Cooper with magnificent sets, exotic settings, high-spirited action, and a role tailored to his personality and screen persona. This was the last film in Cooper's contract with Paramount.
In Henry Hathaway's The Real Glory (1939), he plays a military doctor who accompanies a small group of American Army officers to the Philippines to help the Christian Filipinos defend themselves against Muslim radicals. Many film critics praised Cooper's performance, including author and film critic Graham Greene, who recognized that he "never acted better".
#### From The Westerner to For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940–1943
Cooper returned to the Western genre in William Wyler's The Westerner (1940) with Walter Brennan and Doris Davenport, about a drifting cowboy who defends homesteaders against Roy Bean, a corrupt judge known as the "law west of the Pecos". Screenwriter Niven Busch relied on Cooper's extensive knowledge of Western history while working on the script. The film received positive reviews and did well at the box office, with reviewers praising the performances of the two lead actors. That same year, Cooper appeared in his first all-Technicolor feature, Cecil B. DeMille's adventure film North West Mounted Police (1940). In the film, Cooper plays a Texas Ranger who pursues an outlaw into western Canada, where he joins forces with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who are after the same man, a leader of the North-West Rebellion. While not as popular with critics as its predecessor, the film was another box-office success, the sixth-highest grossing film of 1940.
The early 1940s were Cooper's prime years as an actor. In a relatively short period, he appeared in five critically successful and popular films that produced some of his finest performances. When Frank Capra offered him the lead role in Meet John Doe before Robert Riskin even developed the script, Cooper accepted his friend's offer, saying, "It's okay, Frank, I don't need a script." In the film, Cooper plays Long John Willoughby, a down-and-out bush-league pitcher hired by a newspaper to pretend to be a man who promises to commit suicide on Christmas Eve to protest all the hypocrisy and corruption in the country. Considered by some critics to be Capra's best film at the time, Meet John Doe was received as a "national event" with Cooper appearing on the front cover of Time on March 3, 1941. In his review in the New York Herald Tribune, Howard Barnes called Cooper's performance a "splendid and utterly persuasive portrayal" and praised his "utterly realistic acting which comes through with such authority". Bosley Crowther, in The New York Times, wrote, "Gary Cooper, of course, is 'John Doe' to the life and in the whole – shy, bewildered, nonaggressive, but a veritable tiger when aroused."
That same year, Cooper made two films with director and good friend Howard Hawks. In the biographical film Sergeant York, Cooper portrays war hero Alvin C. York, one of the most decorated American soldiers in World WarI. The film chronicles York's early backwoods days in Tennessee, his religious conversion and subsequent piety, his stand as a conscientious objector, and finally his heroic actions at the Battle of the Argonne Forest, which earned him the Medal of Honor. Initially, Cooper was nervous and uncertain about playing a living hero, so he traveled to Tennessee to visit York at his home, and the two quiet men established an immediate rapport and discovered they had much in common. Inspired by York's encouragement, Cooper delivered a performance that Howard Barnes of the New York Herald Tribune called "one of extraordinary conviction and versatility", and that Archer Winston of the New York Post called "one of his best". After the film's release, Cooper was awarded the Distinguished Citizenship Medal by the Veterans of Foreign Wars for his "powerful contribution to the promotion of patriotism and loyalty". York admired Cooper's performance and helped promote the film for Warner Bros. Sergeant York became the top-grossing film of the year and was nominated for 11 Academy Awards. Accepting his first Academy Award for Best Actor from his friend James Stewart, Cooper said, "It was Sergeant Alvin York who won this award. Shucks, I've been in the business 16 years and sometimes dreamed I might get one of these. That's all I can say... Funny when I was dreaming I always made a better speech."
Cooper concluded the year back at Goldwyn with Howard Hawks to make the romantic comedy Ball of Fire with Barbara Stanwyck. In the film, Cooper plays a shy linguistics professor who leads a team of seven scholars who are writing an encyclopedia. While researching slang, he meets Stanwyck's flirtatious burlesque stripper Sugarpuss O'Shea who blows the dust off their staid life of books. The screenplay by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder provided Cooper the opportunity to exercise the full range of his light comedy skills. In his review for the New York Herald Tribune, Howard Barnes wrote that Cooper handled the role with "great skill and comic emphasis" and that his performance was "utterly delightful". Though small in scale, Ball of Fire was one of the top-grossing films of the year and Cooper's fourth consecutive picture to make the top 20.
Cooper's only film appearance in 1942 was also his last under his Goldwyn contract. In Sam Wood's biographical film The Pride of the Yankees, Cooper portrays baseball star Lou Gehrig, who established a record with the New York Yankees for playing in 2,130 consecutive games. Cooper was reluctant to play the seven-time All-Star, who had died only the previous year from ALS (now commonly called "Lou Gehrig's disease"). Beyond the challenges of effectively portraying such a popular and nationally recognized figure, Cooper knew very little about baseball and was not left-handed like Gehrig.
After Gehrig's widow visited the actor and expressed her desire that he portray her husband, Cooper accepted the role that covered a 20-year span of Gehrig's life: his early love of baseball, his rise to greatness, his loving marriage, and his struggle with illness, culminating in his farewell speech at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939, before 62,000 fans. Cooper quickly learned the physical movements of a baseball player and developed a fluid, believable swing. The handedness issue was solved by reversing the print for certain batting scenes. The film was one of the year's top-10 pictures and received 11 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Cooper's third).
Soon after the publication of Ernest Hemingway's novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, Paramount paid \$150,000 for the film rights with the express intent of casting Cooper in the lead role of Robert Jordan, an American explosives expert who fights alongside the Republican loyalists during the Spanish Civil War. The original director, Cecil B. DeMille, was replaced by Sam Wood, who brought in Dudley Nichols for the screenplay. After the start of principal photography in the Sierra Nevada in late 1942, Ingrid Bergman was brought in to replace ballerina Vera Zorina as the female lead, a change supported by Cooper and Hemingway. The love scenes between Bergman and Cooper were "rapturous" and passionate. Howard Barnes in the New York Herald Tribune wrote that both actors performed with "the true stature and authority of stars". While the film distorted the novel's original political themes and meaning, For Whom the Bell Tolls was a critical and commercial success and received 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Cooper's fourth).
#### World War II related activities
Due to his age and health, Cooper did not serve in the military during World War II, but like many of his colleagues, he got involved in the war effort by entertaining the troops. In June 1943, he visited military hospitals in San Diego, and often appeared at the Hollywood Canteen serving food to the servicemen. In late 1943, Cooper undertook a 23,000-mile (37,000 km) tour of the South West Pacific with actresses Una Merkel and Phyllis Brooks, and accordionist Andy Arcari.
Traveling on a B-24A Liberator bomber, the group toured the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, Queensland, Brisbane – where General Douglas MacArthur told Cooper he was watching Sergeant York in a Manila theater when Japanese bombs began falling – New Guinea, Jayapura, and throughout the Solomon Islands.
The group often shared the same sparse living conditions and K-rations as the troops. Cooper met with the servicemen and women, visited military hospitals, introduced his attractive colleagues, and participated in occasional skits. The shows concluded with Cooper's moving recitation of Lou Gehrig's farewell speech. When he returned to the United States, he visited military hospitals throughout the country. Cooper later called his time with the troops the "greatest emotional experience" of his life.
### Mature roles, 1944–1952
In 1944, Cooper appeared in Cecil B. DeMille's wartime adventure film The Story of Dr. Wassell with Laraine Day – his third movie with the director. In the film, Cooper plays American doctor and missionary Corydon M. Wassell, who leads a group of wounded sailors through the jungles of Java to safety. Despite receiving poor reviews, Dr. Wassell was one of the top-grossing films of the year. With his Goldwyn and Paramount contracts now concluded, Cooper decided to remain independent and formed his own production company, International Pictures, with Leo Spitz, William Goetz, and Nunnally Johnson. The fledgling studio's first offering was Sam Wood's romantic comedy Casanova Brown with Teresa Wright, about a man who learns his soon-to-be ex-wife is pregnant with his child, just as he is about to marry another woman. The film received poor reviews, with the New York Daily News calling it "delightful nonsense", and Bosley Crowther, in The New York Times, criticizing Cooper's "somewhat obvious and ridiculous clowning". The film was barely profitable.
In 1945, Cooper starred in and produced Stuart Heisler's Western comedy Along Came Jones with Loretta Young for International. In this lighthearted parody of his past heroic image, Cooper plays comically inept cowboy Melody Jones, who is mistaken for a ruthless killer. Audiences embraced Cooper's character, and the film was one of the top box-office pictures of the year – a testament to Cooper's still vital audience appeal. It was also International's biggest financial success during its brief history before being sold off to Universal Studios in 1946.
Cooper's career during the postwar years drifted in new directions as American society was changing. While he still played conventional heroic roles, his films now relied less on his heroic screen persona and more on novel stories and exotic settings. In November 1945, Cooper appeared in Sam Wood's 19th-century period drama Saratoga Trunk with Ingrid Bergman, about a Texas cowboy and his relationship with a beautiful fortune hunter. Filmed in early 1943, the movie's release was delayed for two years due to the increased demand for war movies. Despite poor reviews, Saratoga Trunk did well at the box office and became one of the top moneymakers of the year for Warner Bros. Cooper's only film in 1946 was Fritz Lang's romantic thriller Cloak and Dagger, about a mild-mannered physics professor recruited by the Office of Strategic Services during the last years of World War II to investigate the German atomic-bomb program. Playing a part loosely based on physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, Cooper was uneasy with the role and unable to convey the "inner sense" of the character. The film received poor reviews and was a box-office failure. In 1947, Cooper appeared in Cecil B. DeMille's epic adventure film Unconquered with Paulette Goddard, about a Virginia militiaman who defends settlers against an unscrupulous gun trader and hostile Indians on the Western frontier during the 18th century. The film received mixed reviews, but even long-time DeMille critic James Agee acknowledged the picture had "some authentic flavor of the period". This last of four films made with DeMille was Cooper's most lucrative, earning the actor over \$300,000 (equal to \$ today) in salary and percentage of profits. Unconquered was his last unqualified box-office success for the next five years.
In 1948, after making Leo McCarey's romantic comedy Good Sam, Cooper sold his company to Universal Studios and signed a long-term contract with Warner Bros. that gave him script and director approval and a guaranteed \$295,000 (equal to \$ today) per picture. His first film under the new contract was King Vidor's drama The Fountainhead (1949) with Patricia Neal and Raymond Massey. In the film, Cooper plays an idealistic and uncompromising architect who struggles to maintain his integrity and individualism in the face of societal pressures to conform to popular standards. Based on the novel by Ayn Rand, who also wrote the screenplay, the film reflects her philosophy and attacks the concepts of collectivism while promoting the virtues of individualism. For most critics, Cooper was hopelessly miscast in the role of Howard Roark. In his review for The New York Times, Bosley Crowther concluded he was "Mr. Deeds out of his element". Cooper returned to his element in Delmer Daves' war drama Task Force (1949), about a retiring rear admiral, who reminisces about his long career as a naval aviator and his role in the development of aircraft carriers. Cooper's performance and the Technicolor newsreel footage supplied by the United States Navy made the film one of Cooper's most popular during this period. In the next two years, Cooper made four poorly received films: Michael Curtiz' period drama Bright Leaf (1950), Stuart Heisler's Western melodrama Dallas (1950), Henry Hathaway's wartime comedy You're in the Navy Now (1951), and Raoul Walsh's Western action film Distant Drums (1951).
Cooper's most important film during the postwar years was Fred Zinnemann's Western drama High Noon (1952) with Grace Kelly and Katy Jurado for United Artists. In the film, Cooper plays retiring sheriff Will Kane, who is preparing to leave town on his honeymoon when he learns that an outlaw he helped put away and his three henchmen are returning to seek their revenge. Unable to gain the support of the frightened townspeople, and abandoned by his young bride, Kane nevertheless stays to face the outlaws alone. During the filming, Cooper was in poor health and in considerable pain from stomach ulcers. His ravaged face and discomfort in some scenes "photographed as self-doubt", according to biographer Hector Arce, and contributed to the effectiveness of his performance. Considered one of the first "adult" Westerns for its theme of moral courage, High Noon received enthusiastic reviews for its artistry, with Time placing it in the ranks of Stagecoach and The Gunfighter. Bosley Crowther, in The New York Times, wrote that Cooper was "at the top of his form", and John McCarten, in The New Yorker, wrote that Cooper was never more effective. The film earned \$3.75million in the United States and \$18million worldwide. Following the example of his friend James Stewart, Cooper accepted a lower salary in exchange for a percentage of the profits, and ended up making \$600,000. Cooper's understated performance was widely praised, and earned him his second Academy Award for Best Actor.
### Later films, 1953–1959
After appearing in André de Toth's Civil War drama Springfield Rifle (1952) – a standard Warner Bros. film that was overshadowed by the success of its predecessor – Cooper made four films outside the United States. In Mark Robson's drama Return to Paradise (1953), Cooper plays an American wanderer who liberates the inhabitants of a Polynesian island from the puritanical rule of a misguided pastor. Cooper endured spartan living conditions, long hours, and ill health during the three-month location shoot on the island of Upolu in Western Samoa. Despite its beautiful cinematography, the film received poor reviews. Cooper's next three films were shot in Mexico. In Hugo Fregonese's action adventure film Blowing Wild (1953) with Barbara Stanwyck, he plays a wildcatter in Mexico, who gets involved with an oil-company executive and his unscrupulous wife with whom he once had an affair.
In 1954, Cooper appeared in Henry Hathaway's Western drama Garden of Evil, with Susan Hayward, about three soldiers of fortune in Mexico hired to rescue a woman's husband. That same year, he appeared in Robert Aldrich's Western adventure Vera Cruz with Burt Lancaster. In the film, Cooper plays an American adventurer hired by Emperor MaximilianI to escort a countess to Vera Cruz during the Mexican Rebellion of 1866. All these films received poor reviews, but did well at the box office. For his work in Vera Cruz, Cooper earned \$1.4million in salary and a percentage of the gross.
During this period, Cooper struggled with health problems. He suffered a severe shoulder injury during the filming of Blowing Wild when he was hit by metal fragments from a dynamited oil well, as well as his ongoing treatment for ulcers. During the filming of Vera Cruz, he reinjured his hip by falling from a horse, and was burned when Lancaster fired his rifle too close and the wadding from the blank shell pierced his clothing.
Cooper appeared in Otto Preminger's 1955 biographical war drama The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, about the World WarI general who tried to convince government officials of the importance of air power, and was court-martialed after blaming the War Department for a series of air disasters. Some critics felt Cooper was miscast, and that his dull, tight-lipped performance did not reflect Mitchell's dynamic and caustic personality. In 1956, Cooper was more effective playing a gentle Indiana Quaker in William Wyler's Civil War drama Friendly Persuasion with Dorothy McGuire. Like Sergeant York and High Noon, the film addresses the conflict between religious pacifism and civic duty. For his performance, Cooper received his second Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actor. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, was awarded the Palme d'Or at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, and went on to earn \$8million worldwide.
Cooper traveled to France in 1956 to make Billy Wilder's romantic comedy Love in the Afternoon with Audrey Hepburn and Maurice Chevalier. In the film, Cooper plays a middle-aged American playboy in Paris who is pursued by—and eventually falls in love with—a much younger woman. Despite receiving some positive reviews, including from Bosley Crowther, who praised the film's "charming performances", most reviewers concluded that Cooper was simply too old for the part. While audiences may not have welcomed seeing Cooper's heroic screen image tarnished by his playing an aging roué having an affair with a young girl, the film was still a box-office success. The following year, Cooper appeared in Philip Dunne's romantic drama Ten North Frederick. In the film, which was based on the novel by John O'Hara, Cooper plays an attorney whose life is ruined by a double-crossing politician and his own secret affair with his daughter's young roommate. While Cooper brought "conviction and controlled anguish" to his performance, according to biographer Jeffrey Meyers, it was not enough to save what Bosley Crowther called a "hapless film".
Despite his ongoing health problems and several operations for ulcers and hernias, Cooper continued to work in action films. In 1958, he appeared in Anthony Mann's Western drama Man of the West (1958) with Julie London and Lee J. Cobb, about a reformed outlaw and killer who is forced to confront his violent past when the train in which he is riding is held up by his former gang members. The film has been called Cooper's "most pathological Western", with its themes of impotent rage, sexual humiliation, and sadism. According to biographer Jeffrey Meyers, Cooper, who struggled with moral conflicts in his personal life, "understood the anguish of a character striving to retain his integrity... [and] brought authentic feeling to the role of a tempted and tormented, yet essentially decent man". Mostly ignored by critics at the time, the film is now well-regarded by film scholars and is considered Cooper's last great film.
After his Warner Bros. contract ended, Cooper formed his own production company, Baroda Productions, and made three unusual films in 1959 about redemption. In Delmer Daves' Western drama The Hanging Tree, Cooper plays a frontier doctor who saves a criminal from a lynch mob, and later tries to exploit his sordid past. Cooper delivered a "powerful and persuasive" performance of an emotionally scarred man whose need to dominate others is transformed by the love and sacrifice of a woman. In Robert Rossen's historical adventure They Came to Cordura with Rita Hayworth, he plays an army officer who is found guilty of cowardice and assigned the degrading task of recommending soldiers for the Medal of Honor during the Pancho Villa Expedition of 1916.
While Cooper received positive reviews, Variety and Films in Review felt he was too old for the part. In Michael Anderson's action drama The Wreck of the Mary Deare with Charlton Heston, Cooper plays a disgraced merchant-marine officer who decides to stay aboard his sinking cargo ship to prove the vessel was deliberately scuttled and to redeem his good name. Like its two predecessors, the film was physically demanding. Cooper, who was a trained scuba diver, did most of his own underwater scenes. Biographer Jeffrey Meyers observed that in all three roles Cooper effectively conveyed the sense of lost honor and desire for redemption – what Joseph Conrad in Lord Jim called the "struggles of an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be".
## Personal life
### Marriage and family
Cooper was formally introduced to his future wife, 20-year-old New York debutante Veronica Balfe, on Easter Sunday 1933 at a party given by her uncle, art director Cedric Gibbons. Called "Rocky" by her family and friends, she grew up on Park Avenue and attended finishing schools. Her stepfather was Wall Street tycoon Paul Shields. Cooper and Rocky were quietly married at her parents' Park Avenue residence on December 15, 1933. According to his friends, the marriage had a positive impact on Cooper, who turned away from past indiscretions and took control of his life. Athletic and a lover of the outdoors, Rocky shared many of Cooper's interests, including riding, skiing, and skeet-shooting. She organized their social life, and her wealth and social connections provided Cooper access to New York high society. Cooper and his wife owned homes in the Los Angeles area in Encino (1933–36), Brentwood (1936–53), and Holmby Hills (1954–61), and owned a vacation home in Aspen, Colorado (1949–53).
Gary and Veronica Cooper's daughter, Maria Veronica Cooper, was born on September 15, 1937. By all accounts, he was a patient and affectionate father, teaching Maria to ride a bicycle, play tennis, ski, and ride horses. Sharing many of her parents' interests, she accompanied them on their travels and was often photographed with them. Like her father, she developed a love for art and drawing. As a family, they vacationed together in Sun Valley, Idaho, spent time at Rocky's parents' country house in Southampton, New York, and took frequent trips to Europe. Cooper and Rocky were legally separated on May 16, 1951, when Cooper moved out of their home. For over two years, they maintained a fragile and uneasy family life with their daughter. Cooper moved back into their home in November 1953, and their formal reconciliation occurred in February 1954.
### Romantic relationships
Prior to his marriage, Cooper had a series of romantic relationships with leading actresses, beginning in 1927 with Clara Bow, who advanced his career by helping him get one of his first leading roles in Children of Divorce. Bow was also responsible for getting Cooper a role in Wings, which generated an enormous amount of fan mail for the young actor. In 1928, he had a relationship with another experienced actress, Evelyn Brent, whom he met while filming Beau Sabreur. In 1929, while filming The Wolf Song, Cooper began an intense affair with Lupe Vélez, which was the most important romance of his early life. During their two years together, Cooper also had brief affairs with Marlene Dietrich while filming Morocco in 1930 and with Carole Lombard while making I Take This Woman in 1931. During his year abroad in 1931–32, Cooper had an affair with the married Countess Dorothy di Frasso, the former Dorothy Cadwell Taylor, while staying at her Villa Madama near Rome.
After he was married in December 1933, Cooper remained faithful to his wife until the summer of 1942, when he began an affair with Ingrid Bergman during the production of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Their relationship lasted through the completion of filming Saratoga Trunk in June 1943. In 1948, after finishing work on The Fountainhead, Cooper began an affair with Patricia Neal, his co-star. At first, they kept their affair discreet, but eventually it became an open secret in Hollywood, and Cooper's wife confronted him with the rumors, which he admitted were true. He also confessed that he was in love with Neal, and continued to see her. Cooper and his wife were legally separated in May 1951, but he did not seek a divorce. Neal later claimed that Cooper hit her after she went on a date with Kirk Douglas, and that he arranged for her to have an abortion when she became pregnant with Cooper's child. Neal ended their relationship in late December 1951. During his three-year separation from his wife, Cooper was rumored to have had affairs with Grace Kelly, Lorraine Chanel, and Gisèle Pascal.
Cooper biographers have explored his friendship in the late '20s with the actor Anderson Lawler, with whom Cooper shared a house on and off for a year, while at the same time seeing Clara Bow, Evelyn Brent, and Lupe Vélez. Lupe Vélez once told Hedda Hopper of Lawler's affair with Cooper; whenever he would come home after seeing Lawler, she would sniff for Lawler's cologne. Vélez' biographer Michelle Vogel has reported that Vélez consented to Cooper's sexual behavior with Lawler, but only as long as she, too, could participate. In later life, he became involved with costume designer Irene, and was, according to her, "the only man she ever loved". A year after his death in 1961, Irene committed suicide by jumping from the 11th floor of the Knickerbocker Hotel, after telling Doris Day of her grief over Cooper's death.
### Friendships, interests, and character
According to Cooper
> ... the really satisfying things I do are offered me, free, for nothing. Ever go out in the fall and do a little hunting? See the frost on the grass and the leaves turning? Spend a day in the hills alone, or with good companions? Watch a sunset and a moonrise? Notice a bird in the wind? A stream in the woods, a storm at sea, cross the country by train, and catch a glimpse of something beautiful in the desert, or the farmlands? Free to everybody...
Cooper's 20-year friendship with Ernest Hemingway began at Sun Valley in October 1940. The previous year, Hemingway drew upon Cooper's image when he created the character of Robert Jordan for the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. The two shared a passion for the outdoors, and for years they hunted duck and pheasant, and skied together in Sun Valley. Both men admired the work of Rudyard Kipling; Cooper kept a copy of the poem "If—" in his dressing room, and retained as adults Kipling's sense of boyish adventure.
As well as admiring Cooper's hunting skills and knowledge of the outdoors, Hemingway believed his character matched his screen persona, once telling a friend, "If you made up a character like Coop, nobody would believe it. He's just too good to be true." They saw each other often, and their friendship remained strong through the years.
Cooper's social life generally centered on sports, outdoor activities, and dinner parties with his family and friends from the film industry, including directors Henry Hathaway, Howard Hawks, William Wellman, and Fred Zinnemann, and actors Joel McCrea, James Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, and Robert Taylor. Cooper, in addition to hunting, enjoyed riding, fishing, skiing, and later in life, scuba diving. He never abandoned his early love for art and drawing, and over the years, he and his wife acquired a private collection of modern paintings, including works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Cooper owned several works by Pablo Picasso, whom he met in 1956. Cooper also had a lifelong passion for automobiles, with a collection that included a 1930 Duesenberg.
Cooper was naturally reserved and introspective, and loved the solitude of outdoor activities. Not unlike his screen persona, his communication style frequently consisted of long silences with an occasional "yup" and "shucks". He once said, "If others have more interesting things to say than I have, I keep quiet." According to his friends, Cooper could also be an articulate, well-informed conversationalist on topics ranging from horses, guns, and Western history to film production, sports cars, and modern art. He was modest and unpretentious, frequently downplaying his acting abilities and career accomplishments. His friends and colleagues described him as charming, well-mannered, and thoughtful, with a lively, boyish sense of humor. Cooper maintained a sense of propriety throughout his career and never misused his movie-star status; he never sought special treatment or refused to work with a director or leading lady. His close friend Joel McCrea recalled, "Coop never fought, he never got mad, he never told anybody off that I know of; everybody [who] worked with him liked him."
### Political views
Like his father, Cooper was a conservative Republican; he voted for Calvin Coolidge in 1924 and Herbert Hoover in 1928 and 1932, and campaigned for Wendell Willkie in 1940. When Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for an unprecedented fourth presidential term in 1944, Cooper campaigned for Thomas E. Dewey and criticized Roosevelt for being dishonest and adopting "foreign" ideas. In a radio address he had paid for himself just before the election, Cooper said, "I disagree with the New Deal belief that the America all of us love is old and worn-out and finished – and has to borrow foreign notions that don't even seem to work any too well where they come from... Our country is a young country that just has to make up its mind to be itself again." He also attended a Republican rally at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that drew 93,000 Dewey supporters. In 1952, Cooper, along with John Wayne, Adolphe Menjou and Glenn Ford, supported Robert A. Taft over Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Republican primaries.
Cooper was one of the founding members of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a conservative organization dedicated, according to its statement of principles, to preserving the "American way of life" and opposing communism and fascism. The organization (members included Walter Brennan, Laraine Day, Walt Disney, Clark Gable, Hedda Hopper, Ronald Reagan, Barbara Stanwyck, and John Wayne) advised the United States Congress to investigate communist influence in the motion-picture industry. On October 23, 1947, Cooper was subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and was asked if he had observed any "communistic influence" in Hollywood.
Cooper recounted statements he had heard suggesting the Constitution was out of date and that Congress was an unnecessary institution, comments which Cooper said he found to be "very un-American", and testified that he had rejected several scripts because he thought they were "tinged with communist ideas". Unlike some other witnesses, Cooper did not name any individuals or scripts.
In 1951, while making High Noon, Cooper befriended the film's screenwriter, Carl Foreman, who had been a member of the Communist Party. When Foreman was subpoenaed by the HUAC, Cooper put his career on the line to defend Foreman. When John Wayne and others threatened Cooper with blacklisting himself and the loss of his passport if he did not walk off the film, Cooper gave a statement to the press in support of Foreman, calling him "the finest kind of American". When producer Stanley Kramer removed Foreman's name as screenwriter, Cooper and director Fred Zinnemann threatened to walk off the film if Foreman's name were not restored. Foreman later said that of all his friends and allies and colleagues in Hollywood, "Cooper was the only big one who tried to help. The only one." Cooper even offered to testify in Foreman's behalf before the committee, but character witnesses were not allowed. Foreman always sent future scripts to Cooper for first refusal, including The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Key, and The Guns of Navarone. Cooper had to turn them down because of his age.
### Religion
Cooper was baptized in the Church of All Saints, Houghton Regis, in Bedfordshire, England, in December 1911, and was raised in the Episcopal Church in the United States. While he was not an observant Christian for most of his adult life, many of his friends believed he had a deeply spiritual side.
On June 26, 1953, Cooper accompanied his wife and daughter, who were devout Catholics, to Rome, where they had an audience with Pope Pius XII. Cooper and his wife were still separated at the time, but the papal visit marked the beginning of their gradual reconciliation. In the following years, Cooper contemplated his mortality and his personal behavior, and started discussing Catholicism with his family. He began attending church with them regularly, and met with their parish priest, who offered Cooper spiritual guidance. After several months of study, Cooper was baptized as a Catholic on April 9, 1959, before a small group of family and friends at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills.
## Final years and death
On April 14, 1960, Cooper underwent surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston for an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had metastasized to his colon. He fell ill again on May 31 and underwent further surgery at Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles in early June to remove a malignant tumor from his large intestine. After recuperating over the summer, Cooper took his family on vacation to the south of France before traveling to the UK in the fall to star in The Naked Edge. In December 1960, he worked on the NBC television documentary The Real West, which was part of the company's Project 20 series.
On December 27, his wife learned from their family doctor that Cooper's cancer had spread to his lungs and bones and was inoperable. His family decided not to tell him immediately.
On January 9, 1961, Cooper attended a dinner given in his honor and hosted by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin at the Friars Club. The dinner was attended by many of his industry friends and concluded with a brief speech by Cooper, who said, "The only achievement I'm proud of is the friends I've made in this community."
In mid-January, Cooper took his family to Sun Valley for their last vacation together. Cooper and Hemingway hiked through the snow together for the last time. On February 27, after returning to Los Angeles, Cooper learned that he was dying. He later told his family, "We'll pray for a miracle; but if not, and that's God's will, that's all right, too." On April 17, Cooper watched the Academy Awards ceremony on television and saw his good friend James Stewart, who had presented Cooper with his first Oscar years earlier, accept on Cooper's behalf an honorary award for lifetime achievement – his third Oscar. Holding back tears, Stewart said, "Coop, I'll get this to you right away. And Coop, I want you to know this, that with this goes all the warm friendship and the affection and the admiration and the deep, the deep respect of all of us. We're very, very proud of you, Coop. All of us are tremendously proud." The following day, newspapers around the world announced that Cooper was dying. In the coming days, he received numerous messages of appreciation and encouragement, including telegrams from Pope John XXIII and Queen Elizabeth II, and a telephone call from President John F. Kennedy.
In his last public statement on May 4, 1961, Cooper said, "I know that what is happening is God's will. I am not afraid of the future." He received the last rites on Friday, May 12, and died quietly the next day.
A requiem was held on May 18 at the Church of the Good Shepherd, attended by many of Cooper's friends, including James Stewart, Jack Benny, Henry Hathaway, Joel McCrea, Audrey Hepburn, Jack L. Warner, John Ford, John Wayne, Edward G. Robinson, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Fred Astaire, Randolph Scott, Walter Pidgeon, Bob Hope, and Marlene Dietrich. Cooper was buried in the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. In May 1974, after his family relocated to New York, Cooper's remains were exhumed and reburied in Sacred Hearts Cemetery in Southampton. His grave is marked by a three-ton boulder from a Montauk quarry.
## Acting style and reputation
> Naturalness is hard [for me] to talk about, but I guess it boils down to this: you find out what people expect of your type of character and then you give them what they want. That way, an actor never seems unnatural or affected, no matter what role he plays.
Cooper's acting style consisted of three essential characteristics - his ability to project elements of his own personality onto the characters he portrayed, to appear natural and authentic in his roles, and to underplay and deliver restrained performances calibrated for the camera and the screen. Acting teacher Lee Strasberg once observed: "The simplest examples of Stanislavsky's ideas are actors such as Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and Spencer Tracy. They try not to act, but to be themselves, to respond or react. They refuse to say or do anything they feel not to be consonant with their own characters." Film director François Truffaut ranked Cooper among "the greatest actors" because of his ability to deliver great performances "without direction". This ability to project elements of his own personality onto his characters produced a continuity across his performances to the extent that critics and audiences were convinced he was simply "playing himself".
Cooper's ability to project his personality onto his characters played an important part in his appearing natural and authentic on screen. Actor John Barrymore said of Cooper, "This fellow is the world's greatest actor. He does without effort what the rest of us spend our lives trying to learn – namely, to be natural." Charles Laughton, who played opposite Cooper in Devil and the Deep agreed, "In truth, that boy hasn't the least idea how well he acts... He gets at it from the inside, from his own clear way of looking at life." William Wyler, who directed Cooper in two films, called him a "superb actor, a master of movie acting".
In his review of Cooper's performance in The Real Glory, Graham Greene wrote, "Sometimes his lean photogenic face seems to leave everything to the lens, but there is no question here of his not acting. Watch him inoculate the girl against cholera – the casual jab of the needle, and the dressing slapped on while he talks, as though a thousand arms had taught him where to stab and he doesn't have to think anymore."
Cooper's style of underplaying before the camera surprised many of his directors and fellow actors. Even in his earliest feature films, he recognized the camera's ability to pick up slight gestures and facial movements. Commenting on Cooper's performance in Sergeant York, director Howard Hawks observed, "He worked very hard and yet he didn't seem to be working. He was a strange actor because you'd look at him during a scene and you'd think... this isn't going to be any good. But when you saw the rushes in the projection room the next day you could read in his face all the things he'd been thinking." Sam Wood, who directed Cooper in four films, had similar observations about Cooper's performance in Pride of the Yankees, noting, "What I thought was underplaying turned out to be just the right approach. On the screen he's perfect, yet on the set you'd swear it's the worst job of acting in the history of motion pictures."
Fellow actors admired his abilities as an actor. Commenting on her two films playing opposite Cooper, actress Ingrid Bergman concluded, "The personality of this man was so enormous, so overpowering – and that expression in his eyes and his face, it was so delicate and so underplayed. You just didn't notice it until you saw it on the screen. I thought he was marvelous; the most underplaying and the most natural actor I ever worked with."
Tom Hanks declared, "In only one scene in the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, we see the future of screen acting in the form of Gary Cooper. He is quiet and natural, somehow different from the other cast members. He does something mysterious with his eyes and shoulders that is much more like 'being' than 'acting'."
Daniel Day-Lewis said, "I don't particularly like westerns as a genre, but I do love certain westerns. 'High Noon' means a lot to me – I love the purity and the honesty, I love Gary Cooper in that film, the idea of the last man standing."
Chris Pratt stated, "I started watching Westerns when I was shooting in London about four or five years ago. I really fell in love with Gary Cooper, and his stuff. That sucked me into the Westerns. Before, I never got engrossed in the story. I'd just dip in, and there were guys in horses in black and white. High Noon's later Gary Cooper, I liked that. But I liked 'The Westerner'. That's my favorite one. I have that poster hung up in my house because I really like that one."
To Al Pacino, "Gary Cooper was a phenomenon – his ability to take some thing and elevate it, give it such dignity. One of the great presences."
Mylène Demongeot first got with Gary Cooper for the opening of the first escalator to be installed in a cinema, at the Rex Theatre in Paris, on June 7, 1957. She declared in a 2015 filmed interview: "Gary Cooper... il est sublime ! Aaahhh (Mylène pushing a cry of love not to say ecstasy) il est sublime... Ah ! Ah ! Ah ! Là je dois dire que ça fait partie des stars, y'a Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, John Wayne, ces grands Américains que j'ai rencontrés comme ça, c'est vraiment des mecs incroyables. Y'en a plus des comme ça ! Euh non. (Gary Cooper was sublime, there I have to say, now he, was part of the stars, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, John Wayne, those great Americans who I've met really were unbelievable guys, there aren't any like them anymore)."
## Career assessment and legacy
Cooper's career spanned thirty-six years, from 1925 to 1961. During that time he appeared in eighty-four feature films in a leading role. He was a major movie star from the end of the silent film era to the end of the golden age of Classical Hollywood. His natural and authentic acting style appealed powerfully to both men and women, and his range of performances included roles in most major movie genres, including Westerns, war films, adventure films, drama films, crime films, romance films, comedy films, and romantic comedy films. He appeared on the Motion Picture Herald exhibitor's poll of top ten film personalities for twenty-three consecutive years, from 1936 to 1958. According to Quigley's annual poll, Cooper was one of the top money-making stars for eighteen years, appearing in the top ten in 1936–37, 1941–49, and 1951–57. He topped the list in 1953. In Quigley's list of all-time money-making stars, Cooper is listed fourth, after John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Tom Cruise. At the time of his death, it was estimated that his films grossed well over \$200million (equivalent to \$billion in ).
In more than half his feature films, Cooper portrayed Westerners, soldiers, pilots, sailors, and explorers, all men of action. In the rest, he played a wide range of characters, included doctors, professors, artists, architects, clerks, and baseball players. Cooper's heroic screen image changed with each period of his career. In his early films, he played the young naive hero sure of his moral position and trusting in the triumph of simple virtues (The Virginian). After becoming a major star, his Western screen persona was replaced by a more cautious hero in adventure films and dramas (A Farewell to Arms). During the height of his career, from 1936 to 1943, he played a new type of hero: a champion of the common man willing to sacrifice himself for others (Mr. Deeds, Meet John Doe, and For Whom the Bell Tolls).
In the postwar years, Cooper attempted broader variations on his screen image, which now reflected a hero increasingly at odds with the world, who must face adversity alone (The Fountainhead and High Noon). In his final films, Cooper's hero rejects the violence of the past, and seeks to reclaim lost honor and find redemption (Friendly Persuasion and Man of the West). The screen persona he developed and sustained throughout his career represented the ideal American hero – a tall, handsome, and sincere man of steadfast integrity who emphasized action over intellect, and combined the heroic qualities of the romantic lover, the adventurer, and the common man.
On February 6, 1960, Cooper was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6243 Hollywood Boulevard for his contribution to the film industry. He was also awarded a star on the sidewalk outside the Ellen Theater in Bozeman, Montana.
On May 6, 1961, Cooper was awarded the French Order of Arts and Letters in recognition of his significant contribution to the arts. On July 30, 1961, he was posthumously awarded the David di Donatello Special Award in Italy for his career achievements.
In 1966, Cooper was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. In 2015, he was inducted into the Utah Cowboy and Western Heritage Hall of Fame. The American Film Institute (AFI) ranked Cooper 11th on its list of the 25 male stars of classic Hollywood. Three of his characters – Will Kane, Lou Gehrig, and Sergeant York – made AFI's list of the 100 greatest heroes and villains, all of them as heroes. His Lou Gehrig line, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.", is ranked by AFI as the 38th greatest movie quote of all time.
More than half a century after his death, Cooper's enduring legacy, according to biographer Jeffrey Meyers, is his image of the ideal American hero preserved in his film performances. Charlton Heston once observed, "He projected the kind of man Americans would like to be, probably more than any actor that's ever lived."
## In popular culture
In the TV series Justified, based on works and characters created by Elmore Leonard, Gary Cooper is used throughout the six seasons as the man whom U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, played by Timothy Olyphant, aspires to be. When his colleague asks Marshal Givens how he thinks his dangerous plan to bring down a villain can possibly work, he replies: "Why not? Worked for Gary Cooper."
Gary Cooper is referenced several times in the critically acclaimed television series The Sopranos, with protagonist Tony Soprano asking, "What ever happened to Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type..." while complaining about his problems to his therapist.
In the 1930s hit song "Puttin' On the Ritz", Cooper is referenced in the line "dress up like a million-dollar trooper/Tryin' hard to look like Gary Cooper, Super duper!" More than two decades after Cooper's death, a new version of the song was released in 1983 by Taco; the original lyrics were kept, including the references to Cooper.
In J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, chapter 10, Cooper is "spotted" by Holden Caulfield to distract a woman with whom he is dancing.
Patricia Neal named the Abbey of Regina Laudis' outdoor theater building The Gary-The Olivia in honor of Cooper and her daughter Olivia Dahl.
## Awards and nominations
## Filmography
The following is a list of feature films in which Cooper appeared in a leading role.
- The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926)
- Children of Divorce (1927)
- Arizona Bound (1927)
- Wings (1927)
- Nevada (1927)
- It (1927)
- The Last Outlaw (1927)
- Beau Sabreur (1928)
- The Legion of the Condemned (1928)
- Doomsday (1928)
- Half a Bride (1928)
- Lilac Time (1928)
- The First Kiss (1928)
- The Shopworn Angel (1928)
- Wolf Song (1929)
- Betrayal (1929)
- The Virginian (1929)
- Only the Brave (1930)
- The Texan (1930)
- Seven Days' Leave (1930)
- A Man from Wyoming (1930)
- The Spoilers (1930)
- Morocco (1930)
- Fighting Caravans (1931)
- City Streets (1931)
- I Take This Woman (1931)
- His Woman (1931)
- Devil and the Deep (1932)
- If I Had a Million (1932)
- A Farewell to Arms (1932)
- Today We Live (1933)
- One Sunday Afternoon (1933)
- Design for Living (1933)
- Alice in Wonderland (1933)
- Operator 13 (1934)
- Now and Forever (1934)
- The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935)
- The Wedding Night (1935)
- Peter Ibbetson (1935)
- Desire (1936)
- Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
- The General Died at Dawn (1936)
- The Plainsman (1936)
- Souls at Sea (1937)
- The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938)
- Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938)
- The Cowboy and the Lady (1938)
- Beau Geste (1939)
- The Real Glory (1939)
- The Westerner (1940)
- North West Mounted Police (1940)
- Meet John Doe (1941)
- Sergeant York (1941)
- Ball of Fire (1941)
- The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
- For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
- The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944)
- Casanova Brown (1944)
- Along Came Jones (1945)
- Saratoga Trunk (1945)
- Cloak and Dagger (1946)
- Unconquered (1947)
- Good Sam (1948)
- The Fountainhead (1949)
- Task Force (1949)
- Bright Leaf (1950)
- Dallas (1950)
- You're in the Navy Now (1951)
- It's a Big Country (1951)
- Distant Drums (1951)
- High Noon (1952)
- Springfield Rifle (1952)
- Return to Paradise (1953)
- Blowing Wild (1953)
- Garden of Evil (1954)
- Vera Cruz (1954)
- The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955)
- Friendly Persuasion (1956)
- Love in the Afternoon (1957)
- Ten North Frederick (1958)
- Man of the West (1958)
- The Hanging Tree (1959)
- They Came to Cordura (1959)
- The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959)
- The Naked Edge (1961)
## Radio appearances
|
3,620,894 |
Bessie Braddock
| 1,172,200,622 |
British Labour politician (1899–1970)
|
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Elizabeth Margaret Braddock (née Bamber; 24 September 1899 – 13 November 1970) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for the Liverpool Exchange division from 1945 to 1970. She was a member of Liverpool County Borough Council from 1930 to 1961. Although she never held office in government, she won a national reputation for her forthright campaigns in connection with housing, public health and other social issues.
Braddock inherited much of her campaigning spirit from her mother, Mary Bamber, an early socialist and trade union activist. After some years in the Independent Labour Party (ILP), Braddock joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) on its foundation in 1920, but quickly became disillusioned with the party's dictatorial tendencies. She left the CPGB in 1924 and later joined the Labour Party. Before the Second World War, alongside her husband Jack Braddock she established a reputation as a crusading left-wing councillor, frequently at odds with her party while pursuing an agenda of social reform. During the war she worked in Liverpool's ambulance service, before winning the Exchange division for Labour in the 1945 general election. Braddock was a pugnacious presence in parliament, and a supporter of the 1945–51 Attlee ministry's reform agenda, particularly the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948.
She served on Labour's National Executive Committee between 1947 and 1969. Her combative style led to a brief suspension from parliament in 1952. For most of her parliamentary career she remained a member of Liverpool's council, and was a central figure in the controversy that arose in the 1950s over the city's decision to acquire and flood Capel Celyn in a valley along Afon Tryweryn in Wales for the construction of the Llyn Celyn reservoir. Between 1953 and 1957 Braddock served on the Royal Commission for Mental Health which led to the Mental Health Act 1959. From the early 1950s she moved steadily to the right wing of her party, and was increasingly acerbic in her judgements of her former colleagues on the left. When Labour won the 1964 general election she refused office on the grounds of age and health; thereafter her parliamentary contributions dwindled as her health worsened. Towards the end of her life she became Liverpool's first woman freeman. After her death in 1970 her Guardian obituarist hailed her as "one of the most distinctive political personalities of the century".
## Early life
### Childhood
Elizabeth Bamber was born on 24 September 1899 at 23 Zante Street, in the Everton area of Liverpool, the eldest daughter of Hugh Bamber, a bookbinder, and his wife Mary, née Little. Mary had come to Liverpool as a child when her father, a well-to-do Edinburgh lawyer, abandoned his family after his descent into alcoholism and poverty. Liverpool in the late 19th century suffered extremes of deprivation, and had the highest infant mortality rate in the country. Mary became a trade union organiser and campaigner against deplorable social conditions, and established a reputation as an outstanding platform speaker. She was the dominant early influence on her daughter Elizabeth, who formed a lifelong determination to represent and fight for the disadvantaged.
In 1902 the Bamber family relocated to Smollett Street in nearby Bootle, one of several moves that caused Elizabeth's formal education to be divided among different schools. Alongside her normal schooling, her political education began at the Marmaduke Street Socialist Sunday School, and through the medium of her mother's campaigning activities. One of Elizabeth's early memories was of the soup kitchen for the destitute which Mary helped to run on St George's Plateau: "I remember the faces of the unemployed when the soup ran out ... I remember blank, hopeless stares, day after day, week after week, all through the hard winter of 1906–07".
At the age of eleven Elizabeth left the Sunday School and joined the youth section of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), where she studied socialism alongside a busy programme of social activities. She later described herself at this time as "strong, agile, fond of walking and eating". By this time Mary Bamber was working as an organiser for the Warehouse Workers' Union; Elizabeth assisted her mother, sometimes acting as a steward at meetings. Mother and daughter were both present at St George's Plateau on 13 August 1911, when a baton charge by police and troops broke up a rally in support of Liverpool's striking transport workers. Hundreds were injured, and in the disturbances that followed, two demonstrators were shot dead. The day became enshrined in Liverpool's working-class history as "Bloody Sunday".
### ILP years
Elizabeth left school in 1913, and began work filling seed packets for five shillings a week. The job was too monotonous to engage her for long, and after a few months she found a post in the drapery department of the Walton Road Co-operative store. At her mother's insistence she became a member of the Shopworkers' Union. Meanwhile, she attended classes run by the Workers' Educational Association and the Plebs' League: "They told me how the capitalists controlled money, business and the land, and ... hung on to them".
Within the group of young socialists who gathered regularly at the ILP's local headquarters, there were three Elizabeths. To avoid confusion, lots were drawn to decide who should be known respectively as Elizabeth, Betty, or Bessie. By this means Elizabeth Bamber took the name Bessie, which she retained for the rest of her life. Among the other ILP activists at Kensington was Sydney Silverman, four years older than Bessie, the son of a poor draper. Silverman was a considerable influence on the youthful Bessie; he would be her future colleague, both in the Liverpool council chamber and the House of Commons. When the First World War began in August 1914, the ILP opposed it as "an appalling crime upon the nations" who had been "stampeded by fear and panic". On the introduction of conscription in 1916, Silverman and others adopted positions of uncompromising pacifism, and were imprisoned. The ILP welcomed news of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and vigorously opposed allied intervention in the civil war that followed it. Bessie played a leading role in a TUC "Hands Off Russia" rally in Liverpool's Sheil Park, where she and others resisted the efforts of the British Empire Union to capture the ILP's red flag.
At the end of the war in 1918, Bessie left the Co-op and took a clerical post with the Warehouse Workers' Union. In the course of her ILP activities she had met and befriended John "Jack" Braddock, a wagon builder and union activist with a reputation as a firebrand. He had arrived in Liverpool from Dewsbury in 1915, hoping to emigrate to Canada, but had stayed in the port and immersed himself in left-wing politics and the fight to improve working conditions. He and Bessie became very close; in 1919 they helped Mary Bamber to fight for a Liverpool council seat, as the ILP's candidate in the Everton district. The election campaign was bitter and at times violent, but resulted in Bamber's victory by the slim margin of 13 votes.
## Early politics
### Communist activist
By 1920 Mary Bamber, Bessie and Jack Braddock had become disillusioned with the ILP, which seemed to them to lack the necessary radicalism to march with the times. At the time, Sylvia Pankhurst's Workers' Socialist Federation, the British Socialist Party and other socialist organisations were increasingly coordinating their activities, and in 1920 merged to form the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Under Mary Bamber's influence, both Bessie and Jack Braddock left the ILP to become members of the new party. Within the CPGB the young couple became acquainted with Wal Hannington, leader of the National Unemployed Workers Committee Movement. They joined his "work or maintenance" campaign which aimed to raise the levels of Poor Law relief to what they considered a proper subsistence level. The couple did not endear themselves to the CPGB hierarchy when, on egalitarian grounds, they opposed the levels of salary which the party wanted to pay to its full-time officials.
In the joint autobiography written with Jack, The Braddocks (1963), Bessie cites the formative experience of police violence on "Bloody Sunday" in 1911 as a motivating factor for her CPGB activities. On 12 September 1921, again at St George's Plateau, she attended a rally for the city's jobless, organised by the Liverpool Unemployed Workers' Committee. Again there was police intervention; Jack and Mary Bamber were charged with unlawful assembly and received a token one day's imprisonment. In 1922 Bessie and other party members provided comfort and shelter to Hannington's hunger marchers, as the columns of unemployed passed through Lancashire on their way to London. Bessie combined her party roles—she was treasurer of the Liverpool branch—with her full-time union post; Jack, meanwhile, was only intermittently in work, as his incendiary reputation meant that employers were reluctant to give him a job. He had been living for some time at the Bambers' home when, in February 1922, the couple were married at Brougham Terrace registry office, during the course of a working day. After a brief reception they returned to their respective duties—Bessie to her union job and Jack to his volunteer work for the CPGB.
The Braddocks were not comfortable as CPGB members. They objected to the lack of autonomy afforded to local branches by the party's central "Political Bureau", and to what they perceived as the leadership's unquestioning subservience to the Soviet Union. Mary Bamber, after a visit to Russia, opined that there were as many true communists in Liverpool as in Moscow. In 1924, increasingly convinced that communist rule would lead to the enslavement rather than the liberation of workers, the entire leadership of the Liverpool CPGB branch, including both Braddocks, resigned from the party.
### Liverpool council
After leaving the CPGB, the Braddocks continued their socialist activism in Liverpool. Jack's role in the Merseyside Council of Action (an impromptu militant action group) during the 1926 General Strike made employers even less willing to engage him. He was rescued by the action of Sir Benjamin Johnson, a liberal-minded industrialist, who lent him the money to purchase a Co-operative Insurance Society agency. Jack and Bessie were now determined to pursue their political aims by democratic methods, and in 1926 they joined the Fairfield ward of the Liverpool Labour Party. In the 1929 Liverpool council elections, Jack was returned unopposed as the Labour councillor for the Fairfield ward. A year later Bessie joined him, elected in the St Anne's ward.
St Anne's, one of the most deprived areas of the city, contained a closed workhouse at Brownlow Hill, which the Conservative-controlled council had decided to sell to the Roman Catholic Church as the potential site for a cathedral. The Labour group's official policy was to delay the sale for several years, so that the empty workhouse buildings could be used as temporary housing during slum clearance and rebuilding. The issue split Labour on religious lines; nearly all the Catholic members of the Labour group defied party policy and voted for an immediate sale. Among the rebels was the sitting St Anne's councillor, Olive Hughes. She was thereupon deselected by the St Anne's ward, which chose Bessie as their candidate for the 1930 election. Bessie faced a difficult task, since Hughes chose to stand against her as an Independent Socialist, with the support of leading local Catholics in a ward where the electorate was 85 per cent Catholic. An intense campaign, during which Bessie claimed to have visited every street in the ward, brought her success.
This victory did not delay the workhouse's fate; the site was duly sold to the Catholic Church for £110,000, and demolition began in January 1931. Nevertheless, Bessie, who had been appalled by the housing conditions in the ward, helped to instigate a slum clearance campaign which slowly brought improvements. As a member of the council's Port Sanitary and Hospitals Committee, which controlled all the city's hospitals and residential homes for the elderly, Bessie discovered that the hospitals were generally verminous, drably decorated and poorly ventilated, with inadequate cooking facilities. Patients' record-keeping systems were rudimentary, with little or no communication between hospitals. She became involved in the reform, reorganisation and modernisation of many of the city's health facilities, particularly those related to mothers and children. From 1934 she was chairman of the Maternity and Child Welfare subcommittee, and in June 1936 worked with other women's groups to organise a national conference on maternity and child welfare issues.
The Labour group on the council remained divided. The group's leader was Luke Hogan (1885–1954), of Irish stock and closely identified with the Catholic caucus. He enjoyed the strong support of around two-thirds of the Labour councillors; the Braddocks, and from 1932 Sydney Silverman, were part of the smaller leftist wing of the group. Clashes between the two sides were frequent, the main contention being the supposed attempts by Hogan and his followers to "catholicise" the local party. When in 1936 Hogan tried to block the renewal of a grant to a local birth control clinic, Bessie led a cross-party rebellion of councillors which ensured that the grant was maintained. She argued that most of the 87 women who had died in childbirth the previous year might have survived with access to contraception.
Mostly, Bessie was uncompromising in her attitude towards the council's ruling Conservatives; on one occasion she was ejected from the council chamber by the police, after she had called the Housing Committee chairman a liar and refused the mayor's order to withdraw the remark. She justified this behaviour on the grounds that "if you didn't do something outrageous, nobody would take any notice of you". She had earlier resorted to using a two-foot megaphone in a council meeting, to demand action over housing conditions and slums.
Inspired by her colleague Silverman, who in the 1935 general election became MP for Nelson and Colne, Bessie determined to seek a parliamentary career of her own. This ambition contrasted with that of Jack, who turned down the chance to be Labour's candidate in the Everton constituency to concentrate on his local government role. In 1936 Bessie was selected as Labour candidate for Liverpool Exchange. This inner-city division had long been held by the Conservatives, mainly because of a substantial "business vote" which, before the abolition of plural voting in 1948, gave owners of businesses an extra vote in the constituency where their business operated. In the recent election the seat had been held by the Conservative, Sir John Shute, with a majority of 4,412. Bessie was then 36 years old; she would have to wait for nearly 10 years before she could fight her seat, as the general election that would normally have been held in 1939 or 1940 was postponed by the Second World War.
In the years immediately before the war Bessie was concerned at the extent of recruitment in the city by the British Union of Fascists. She was outspoken in her attacks on fascist groups, and in her defence of those who attacked their parades. The death of her mother Mary Bamber in June 1938, at the age of 63, was a considerable personal blow to Bessie, and was widely mourned within Liverpool's socialist community.
### Second World War
On the outbreak of war in September 1939, Bessie left her union post and joined G Division of the Liverpool Ambulance Service, as a driver. Initially her main job was to train other drivers, mostly young women. She became a section leader and then a deputy leader of G Division, an administrative post that should have kept her at headquarters. However, she records that she drove her ambulance through all the 68 major air raids that struck Liverpool during the war years. It was dangerous work; on a single day, 3 May 1941, 14 drivers lost their lives. Bessie remained with the ambulance service almost until the end of the war in 1945.
In 1942 Bessie and Jack moved to what would be their home for the remainder of their lives, a suburban semi-detached house in ZigZag Road, in Liverpool's West Derby district. They remained active members of Liverpool council, and in 1943 Jack became deputy leader of the Labour group. Two years later the Braddocks healed the rift with Hogan by proposing and seconding his appointment as the city's Lord Mayor for the year 1945–46; Jack succeeded him as leader of the Labour group on the council, a post he held until his death in 1963. Bessie became honorary president of the Liverpool Trades Council and Labour Party (LTCLP), the body that had been formed in 1921 when the Liverpool Trades Council merged with the newly formed local Labour Party to form a united labour front.
## Labour MP
### Labour government 1945–51
Despite some opinion polls indicating a Labour lead, most commentators expected that Winston Churchill's prestige would ensure a comfortable Conservative victory in the July 1945 general election. Before polling day, The Manchester Guardian surmised that "the chances of Labour sweeping the country and obtaining a clear majority ... are pretty remote". The News of the World predicted a working Conservative majority, while in Glasgow a pundit forecast the result as Conservatives 360, Labour 220, Others 60. The expectations of a Labour victory in Liverpool Exchange were not high, but Bessie's chances were boosted by the poor local record of the sitting member, Colonel Shute, and she herself was confident. Defying most forecasts, across the country Labour won 393 seats, and with an overall majority of 146, Clement Attlee formed the first majority Labour government. Bessie won Liverpool Exchange with a majority of 665 from 16,000 votes cast.
In an assessment of the new MPs, the Daily Express described Bessie as "a character among the Labour women. Very forthright in her speech, strong in her Labour faith ... never hesitates to call a spade a spade". Physically imposing—she admitted to weighing 15 stone (210 pounds, 95 kg)—she made an impact with her maiden speech on 17 October 1945, during a debate on the national housing shortage. After taunting the Conservative opposition by claiming to have "filched" the Exchange seat—"the prize Division of the [Liverpool] Tory Party"—she made an impassioned plea to the new Minister of Health, Aneurin Bevan, for immediate measures to improve the slum housing conditions in Liverpool, and throughout the country: "Particularly in industrial areas, people are living in flea-ridden, bug-ridden, rat-ridden, lousy hell-holes". She ended her speech with a promise that she and other Labour back-benchers would continue to agitate until the conditions in which many were forced to live, "as a result of having been represented for so long by the Conservative Party", were removed.
Bessie's aggressive anti-Toryism was frequently in evidence during her first years in parliament, especially when she could attribute to them the economic miseries of her Liverpool constituents. In a Commons debate on 28 March 1946 she welcomed the government's decision to close the Liverpool Cotton Association, which she denounced as "the bulwark of the Tory administration in Liverpool", nothing more than a group of financiers who gambled with the industry in order to make profits for themselves. On 1 May 1947 The Manchester Guardian, reporting the chaotic Commons scenes during the divisions following a debate on the nationalisation of the railways, recorded that "Mrs E.M. Braddock ... danced a jig as she moved over to the Opposition benches where she occupied the seat usually used by Mr Churchill." When the Bolton Evening News called her performance "nauseating, a sorry degradation of democratic discussion" she sued the newspaper for defamation. She lost the case, and a subsequent appeal was unsuccessful.
In 1947 Bessie was elected to the Labour Party's National Executive Committee (NEC). At the time she was generally identified with the left wing of the party, and was associated with a grouping known as the "Socialist Fellowship", which espoused a programme of colonial freedom, workers' control and reduced arms expenditure. She resigned from the Fellowship in 1950, along with fellow-MPs Fenner Brockway and Ellis Smith, when it condemned the United Nations intervention in the Korean War. She continued her wholehearted campaigning on behalf of the poorest in the country, pleading with parliament to "remember the queues outside the Poor Relief offices", and castigating the "New Look" fashion of 1948 as wasteful, "the ridiculous whim of idle people". Bessie's fiery reputation did not harm her electorally; in the February 1950 general election, with the Exchange constituency greatly increased by boundary changes, her majority rose to 5,344. Nationally, Labour lost 76 seats, and its parliamentary majority was reduced to five. Attlee's second government was short-lived; in the October 1951 general election Bessie increased her personal majority again, to 6,834, but nationally Labour was defeated by the Conservatives and went into opposition.
Outside her political duties Bessie, a fan of boxing, accepted the honorary presidency of the Professional Boxers' Association, and was a defender of the sport. Her enthusiasm arose in part from her experiences as a juvenile court magistrate; she believed that the sport fostered character and mutual respect. She was frequently at odds with her parliamentary colleague Edith Summerskill, a physician who wrote the anti-boxing tract The Ignoble Art, and campaigned for the sport's abolition.
### 1950s: Rightward shift
After leaving Socialist Fellowship, Bessie moved steadily towards the centre and right of her party, distancing herself from colleagues with whom she had earlier found common cause. She did not support Aneurin Bevan when he resigned from the government in April 1951 over the introduction of National Health Service charges, and later asserted that, by making dissidence fashionable, Bevan had "weakened the [Labour] National Executive to the point where it could no longer deal effectively with infiltrating Trotskyists and Communists". In 1955 her opposition to the Bevanite faction was such that she supported efforts by Hugh Gaitskell and Herbert Morrison to have Bevan expelled from the party. She regularly attacked the Labour left at party conferences, and in 1952 was involved in scuffles with other delegates after the unexpected success of Bevanite candidates in the NEC elections.
Also in 1952, Bessie's volatile temperament caused her to become the first woman member to be suspended from the House of Commons, after she repeatedly protested to the Deputy Speaker for failing to call her during a debate on the textile industry, a matter of great concern to her constituents. In general, however, her forthright attitude won her cross-party respect, and in 1953 she was appointed by Churchill (who had returned as prime minister in 1951) to the Royal Commission on Mental Health, otherwise known as the Percy Commission, whose work led to the Mental Health Act 1959.
Bessie's increasingly centrist stance troubled party members in Liverpool Exchange, where the Bevanite faction was generally popular. In 1954 the local party passed a motion requesting that she step down before the next general election. This was rejected by the NEC, who believed that Bessie was a national electoral asset. Shortly before the May 1955 general election the Exchange party tried again, and voted by 40 to 39 to deselect her. Bessie, convinced that this vote had been rigged, appealed to the NEC, who set the decision aside and imposed her on the constituency. These party machinations had no effect on Bessie's popularity with the voters; in the election on 26 May, despite the intervention of a left-wing Independent Socialist candidate, she increased her majority to 7,186. Nevertheless, nationally the Conservatives retained power with an increased parliamentary majority. In the municipal elections held that same month, Labour won control of Liverpool's council for the first time; Jack Braddock became council leader. Bessie gave up her St Anne's ward seat, after 25 years, but remained on the council as a co-opted alderman.
### Campaigns and controversies, 1956–59
In May 1956 Bessie's concerns about the treatment of prisoners in Walton Prison led to an investigation by Sir Godfrey Russell Vick, which revealed numerous instances of violence by members of the prison staff, and brought about reforms. In July that year, during a home affairs debate, Bessie demanded tougher regulations on the supply and licensing of air pistols, which under the existing law were readily available to juveniles. She alarmed the house by brandishing two such pistols which, she explained, she had confiscated in the course of her duties as a juvenile court magistrate. When rebuked by the Deputy Speaker, she replied that she had deliberately used shock tactics, reprising her earlier council chamber argument that "no one takes any notice unless someone does something which is out of order, or is unusual". She also campaigned for the rights of larger women to obtain fashionable clothes; using her substantial 50" – 40" – 50" measurements to advantage, she took part in a fashion show aimed at the larger-than-average woman.
In 1956, as part of a Liverpool council delegation, the Braddocks visited the Soviet Union at the invitation of the mayor of Odessa, a city with which Liverpool had informal fraternal links. Her overall impression of the country was of drabness and oppression, with welfare provision generally well below British levels, although she conceded that medical facilities were excellent. Before returning home she informed the mayor of Odessa that "after forty years of socialism ... you haven't achieved half of what we have in Britain".
In the later 1950s an issue arose which tarnished the reputation of Braddock both in the eyes of much of Liverpool's Welsh community and the people of Wales. In 1955 Liverpool council applied for the compulsory purchase of land in the Tryweryn Valley, Merionethshire, North Wales, for the construction of a reservoir to serve Liverpool's increasing needs for water—some 65 million gallons a day. The proposal would mean the flooding of the small village of Capel Celyn, and several farms. On 7 November a deputation led by the Plaid Cymru president Gwynfor Evans sought to address the council in a plea for a change in policy. According to Bessie's biographer Ben Rees, while Evans was speaking, Bessie banged on the table and joined other councillors in insulting Evans and demanding that he "go back to Wales". In July 1957, when the enabling legislation reached its second House of Commons reading, Bessie described the scheme as regional rather than local, and claimed that some parts of Wales would benefit from it. The land to be flooded in the Tryweryn Valley was not, she said, of high agricultural value, and "nothing was done that was not agreed to by the tenants in the area". The bill became law, and construction began in 1959, but protests and demonstrations continued until the reservoir's opening in 1965. The slogan Cofiwch Dryweryn ("Remember Tryweryn") was coined by nationalists, says Rees, as "a reminder of Liverpool's greed and lack of sensitivity". In October 2015, on the 50th anniversary of the reservoir's completion, protestors demonstrated around the statue of Bessie at Liverpool Lime Street station.
In the October 1959 general election the Conservatives, now led by Harold Macmillan, increased their majority in parliament to 100 seats. In Liverpool Exchange Bessie defied the national swing, and increased her proportion of the vote. On a reduced turnout her personal majority fell slightly, to 6,971.
### Later career, 1960–68
In 1961 Bessie's aldermanic term on Liverpool's council expired. That year, the Conservatives briefly took control of the council, and used their majority to block her reappointment. This ended 31 years' service on the council. In 1963, when Labour regained control, she did not seek re-instatement. The year 1963 saw the publication of The Braddocks, in which Bessie made a sustained attack on communism and Trotskyism: "The purpose of this book is to bring home to the rank and file how wide that influence is ... unless positive steps are taken by the workers themselves ... democracy will be dead". Reviewing the book for the Socialist Standard, Lawrence Weidberg thought it gave a useful picture of early 20th century working-class life in Liverpool, but concluded that "from the evidence of this book the Braddocks qualified fully for the role of blind leaders of the blind".
On 12 November 1963 Jack Braddock died of a heart attack at the age of 71, while attending an official function in Liverpool. The October 1964 general election brought Labour a narrow victory under Harold Wilson, while in Liverpool Exchange, Bessie achieved her best personal majority to date, 9,746. She did not take a post in the new government; according to The Guardian she was offered a job, but declined on the grounds of health and age. Although she fought the next election, in March 1966, and held Liverpool Exchange easily, for the final six years of her parliamentary life she was relatively inactive and often absent through illness. Her last contribution in the House was on 27 January 1969, a question regarding facilities for disabled drivers.
## Final years and death
In 1968 Bessie became vice chairman (and therefore chairman-elect) of the Labour Party. However, in February 1969 she collapsed with exhaustion and was hospitalised. In August she resigned from the NEC on health grounds, thus forgoing her succession to the party chairmanship. In September she announced that she did not intend to contest the next general election, and would retire from politics, a decision which shocked and disappointed her constituents. In April 1970 she was awarded the freedom of the City of Liverpool, the first woman thus honoured. Bessie formally left parliament at the dissolution before the June 1970 general election; on 13 November 1970 she died in Liverpool's Rathbone Hospital, at the age of 71. At her funeral service held a few days later at Anfield Crematorium, in the course of his tribute, Harold Wilson summed her up thus: "She was born to fight for the people of the docks, of the slums, of the factories and in every part of the city where people needed help". The service was non-sectarian in accordance with her atheism.
## Appraisal
At the time of her death, commentators described Bessie as one of the most notable political personalities of her time, and perhaps the best-known woman in Britain after Queen Elizabeth II. She was especially appreciated in Liverpool, where much of her campaigning zeal for better housing and healthcare was concentrated. Widely known and remembered as "Battling Bessie", thirty years after her death she was placed eighth in a BBC poll of "great Merseysiders".
Bessie was renowned for the sharpness of her tongue, either in pursuit of her campaigns or in denouncing her enemies. She frequently used inflammatory, colourful language, once describing an opposing councillor as a "blasted rat", and another time telling the Tory majority that she was willing "to take a machine gun to the lot of you". In contrast to this aggressive public, Bessie's private life was unostentatious. She did not smoke or drink, dressed conventionally and holidayed modestly in Scarborough. Nevertheless, she enjoyed the company of many glamorous friends from the worlds of show business and boxing.
Towards perceived adversaries, Bessie showed neither patience nor respect, especially those with whom she had once shared common ground on the far left. Apart from her attacks on Bevan, she displayed particular scorn for the future Labour Party leader Michael Foot, whose practice in the 1950s of writing articles attacking the Labour leadership for right-wing newspapers was, she thought, disloyal. A much reported exchange between her and Churchill has her accusing him of being drunk, and him concurring but adding: "My dear you are ugly, but tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be ugly"—or similar words. There is no reliable evidence that any such exchange took place; despite its popularity, commentators are generally sceptical.
In 1984, Radio City, an independent Liverpool radio station, broadcast a 4-part dramatisation of Jack and Bessie Braddock's lives. Bessie Braddock is commemorated in Liverpool by the statue in Lime Street Station, and by a blue plaque erected at her modest home in ZigZag Road. In a 2014 Fabian Society essay the Labour MP Lisa Nandy wrote that Bessie "brought her experiences of life in the slums of Liverpool right into the heart of Westminster. Now, more than ever, we need the voices of working women to be heard in parliament".
|
24,083,032 |
Charles Green (Australian soldier)
| 1,156,749,137 |
Australian infantry battalion commander (1919–1950)
|
[
"1919 births",
"1950 deaths",
"Australian Army personnel of World War II",
"Australian colonels",
"Australian military personnel killed in the Korean War",
"Companions of the Distinguished Service Order",
"Foreign recipients of the Silver Star",
"Military personnel from New South Wales",
"People from Grafton, New South Wales"
] |
Charles Hercules Green (26 December 1919 – 1 November 1950) was an Australian military officer who was the youngest Australian Army infantry battalion commander during World War II. He went on to command the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR), during the Korean War, where he died of wounds. He remains the only commanding officer of a Royal Australian Regiment battalion to die on active service. Green joined the part-time Militia in 1936, and before the outbreak of World War II had been commissioned as a lieutenant. He volunteered for overseas service soon after the war began in September 1939, and served in the Middle East and the Battle of Greece with the 2/2nd Battalion. After the action at Pineios Gorge on 18 April 1941, Green became separated from the main body of the battalion, and made his way through Turkey to Palestine, to rejoin the reformed 2/2nd Battalion. The 2/2nd Battalion returned to Australia in August 1942 via Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), to meet the threat posed by the Japanese.
Green performed instructional duties and attended courses until July 1943 when he rejoined the 2/2nd Battalion as its second-in-command. At the time, the unit was training in Queensland. From March to July 1945, Green commanded the 2/11th Battalion during the Aitape-Wewak campaign in New Guinea. For his performance during the campaign, Green was appointed a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order. After the war, Green briefly returned to civilian life and part-time military service as commanding officer of the 41st Battalion. When the Regular Army was formed, Green returned to full-time service in early 1949.
He was attending Staff College when the Korean War broke out in June 1950, and Army Headquarters selected him to command 3 RAR, which deployed as part of the United Nations Command formed to fight the North Koreans. After a brief period of training in Japan, where 3 RAR was part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force, Green led the battalion to Korea in late September. Immediately pressed into action as part of the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade, the battalion advanced as part of the UN offensive into North Korea. Sharp fighting followed between 3 RAR and Korean People's Army (KPA) forces, during the Battle of the Apple Orchard, the Battle of the Broken Bridge and the Battle of Chongju. The day after the latter battle, 30 October, Green was resting in his tent in a reserve position when he was wounded in the abdomen by a shell fragment. Evacuated to hospital, he died two days later, aged 30, and was posthumously awarded the US Silver Star. Green was a popular and respected commanding officer, whose loss was keenly felt by his men. According to three officers who served with 3 RAR in Korea, he is considered one of the Australian Army's better unit-level commanders. As recently as 1996, his career was described as an inspiration to serving Australian soldiers.
## Early life
Born on 26 December 1919 at Grafton in north-eastern New South Wales, Charles Hercules Green was the second of three children of his parents, Australian-born Hercules John Green and Bertha née DeVille. He attended school at Swan Creek Public School and Grafton High School. In 1933, Green began working for his father on the family dairy farm. He also did ploughing and road construction work using two draught horses he acquired. Green was enthusiastic about the sport of cricket as well as horse riding. On 28 October 1936, at the age of 16, he enlisted in the 41st Battalion, a part-time infantry unit of the Militia. In 1938 Green was promoted to sergeant, and was commissioned as a lieutenant on 20 March 1939, aged 19.
## World War II
### Middle East and Greece
With the outbreak of World War II, Green volunteered for overseas service and on 13 October 1939, he enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force (2nd AIF) which was being raised for that purpose. He was posted to the 2/2nd Battalion, which was one of the first units raised upon the outbreak of the war and formed part of the 16th Brigade that was assigned to the 6th Division. The 2/2nd Battalion was deployed to the Middle East in February 1940. Green initially served as one of the 2/2nd's platoon commanders, but accidentally injured himself, and missed out on taking part in 6th Division's first combat action, which took place during the North African campaign between December 1940 and January 1941.
On 12 March he was promoted to captain, and on the 22nd the battalion arrived in Greece to repel the anticipated German invasion. The battalion was deployed north into the Macedonia region to face the German assault, which began on 6 April. It took up positions at Veria on 7 April, but the Allied armies withdrew, so the battalion did not fight until mid-April. Green and the rest of the 2/2nd Battalion saw action at Pineios Gorge on 18 April. The British and Commonwealth forces attempted to block the German advance at the Gorge. They were quickly overwhelmed by the larger German forces, the 2/2nd Battalion losing 44 killed or wounded and 55 taken prisoner in desperate fighting. This resulted in the members of the battalion being dispersed into the surrounding hills. While elements of the battalion were able to rejoin the main forces withdrawing south to embark on ships, others were forced to make their escape independently.
Green and many other members of the battalion evaded capture by undertaking a hazardous journey through the Aegean Islands, then Turkey, to Palestine, which Green reached on 23 May. Green reached the island of Euboea in the Aegean on 7 May, where he met several other members of the battalion. They travelled on to the island of Skyros, and after narrow escapes from detection by German troops and aircraft, reached Smyrna (modern İzmir) on the Turkish coast, where they obtained the assistance of two Turkish officers who had fought the Australians at Gallipoli in World War I. Disguised as "English civil engineers" they caught a train to Alexandretta (modern İskenderun), from where they boarded a Norwegian ship to Port Said, Egypt. Green learned a great deal from his experiences in Greece. According to Margaret Barter, the author of his entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, he contributed a "sensitive account" of the campaign to a battalion history, Nulli Secundus Log, which was published in 1946. During his time in Greece, Green developed a reputation as a calm and reassuring leader who communicated clearly with the soldiers under his command, a fellow officer observing that "[t]roops would follow Charlie anywhere because he understood them and they understood he was fair dinkum [meaning: authentic]".
After being rebuilt in Palestine, the 2/2nd Battalion was sent to undertake garrison duties in northern Syria between October 1941 and January 1942. On 11 March it left the Middle East to return to Australia to meet the threat posed by the Japanese. On the way home, the 16th Brigade was diverted to defend Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), where the 2/2nd Battalion was part of the garrison between 27 March and 13 July. Green was temporarily promoted to major on 19 June.
### Australia
The battalion finally disembarked at Melbourne on 4 August. Having injured his foot and contracted typhoid while in Ceylon, when the 2/2nd was sent to New Guinea in September, Green was unable to join them. On 30 December, having been substantively promoted to major in September, he was posted as an instructor to the First Australian Army's Junior Tactical School in Southport, Queensland. He married Edna Olwyn Warner at St Paul's Anglican Church, Ulmarra, New South Wales, on 30 January 1943; his best man was his former commanding officer, Colonel Frederick Chilton. Green's posting to the First Army Junior Tactical School ended on 31 March 1943. On 26 June he took up an instructional position at the Junior Wing of the Land Headquarters Tactical School at Beenleigh, Queensland.
Green returned to regimental duties in July 1943 and was made second-in-command of the 2/2nd Battalion, which had returned from New Guinea after fighting in the Kokoda Trail campaign and the subsequent Battle of Buna–Gona, and was training in north Queensland. Although Green was considered the natural successor to the previous commanding officer, now-Brigadier Cedric Edgar, his posting as second-in-command alleviated the tensions created by the appointment of an "outsider"—Lieutenant Colonel Allan Cameron—to command the battalion. Green undertook the senior officers' course at the Land Headquarters Tactical School between 18 August and 1 November 1944. During this course he was described as an "outstanding student". Chilton later observed, "Although quite young at the time he was very mature; a quiet, calm man, obviously with exceptional reserves of and force of character".
### Aitape-Wewak campaign
On 30 December 1944, Green arrived in the town of Aitape, on the north coast of New Guinea, where the 6th Division was taking over responsibility for the area from US forces. On 9 March 1945, Green took over command of the 2/11th Battalion, part of Brigadier James Martin's 19th Brigade of the 6th Division. At the age of only 25 he was the youngest Australian battalion commander during the war. Green was promoted to temporary lieutenant colonel five days later.
The battalion had landed at Aitape on 13 November 1944 to take part in the Aitape-Wewak campaign against the Japanese 18th Army. For the 2/11th Battalion, the campaign consisted mainly of arduous patrolling operations. Before Green took command, the unit had been part of the push by the 19th Brigade along the coast east of the Danmap River from 17 December to 20 January 1945. During this advance, the battalion lost 20 killed and 29 wounded, and killed 118 Japanese.
In early April, after Green had taken charge, the 19th Brigade was committed to an offensive against Wewak, and concentrated at the base at the village of But. As part of this offensive, the 2/11th and the 2/7th Commando Squadron were sent on a wide sweeping movement inland to cut off the Japanese, who were abandoning Wewak in the face of pressure from the 2/4th Battalion and withdrawing their main force into the Prince Alexander Mountains. After an arduous cross-country march across a swamp, the battalion arrived near Wirui Mission on 10 May and killed three Japanese who stumbled into their perimeter. This was followed by a series of clashes, culminating in the capture of a hill on 15 May by a company that lost four killed and 18 wounded, while killing 16 Japanese and capturing four machine guns. This was considered the hardest fighting the battalion had been involved in since arriving in New Guinea. This fighting in the foothills continued until the 27th when Green ordered a two-company attack to clear a pocket of Japanese. Supported by a 2,360-round artillery bombardment, the two companies killed 15 Japanese for the loss of two killed and six wounded. In total, during the May offensive, the 2/11th lost 23 killed and 63 wounded, and by the end of the month it was only 552 strong from a strength of 627 at the beginning of May, and only fielded 223 riflemen instead of 397. Soldiers from Headquarters Company were redistributed to the rifle companies to bring them closer to establishment strength.
At the end of May, the 19th Brigade received orders to capture Mount Tazaki and Mount Shiburangu in the Prince Alexander Mountains. Initially, the 2/11th was placed in reserve, as it was depleted and its soldiers were weary. On 10 June, the battalion was given the task of protecting the area from Boram airfield to Cape Moem, and on the 19th the battalion contributed one company for an attack on Mount Tazaki. After an airstrike and artillery bombardment, B Company of the 2/11th secured its objective which had been abandoned by the Japanese. In early July, the 8th Brigade relieved elements of the 19th Brigade, including the 2/11th. During the Aitape-Wewak campaign, the 2/11th suffered 144 casualties.
As a result of his efforts while commanding the 2/11th, Green was later appointed a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). The citation highlighted: the challenging terrain and conditions throughout the campaign; the interdiction of the battalion's supply lines by the Japanese early in the campaign; the particularly stiff and determined enemy resistance and considerable casualties; Green's deft handling of his logistics; his outstanding leadership which helped him maintain morale and efficiency within the battalion; and the fact that all objectives assigned to the unit during the campaign were achieved. After the Japanese surrendered on 15 August, members of the battalion began to be sent home in groups to Australia for demobilisation. The last members of the unit left Wewak on 10 November.
## Post World War II
After being discharged from the 2nd AIF on 23 November 1945, Green was placed on the Reserve of Officers List on 21 December. He returned to Grafton where he worked as a clerk at the Producers' Co-operative Distributing Society Ltd. He also studied accountancy on a part-time basis. During this time he and his wife had a daughter, Anthea, and his award of the DSO was announced on 6 March 1947. When Australia's part-time military force was re-raised under the guise of Citizens Military Forces, Green returned to the 41st Battalion, serving as its commanding officer from 1 April 1948. With the establishment of the Regular Army, Green returned to full-time military service on 6 January 1949. In 1950 he was selected to attend Staff College at Fort Queenscliff, Victoria.
## Korean War
On 25 June 1950, the Korean People's Army (KPA) crossed the border from North Korea into South Korea and advanced towards the capital Seoul, which fell in less than a week. The KPA continued toward the port of Pusan and two days later, the United States offered its assistance to South Korea. In response, the United Nations Security Council requested United Nations (UN) member states to assist in repelling the North Korean attack. Australia initially committed North American P-51 Mustang fighter-bombers from No. 77 Squadron RAAF and infantry from the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR), both of which were stationed in Japan as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF). When the war broke out, 3 RAR was understaffed, underequipped and unprepared for combat as a unit. Immediate action was taken to bring it up to strength with reinforcements and new equipment from Australia, along with an intense training program.
When the Australian government committed 3 RAR, Army Headquarters determined that it would be led by an officer who had served in World War II and had a distinguished record. The commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel F. S. Walsh, who had been in command of the battalion for a year, was to be replaced. Still attending Staff College, Green was chosen. He left Australia for Japan on 8 September, and took over command of 3 RAR on 12 September. He oversaw another two weeks of unit training in Japan, then flew to South Korea on 25 September to await the battalion's arrival. 3 RAR arrived in Pusan on 28 September. By that time, the KPA was retreating back into North Korea following the Inchon landings and Pusan Perimeter Offensive. Green's battalion joined Brigadier Basil Coad's 27th British Commonwealth Brigade, part of the force under the Commander-in-Chief United Nations Command, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. On 5 October, the entire brigade was airlifted by the United States Air Force (USAF) from Taegu to Kimpo Air Base outside Seoul, their vehicles driving the intervening 420 km (260 mi) and only arriving in Seoul on 9 October. The brigade then moved north under the operational control of the US 1st Cavalry Division.
The 27th British Commonwealth Brigade advanced towards Pyongyang via Kaesong, Kumchon and Hungsu-ri to Sariwon. Attached to Green's battalion were a platoon of US M4 Sherman tanks and a US field artillery battery. On 16 October, the brigade led the division towards the outskirts of Sariwon. During that and the following day, 3 RAR advanced 70 km (43 mi) from Kumchon to Sariwon, and entered that town on the evening of the 17th. In chaotic scenes, the brigade and elements of a KPA division both occupied the centre of town for some time. In one incident, Green's second-in-command, Major Ian Bruce Ferguson, captured 1,600 North Koreans with just an interpreter, a loudspeaker and a tank. There was no rest for the brigade as it continued its push through Pyongyang to the village of Sangapo. To cut off KPA units retreating towards the Yalu River, the US 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team was parachuted around Yongju north of Pyongyang. The 27th British Commonwealth Brigade advanced almost to Yongju against minor opposition, and initial contact was made between the Commonwealth and US airborne forces on the evening of 21 October.
### Battle of the Apple Orchard
Green's battalion was involved in its first major action on 22 October. The battle began as 3 RAR led the brigade north of Yongju when C Company and Green's battalion tactical headquarters following it were attacked from front and rear by a KPA force of around 1,000 soldiers. C Company aggressively counter-attacked, and while the KPA troops fought "with desperate bravery" and regrouped in an apple orchard to the east of the road, the Australians, supported by US tanks, quickly prevailed. By the time mopping up was completed, 3 RAR had suffered seven wounded, but had killed between 150 and 200 KPA troops and taken 239 prisoners. The battle was the first large-scale engagement fought by a battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, which had only been established on 23 November 1948. A US Army historian wrote that 3 RAR had fought "with a dash that brought forth admiration from all who witnessed it". Green has been credited with the excellent performance of the battalion in its first major action, Coad observing that he was "a fine fighting soldier, so quiet in his manner ... he inspired confidence, both with his superiors and subordinates".
### Battle of the Broken Bridge
Three days later, Green's battalion was again the brigade vanguard after it had crossed the Chongchon River and advanced towards Pakchon. When the lead elements of 3 RAR reached the Taeryong River near Kujin it found KPA engineers had destroyed the centre span of the bridge. A reconnaissance patrol crossed the river using debris. When aerial reconnaissance identified KPA forces on the high ground, Green ordered the patrol to withdraw to the near side of the river, which they did, bringing ten prisoners with them. Airstrikes and the battalion mortars were called in onto the KPA positions across the river, and Green ordered D Company to clear nearby Pakchon. Once this was achieved—D Company returned with 225 prisoners—he sent A and B Companies across the river to establish a bridgehead, commencing at 19:00. Using the broken bridge, the two companies crossed without KPA resistance and established positions on both sides of the road about 400 m (440 yd) north of the river, with A Company on the left and B Company on the right.
That night, the KPA made several concerted attacks on both forward companies, B Company suffering the worst. Green sent reinforcements from C Company across the river to bolster B Company. About 04:00 on 26 October, the KPA launched an attack on both forward companies supported by T-34 tanks, but the level of coordination needed to push the Australians from the bridgehead was lacking, and while the KPA assault was renewed, by dawn the two companies remained in position. Airstrikes, including napalm, were called in on the KPA elements holding the ridges north of the river, and late that morning the remaining rifle companies of 3 RAR joined the forward companies, and after a flanking effort by other elements of the brigade, the KPA withdrew. KPA casualties in the battle were 100 killed and 350 captured, Green's battalion suffering eight killed—its first fatalities of the war—and 22 wounded.
### Battle of Chongju and death
The brigade continued its advance, and Green's battalion again took over the vanguard role on 29 October about 6 km (3.7 mi) from Chongju. Aerial reconnaissance indicated that a KPA force of around 500–600, supported by tanks and self-propelled guns (SPGs), had established well-constructed and camouflaged defensive positions on a thickly wooded ridgeline south of the town. A series of airstrikes was called in, and by 14:00 the USAF were claiming considerable success. With only a few hours of daylight left, Green ordered a battalion attack with D Company on the left of the road and A Company on the right, following an artillery bombardment.
The two companies attacked before dusk, D Company being supported by US tanks, and despite the heavy enemy fire, both secured their objectives on the ridge by 17:30. Eleven T-34 tanks and two SU-76 SPGs were destroyed by 3 RAR and the accompanying tanks, contrary to the reports of their destruction by USAF airstrikes earlier in the day. Green moved B Company up to occupy the road between the two assault companies, moved battalion headquarters in behind them, and held C and Support Companies in reserve at the rear. A hasty and limited resupply followed as the unit dug in.
The KPA counter-attacked in battalion strength following preparatory artillery fire beginning at 19:00, first against D Company. Although the North Koreans managed to overrun parts of the company position, counter-attacks restored the situation after two hours of fierce fighting. D Company was cut off from battalion headquarters for some time by infiltrating KPA troops, who were cleared away by Headquarters Company. A second assault fell on A Company, but it was beaten off in heavy fighting, the company commander calling in artillery within 10 m (11 yd) of his forward positions. The KPA withdrew about 22:15. In the morning, 150 dead KPA soldiers were found inside the 3 RAR perimeter. The total KPA casualties in the battle were 162 killed and ten captured, while Green's battalion suffered nine dead and 30 wounded. The fighting around Chongju was the heaviest undertaken by the Australians since they had entered the war.
The battalion moved forward to a reserve position on the Talchon River on 30 October, while other brigade elements cleared Chongju itself, securing it by 17:00. For protection, Green sited his battalion headquarters on the reverse slope, with the rifle companies on the forward slope. Around dusk at 18:10, six high-velocity shells, likely from a KPA SPG or tank, hit the battalion position. Five of the shells landed on the forward slope, while the sixth cleared the crest and detonated to the rear of the C Company position after hitting a tree. In his tent on a stretcher after 36 hours without sleep, Green was severely wounded in the abdomen by a fragment from the wayward round. He was evacuated to a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital at Anju but succumbed to his wounds and died two days later on 1 November, aged 30. Forty other men who had been in the vicinity when the shell exploded were unhurt.
A popular and respected commanding officer, Green's loss was keenly felt by the Australians, and according to Barter, "cast a pall of gloom over his battalion". Ferguson, who was soon appointed to command 3 RAR, asserted that Green was "the best commander any man could ever have", and according to three officers that served with 3 RAR in Korea, he was one of the Australian Army's better unit-level commanders. Coad kept a photograph of Green in his study for the remainder of his life. Green remains the only commanding officer of a battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment to die on active service.
## Legacy
Green was initially buried in the Christian churchyard at Pakchon on the day he died, but his body was soon exhumed and buried in the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Pusan. He was posthumously awarded the US Silver Star in June 1951. According to Barter, Green's career as a battalion commander in New Guinea and Korea had been "exemplary", and serving Australian soldiers were still inspired by it at the time she wrote his entry in 1996. A commemorative cairn was erected at the barracks of the 41st Battalion, Royal New South Wales Regiment, in Lismore, New South Wales, and as of 1996, a United Nations emblem was affixed to the gates of the Swan Creek farm where he grew up. Green's wife, Olwyn, who survived him along with their daughter, wrote his biography, The Name's Still Charlie, which was published in 1993 and republished in 2010.
|
30,157,762 |
SMS Prinzregent Luitpold
| 1,159,312,964 |
Battleship of the German Imperial Navy
|
[
"1912 ships",
"Kaiser-class battleships",
"Maritime incidents in 1919",
"Ships built in Kiel",
"World War I battleships of Germany",
"World War I warships scuttled at Scapa Flow"
] |
SMS Prinzregent Luitpold was the fifth and final vessel of the Kaiser class of dreadnought battleships of the Imperial German Navy. Prinzregent Luitpold's keel was laid in October 1910 at the Germaniawerft dockyard in Kiel. She was launched on 17 February 1912 and was commissioned into the navy on 19 August 1913. The ship was equipped with ten 30.5-centimeter (12 in) guns in five twin turrets, and had a top speed of 21.7 knots (40.2 km/h; 25.0 mph).
Prinzregent Luitpold was assigned to III Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet for the majority of her career; in December 1916, she was transferred to IV Battle Squadron. Along with her four sister ships, Kaiser, Friedrich der Grosse, Kaiserin, and König Albert, Prinzregent Luitpold participated in all of the major fleet operations of World War I, including the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916. The ship was also involved in Operation Albion, an amphibious assault on the Russian-held islands in the Gulf of Riga, in late 1917.
After Germany's defeat in the war and the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, Prinzregent Luitpold and most of the capital ships of the High Seas Fleet were interned by the 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. Prinzregent Luitpold was raised in July 1931 and subsequently broken up for scrap in 1933.
## Design
Prinzregent Luitpold was 172.4 m (565 ft 7 in) long overall and displaced a maximum of 27,000 metric tons (26,570 long tons) at full load. She had a beam of 29 m (95 ft 2 in) and a draft of 9.1 m (29 ft 10 in) forward and 8.8 m (28 ft 10 in) aft. She had a crew of 41 officers and 1,043 enlisted men. Prinzregent Luitpold was powered by two sets of Parsons steam turbines, supplied with steam by fourteen coal-fired water-tube boilers. Unlike her four sisters, the ship was intended to use a diesel engine on the center shaft, but this was not ready by the time work on the ship was completed. The engine was never installed, and so Prinzregent Luitpold was slightly slower than her sisters, which were equipped with a third turbine on the center shaft. The powerplant produced a top speed of 21.7 knots (40.2 km/h; 25.0 mph). She carried 3,600 metric tons (3,540 long tons) of coal, which enabled a maximum range of 7,900 nautical miles (14,630 km; 9,090 mi) at a cruising speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph).
Prinzregent Luitpold was armed with a main battery of ten 30.5 cm SK L/50 guns in five twin turrets. The ship dispensed with the inefficient hexagonal turret arrangement of previous German battleships; instead, three of the five turrets were mounted on the centerline, one forward and 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. The ship's armament was rounded out by five 50 cm (19.7 in) torpedo tubes, all mounted in the 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. Prinzregent Luitpold's conning tower was heavily armored, with 400 mm (15.7 in) sides.
## Service history
Ordered under the contract name Ersatz Odin as a replacement for the obsolete coastal defense ship Odin, Prinzregent Luitpold was laid down at the Howaldtswerke dockyard in Kiel in October 1910. She was launched on 17 February 1912 and christened by Princess Theresa of Bavaria; Ludwig III, the last king of Bavaria and the son of the ship's namesake, Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria, gave a speech. After fitting-out work was completed, the ship was commissioned into the fleet on 19 August 1913. Prinzregent Luitpold was equipped with facilities for a squadron commander, and became the flagship of III Battle Squadron upon commissioning.
Directly after commissioning, Prinzregent Luitpold took part in the annual autumn maneuvers, which followed the fleet cruise to Norway. The exercises lasted from 31 August to 9 September. Unit drills and individual ship training were conducted in October and November. In early 1914, Prinzregent Luitpold 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 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 Skadenes 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
Prinzregent Luitpold was present during the first sortie by the German fleet into the North Sea, which took place on 2–3 November 1914. No British forces were encountered during the operation. A second operation followed on 15–16 December. This sortie was the initiation of a strategy adopted by Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, the commander of the High Seas Fleet. He intended to use the battlecruisers of Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper's I Scouting Group to raid British coastal towns to lure out portions of the British Grand Fleet where they could be destroyed by the High Seas Fleet. Early on 15 December the fleet left port to raid the towns of Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby. That evening, the German battle fleet of some twelve dreadnoughts—including Prinzregent Luitpold 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. However, 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.
Prinzregent Luitpold went into the Baltic for squadron training from 23 to 29 January 1916. While on the maneuvers, the newer battleship König became III Squadron flagship. Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, the commander of III Squadron, lowered his flag on 24 January and transferred it to König. The Kaiser removed Ingenohl from his post on 2 February, following the loss of the armored cruiser SMS Blücher at the Battle of Dogger Bank the month before. Admiral Hugo von Pohl succeeded him as the commander of the fleet. Pohl continued the policy of sweeps into the North Sea to destroy isolated British formations. On 24 April, Prinzregent Luitpold ran aground in the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, though she was freed without causing significant damage. A series of advances into the North Sea were conducted throughout the rest of 1915; Prinzregent Luitpold was present for the sweeps on 17–18 May, 29–30 May, 10 August, 11–12 September, and 23–24 October. III Squadron completed the year with another round of unit training in the Baltic on 5–20 December.
Pohl's tenure as fleet commander was brief; by January 1916 hepatic cancer had weakened him to the point where he was no longer able to carry out his duties. He was replaced by Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer in January. 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. Prinzregent Luitpold was also present during an advance to the Amrun Bank on 2–3 April. Another sortie was conducted on 21–22 April.
#### Battle of Jutland
Prinzregent Luitpold was present during the fleet operation that resulted in the battle of Jutland which took place on 31 May and 1 June 1916. The German fleet again sought to draw out and isolate a portion of the Grand Fleet and destroy it before the main British fleet could retaliate. During the operation, Prinzregent Luitpold was the third ship in VI Division of III Squadron and the seventh ship in the line, directly astern of Kaiserin and ahead of Friedrich der Grosse. VI Division was behind only V Division, consisting of the four König-class battleships. The eight Helgoland- and Nassau-class battleships of I and II Divisions in I Squadron followed VI Division. The six elderly pre-dreadnoughts of III and IV Divisions in II Battle Squadron formed the rear of the formation.
Shortly before 16:00, the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group encountered the British 1st Battlecruiser Squadron under the command of Vice Admiral 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, the crew of the leading German battleship, König, 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 a minute later, the order to open fire was given.
Prinzregent Luitpold engaged the nearest target her gunners could make out, one of the Lion-class battlecruisers, at a range of some 22,300 yd (20,400 m), though her shots fell short. Beatty's ships increased speed and at 17:51 veered away to further increase the distance to the III Squadron battleships. At 18:08, Prinzregent Luitpold shifted her fire to the battleship Malaya at a range of 19,100 yd (17,500 m), though without any success. By 18:38, Malaya disappeared in the haze and Prinzregent Luitpold was forced to cease fire. The British destroyers Nestor and Nomad, which had been disabled earlier in the engagement, lay directly in the path of the advancing High Seas Fleet. Prinzregent Luitpold and her three sisters destroyed Nomad with their secondary guns while the I Squadron battleships dispatched Nestor. At around 19:00, the German battle line came into contact with the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron; Prinzregent Luitpold fired two salvos from her main battery at an unidentified four-funneled cruiser at 19:03 but made no hits.
Shortly after 19:00, the German cruiser Wiesbaden had become disabled by a shell from the British battlecruiser Invincible; Rear Admiral Paul 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 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. Between 19:14 and 19:17, several German battleships and battlecruisers opened fire on Defence and Warrior. Instead of joining the fire on the much closer cruisers, Prinzregent Luitpold engaged the leading battleships of the British line, firing a total of 21 salvos. The gunners reported ranges of 17,500 to 18,800 yd (16,000 to 17,200 m), though this was an overestimation that caused the ship's salvos to fall past their intended target.
By 20:00, the German line was ordered to complete a 180-degree turn eastward to disengage from the British fleet. The maneuver, conducted under heavy fire, caused disorganization in the German fleet. Kaiserin had come too close to Prinzregent Luitpold and was forced to haul out of line to starboard to avoid a collision. Prinzregent Luitpold came up alongside Kaiserin at high speed, which forced Kaiserin to remain out of line temporarily. The turn reversed the order of the German line; Prinzregent Luitpold was now the eighth ship from the rear of the German line, leading III Squadron. At around 23:30, the German fleet reorganized into the night-cruising formation. Prinzregent Luitpold was the tenth ship, in the center of the 24-ship line.
After a series of night engagements between the leading 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; the I Squadron battleships took up defensive positions in the outer roadstead, and Prinzregent Luitpold, Kaiserin, Kaiser, and Kronprinz stood ready just outside the entrance to Wilhelmshaven. The remainder of the battleships and battlecruisers entered Wilhelmshaven, where those that were still in fighting condition replenished their stocks of coal and ammunition. In the course of the battle, Prinzregent Luitpold fired one-hundred and sixty-nine 30.5 cm shells and one-hundred and six 15 cm rounds. She and her crew emerged from the battle completely unscathed.
#### Subsequent operations
In early August, Prinzregent Luitpold and the rest of the operational III Squadron units conducted divisional training in the Baltic. On 18 August, Admiral Scheer attempted a repeat of the 31 May operation; the two serviceable German battlecruisers—Moltke and Von der Tann—supported by three dreadnoughts, were to bombard the coastal town of Sunderland in an attempt to draw out and destroy Beatty's battlecruisers. The rest of the fleet, including Prinzregent Luitpold, would trail behind and provide cover. During the operation, Prinzregent Luitpold carried the Commander of U-boats. On the approach to the English coast 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 advance followed on 18–20 October, though it ended without encountering any British units. Two weeks later, on 4 November, Prinzregent Luitpold took part in an expedition to the western coast of Denmark to assist two U-boats—U-20 and U-30—that had become stranded there. 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 Prinzregent Luitpold, were transferred to IV Squadron. Prinzregent Luitpold became the flagship of the new squadron. In the Wilhelmshaven Roads on 20 January 1917, the ship struck a steel hawser that became entangled in the ship's starboard propeller. In March, Friedrich der Grosse was replaced as the fleet flagship by the newly commissioned battleship Baden. Friedrich der Grosse in turn replaced Prinzregent Luitpold as the flagship of IV Squadron. Steadily decreasing morale and discontent with rations provoked a series of small mutinies in the fleet. On 6 June and 19 July, stokers protested the low quality of the food they were given, and on 2 August, some 800 men went on a hunger strike. The ship's officers relented and agreed to form a Menagekommission, a council that gave the enlisted men a voice in their ration selection and preparation. One of the ringleaders of the protests, however, was arrested and executed on 5 September.
#### 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 (the Navy High Command) planned an operation to seize the Baltic island of Ösel, and specifically the Russian gun batteries on the Sworbe Peninsula. On 18 September, the order was issued for a joint operation with the army to capture Ösel and Moon Islands; the primary naval component was to comprise the flagship, Moltke, along with 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 Prinzregent Luitpold and the rest of IV Squadron shelled Russian gun batteries on the Sworbe Peninsula on Ösel. Prinzregent Luitpold, along with Kaiser and Kaiserin, were tasked with silencing the Russian guns at Hundsort which had taken Moltke under fire. The ships opened fire at 05:44, and by 07:45, Russian firing had ceased and German troops were moving ashore. Two days later, Vice Admiral Wilhelm Souchon left Tagga Bay with Prinzregent Luitpold, Friedrich der Grosse, and Kaiserin to support German ground forces advancing on the Sworbe Peninsula. 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 the 24th, Prinzregent Luitpold was detached from the task force and returned to Kiel.
After arriving in Kiel, Prinzregent Luitpold went into drydock for periodic maintenance, from which she emerged on 21 December. She then proceeded on to Wilhelmshaven, where she resumed guard duty in the Bight. On 17 March 1918, the ship steamed to the Baltic for training exercises, and the following day the battlecruiser Derfflinger rammed her outside Kiel. The accident caused no serious damage, however. The ship participated in the fruitless advance to Norway on 23–25 April 1918, after which she resumed guard duties in the German Bight.
#### Fate
Prinzregent Luitpold 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 Grand Admiral (Großadmiral) of the fleet—intended to inflict as much damage as possible on the British navy, to improve Germany's bargaining position, despite the expected casualties. But many of the war-weary sailors felt that 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. 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, was 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 circumstances. 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 men per ship.
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 have signed 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. Prinzregent Luitpold sank at 13:30; she was subsequently raised on 9 July 1931 and broken up by 1933 in Rosyth, as with several other vessels, upside-down having capsized in the scuttling.
|
7,426 |
Charles I of England
| 1,171,693,674 |
King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1625 to 1649
|
[
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"1649 deaths",
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"17th-century Scottish peers",
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Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649.
Charles was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603, he moved to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life. He became heir apparent to the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1612 upon the death of his elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. An unsuccessful and unpopular attempt to marry him to Infanta Maria Anna of Spain culminated in an eight-month visit to Spain in 1623 that demonstrated the futility of the marriage negotiation. Two years later, shortly after his accession, he married Henrietta Maria of France.
After his succession in 1625, Charles quarrelled with the English Parliament, which sought to curb his royal prerogative. He believed in the divine right of kings, and was determined to govern according to his own conscience. Many of his subjects opposed his policies, in particular the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent, and perceived his actions as those of a tyrannical absolute monarch. His religious policies, coupled with his marriage to a Roman Catholic, generated antipathy and mistrust from Reformed religious groups such as the English Puritans and Scottish Covenanters, who thought his views too Catholic. He supported high church Anglican ecclesiastics and failed to aid continental Protestant forces successfully during the Thirty Years' War. His attempts to force the Church of Scotland to adopt high Anglican practices led to the Bishops' Wars, strengthened the position of the English and Scottish parliaments, and helped precipitate his own downfall.
From 1642, Charles fought the armies of the English and Scottish parliaments in the English Civil War. After his defeat in 1645 at the hands of the Parliamentarian New Model Army, he fled north from his base at Oxford. Charles surrendered to a Scottish force and after lengthy negotiations between the English and Scottish parliaments he was handed over to the Long Parliament in London. Charles refused to accept his captors' demands for a constitutional monarchy, and temporarily escaped captivity in November 1647. Re-imprisoned on the Isle of Wight, he forged an alliance with Scotland, but by the end of 1648, the New Model Army had consolidated its control over England. Charles was tried, convicted, and executed for high treason in January 1649. The monarchy was abolished and the Commonwealth of England was established as a republic. The monarchy would be restored to Charles's son Charles II in 1660.
## Early life
The second son of King James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark, Charles was born in Dunfermline Palace, Fife, on 19 November 1600. At a Protestant ceremony in the Chapel Royal of Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh on 23 December 1600, he was baptised by David Lindsay, Bishop of Ross, and created Duke of Albany, the traditional title of the second son of the king of Scotland, with the subsidiary titles of Marquess of Ormond, Earl of Ross and Lord Ardmannoch.
James VI was the first cousin twice removed of Queen Elizabeth I of England, and when she died childless in March 1603, he became King of England as James I. Charles was a weak and sickly infant, and while his parents and older siblings left for England in April and early June that year, due to his fragile health, he remained in Scotland with his father's friend Lord Fyvie appointed as his guardian.
By 1604, when Charles was three-and-a-half, he was able to walk the length of the great hall at Dunfermline Palace without assistance, and it was decided that he was strong enough to journey to England to be reunited with his family. In mid-July 1604, he left Dunfermline for England, where he was to spend most of the rest of his life. In England, Charles was placed under the charge of Elizabeth, Lady Carey, the wife of courtier Sir Robert Carey, who put him in boots made of Spanish leather and brass to help strengthen his weak ankles. His speech development was also slow, and he had a stammer for the rest of his life.
In January 1605, Charles was created Duke of York, as is customary in the case of the English sovereign's second son, and made a Knight of the Bath. Thomas Murray, a presbyterian Scot, was appointed as a tutor. Charles learnt the usual subjects of classics, languages, mathematics and religion. In 1611, he was made a Knight of the Garter.
Eventually, Charles apparently conquered his physical infirmity, which might have been caused by rickets. He became an adept horseman and marksman, and took up fencing. Even so, his public profile remained low in contrast to that of his physically stronger and taller elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, whom Charles adored and attempted to emulate. But in early November 1612, Henry died at the age of 18 of what is suspected to have been typhoid (or possibly porphyria). Charles, who turned 12 two weeks later, became heir apparent. As the eldest surviving son of the sovereign, he automatically gained several titles, including Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay. In November 1616, he was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester.
## Heir apparent
In 1613, Charles's sister Elizabeth married Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and moved to Heidelberg. In 1617, the Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, a Catholic, was elected king of Bohemia. The next year, the Bohemians rebelled, defenestrating the Catholic governors. In August 1619, the Bohemian diet chose Frederick, who led the Protestant Union, as their monarch, while Ferdinand was elected Holy Roman Emperor in the imperial election. Frederick's acceptance of the Bohemian crown in defiance of the emperor marked the beginning of the turmoil that would develop into the Thirty Years' War. The conflict, originally confined to Bohemia, spiralled into a wider European war, which the English Parliament and public quickly grew to see as a polarised continental struggle between Catholics and Protestants. In 1620, King Frederick was defeated at the Battle of White Mountain near Prague and his hereditary lands in the Electoral Palatinate were invaded by a Habsburg force from the Spanish Netherlands. James, however, had been seeking marriage between Prince Charles and Ferdinand's niece, Infanta Maria Anna of Spain, and began to see the Spanish match as a possible diplomatic means of achieving peace in Europe.
Unfortunately for James, negotiation with Spain proved unpopular with both the public and James's court. The English Parliament was actively hostile towards Spain and Catholicism, and thus, when called by James in 1621, the members hoped for an enforcement of recusancy laws, a naval campaign against Spain, and a Protestant marriage for the Prince of Wales. James's Lord Chancellor, Francis Bacon, was impeached before the House of Lords for corruption. The impeachment was the first since 1459 without the king's official sanction in the form of a bill of attainder. The incident set an important precedent as the process of impeachment would later be used against Charles and his supporters the Duke of Buckingham, Archbishop William Laud, and the Earl of Strafford. James insisted that the House of Commons be concerned exclusively with domestic affairs, while the members protested that they had the privilege of free speech within the Commons' walls, demanding war with Spain and a Protestant princess of Wales. Like his father, Charles considered discussion of his marriage in the Commons impertinent and an infringement of his father's royal prerogative. In January 1622, James dissolved Parliament, angry at what he perceived as the members' impudence and intransigence.
Charles and Buckingham, James's favourite and a man who had great influence over the prince, travelled incognito to Spain in February 1623 to try to reach agreement on the long-pending Spanish match. The trip was an embarrassing failure. The infanta thought Charles little more than an infidel, and the Spanish at first demanded that he convert to Catholicism as a condition of the match. They insisted on toleration of Catholics in England and the repeal of the English penal laws, which Charles knew Parliament would not agree to, and that the infanta remain in Spain for a year after any wedding to ensure that England complied with all the treaty's terms. A personal quarrel erupted between Buckingham and the Count of Olivares, the Spanish chief minister, and so Charles conducted the ultimately futile negotiations personally. When he returned to London in October, without a bride and to a rapturous and relieved public welcome, he and Buckingham pushed the reluctant James to declare war on Spain.
With the encouragement of his Protestant advisers, James summoned the English Parliament in 1624 to request subsidies for a war. Charles and Buckingham supported the impeachment of the Lord Treasurer, Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex, who opposed war on grounds of cost and quickly fell in much the same manner Bacon had. James told Buckingham he was a fool, and presciently warned Charles that he would live to regret the revival of impeachment as a parliamentary tool. An underfunded makeshift army under Ernst von Mansfeld set off to recover the Palatinate, but it was so poorly provisioned that it never advanced beyond the Dutch coast.
By 1624, the increasingly ill James was finding it difficult to control Parliament. By the time of his death in March 1625, Charles and Buckingham had already assumed de facto control of the kingdom.
## Early reign
With the failure of the Spanish match, Charles and Buckingham turned their attention to France. On 1 May 1625 Charles was married by proxy to the 15-year-old French princess Henrietta Maria in front of the doors of Notre Dame de Paris. He had seen her in Paris while en route to Spain. They met in person on 13 June 1625 in Canterbury. Charles delayed the opening of his first Parliament until after the marriage was consummated, to forestall any opposition. Many members of the Commons opposed his marriage to a Catholic, fearing that he would lift restrictions on Catholic recusants and undermine the official establishment of the reformed Church of England. Charles told Parliament that he would not relax religious restrictions, but promised to do exactly that in a secret marriage treaty with his brother-in-law Louis XIII of France. Moreover, the treaty loaned to the French seven English naval ships that were used to suppress the Protestant Huguenots at La Rochelle in September 1625. Charles was crowned on 2 February 1626 at Westminster Abbey, but without his wife at his side, because she refused to participate in a Protestant religious ceremony.
Distrust of Charles's religious policies increased with his support of a controversial anti-Calvinist ecclesiastic, Richard Montagu, who was in disrepute among the Puritans. In his pamphlet A New Gag for an Old Goose (1624), a reply to the Catholic pamphlet A New Gag for the New Gospel, Montagu argued against Calvinist predestination, the doctrine that God preordained salvation and damnation. Anti-Calvinists—known as Arminians—believed that people could influence their fates by exercising free will. Arminian divines had been one of the few sources of support for Charles's proposed Spanish marriage. With King James's support, Montagu produced another pamphlet, Appello Caesarem, published in 1625 shortly after James's death and Charles's accession. To protect Montagu from the stricture of Puritan members of Parliament, Charles made him a royal chaplain, heightening many Puritans' suspicions that Charles favoured Arminianism as a clandestine attempt to aid Catholicism's resurgence.
Rather than direct involvement in the European land war, the English Parliament preferred a relatively inexpensive naval attack on Spanish colonies in the New World, hoping for the capture of the Spanish treasure fleets. Parliament voted to grant a subsidy of £140,000, an insufficient sum for Charles's war plans. Moreover, the House of Commons limited its authorisation for royal collection of tonnage and poundage (two varieties of customs duties) to a year, although previous sovereigns since Henry VI had been granted the right for life. In this manner, Parliament could delay approval of the rates until after a full-scale review of customs revenue. The bill made no progress in the House of Lords past its first reading. Although no Parliamentary Act for the levy of tonnage and poundage was obtained, Charles continued to collect the duties.
A poorly conceived and executed naval expedition against Spain under Buckingham's leadership went badly, and the House of Commons began proceedings for the impeachment of the duke. In May 1626, Charles nominated Buckingham as Chancellor of Cambridge University in a show of support, and had two members who had spoken against Buckingham—Dudley Digges and Sir John Eliot—arrested at the door of the House. The Commons was outraged by the imprisonment of two of their members, and after about a week in custody, both were released. On 12 June 1626, the Commons launched a direct protestation attacking Buckingham, stating, "We protest before your Majesty and the whole world that until this great person be removed from intermeddling with the great affairs of state, we are out of hope of any good success; and do fear that any money we shall or can give will, through his misemployment, be turned rather to the hurt and prejudice of this your kingdom than otherwise, as by lamentable experience we have found those large supplies formerly and lately given." Despite the protests, Charles refused to dismiss his friend, dismissing Parliament instead.
Meanwhile, domestic quarrels between Charles and Henrietta Maria were souring the early years of their marriage. Disputes over her jointure, appointments to her household, and the practice of her religion culminated in the king expelling the vast majority of her French attendants in August 1626. Despite Charles's agreement to provide the French with English ships as a condition of marrying Henrietta Maria, in 1627 he launched an attack on the French coast to defend the Huguenots at La Rochelle. The action, led by Buckingham, was ultimately unsuccessful. Buckingham's failure to protect the Huguenots—and his retreat from Saint-Martin-de-Ré—spurred Louis XIII's siege of La Rochelle and furthered the English Parliament's and people's detestation of the duke.
Charles provoked further unrest by trying to raise money for the war through a "forced loan": a tax levied without parliamentary consent. In November 1627, the test case in the King's Bench, the "Five Knights' Case", found that the king had a prerogative right to imprison without trial those who refused to pay the forced loan. Summoned again in March 1628, Parliament adopted a Petition of Right on 26 May, calling upon Charles to acknowledge that he could not levy taxes without Parliament's consent, impose martial law on civilians, imprison them without due process, or quarter troops in their homes. Charles assented to the petition on 7 June, but by the end of the month he had prorogued Parliament and reasserted his right to collect customs duties without authorisation from Parliament.
On 23 August 1628, Buckingham was assassinated. Charles was deeply distressed. According to Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, he "threw himself upon his bed, lamenting with much passion and with abundance of tears". He remained grieving in his room for two days. In contrast, the public rejoiced at Buckingham's death, accentuating the gulf between the court and the nation and between the Crown and the Commons. Buckingham's death effectively ended the war with Spain and eliminated his leadership as an issue, but it did not end the conflicts between Charles and Parliament. It did, however, coincide with an improvement in Charles's relationship with his wife, and by November 1628 their old quarrels were at an end. Perhaps Charles's emotional ties were transferred from Buckingham to Henrietta Maria. She became pregnant for the first time, and the bond between them grew stronger. Together, they embodied an image of virtue and family life, and their court became a model of formality and morality.
## Personal rule
### Parliament prorogued
In January 1629, Charles opened the second session of the English Parliament, which had been prorogued in June 1628, with a moderate speech on the tonnage and poundage issue. Members of the House of Commons began to voice opposition to Charles's policies in light of the case of John Rolle, a Member of Parliament whose goods had been confiscated for failing to pay tonnage and poundage. Many MPs viewed the imposition of the tax as a breach of the Petition of Right. When Charles ordered a parliamentary adjournment on 2 March, members held the Speaker, Sir John Finch, down in his chair so that the session could be prolonged long enough for resolutions against Catholicism, Arminianism and tonnage and poundage to be read out and acclaimed by the chamber. The provocation was too much for Charles, who dissolved Parliament and had nine parliamentary leaders, including Sir John Eliot, imprisoned over the matter, thereby turning the men into martyrs and giving popular cause to their protest.
Personal rule necessitated peace. Without the means in the foreseeable future to raise funds from Parliament for a European war, or Buckingham's help, Charles made peace with France and Spain. The next 11 years, during which Charles ruled England without a Parliament, are known as the Personal Rule or the "eleven years' tyranny". Ruling without Parliament was not exceptional, and was supported by precedent. But only Parliament could legally raise taxes, and without it Charles's capacity to acquire funds for his treasury was limited to his customary rights and prerogatives.
### Finances
A large fiscal deficit had arisen during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. Notwithstanding Buckingham's short-lived campaigns against both Spain and France, Charles had little financial capacity to wage wars overseas. Throughout his reign, he was obliged to rely primarily on volunteer forces for defence and on diplomatic efforts to support his sister Elizabeth and his foreign policy objective for the restoration of the Palatinate. England was still the least taxed country in Europe, with no official excise and no regular direct taxation. To raise revenue without reconvening Parliament, Charles resurrected an all-but-forgotten law called the "Distraint of Knighthood", in abeyance for over a century, which required any man who earned £40 or more from land each year to present himself at the king's coronation to be knighted. Relying on this old statute, Charles fined those who had failed to attend his coronation in 1626.
The chief tax Charles imposed was a feudal levy known as ship money, which proved even more unpopular, and lucrative, than tonnage and poundage before it. Previously, collection of ship money had been authorised only during wars, and only on coastal regions. But Charles argued that there was no legal bar to collecting the tax for defence during peacetime and throughout the whole of the kingdom. Ship money, paid directly to the Treasury of the Navy, provided between £150,000 to £200,000 annually between 1634 and 1638, after which yields declined. Opposition to ship money steadily grew, but England's 12 common law judges ruled the tax within the king's prerogative, though some of them had reservations. The prosecution of John Hampden for non-payment in 1637–38 provided a platform for popular protest, and the judges found against Hampden only by the narrow margin of 7–5.
Charles also derived money by granting monopolies, despite a statute forbidding such action, which, though inefficient, raised an estimated £100,000 a year in the late 1630s. One such monopoly was for soap, pejoratively referred to as "popish soap" because some of its backers were Catholics. Charles also raised funds from the Scottish nobility, at the price of considerable acrimony, by the Act of Revocation (1625), whereby all gifts of royal or church land made to the nobility since 1540 were revoked, with continued ownership being subject to an annual rent. In addition, the boundaries of the royal forests in England were restored to their ancient limits as part of a scheme to maximise income by exploiting the land and fining land users within the reasserted boundaries for encroachment. The programme's focus was disafforestation and sale of forest lands for conversion to pasture and arable farming, or in the case of the Forest of Dean, development for the iron industry. Disafforestation frequently caused riots and disturbances, including those known as the Western Rising.
Against the background of this unrest, Charles faced bankruptcy in mid-1640. The City of London, preoccupied with its own grievances, refused to make any loans to him, as did foreign powers. In this extremity, in July Charles seized silver bullion worth £130,000 held in trust at the mint in the Tower of London, promising its later return at 8% interest to its owners. In August, after the East India Company refused to grant a loan, Lord Cottington seized the company's stock of pepper and spices and sold it for £60,000 (far below its market value), promising to refund the money with interest later.
## Religious conflicts
Throughout Charles's reign, the English Reformation was in the forefront of political debate. Arminian theology emphasised clerical authority and the individual's ability to reject or accept salvation, which opponents viewed as heretical and a potential vehicle for the reintroduction of Catholicism. Puritan reformers considered Charles too sympathetic to Arminianism, and opposed his desire to move the Church of England in a more traditional and sacramental direction. In addition, his Protestant subjects followed the European war closely and grew increasingly dismayed by Charles's diplomacy with Spain and his failure to support the Protestant cause abroad effectively.
In 1633, Charles appointed William Laud Archbishop of Canterbury. They initiated a series of reforms to promote religious uniformity by restricting non-conformist preachers, insisting the liturgy be celebrated as prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer, organising the internal architecture of English churches to emphasise the sacrament of the altar, and reissuing King James's Declaration of Sports, which permitted secular activities on the sabbath. The Feoffees for Impropriations, an organisation that bought benefices and advowsons so that Puritans could be appointed to them, was dissolved. Laud prosecuted those who opposed his reforms in the Court of High Commission and the Star Chamber, the two most powerful courts in the land. The courts became feared for their censorship of opposing religious views and unpopular among the propertied classes for inflicting degrading punishments on gentlemen. For example, in 1637 William Prynne, Henry Burton and John Bastwick were pilloried, whipped and mutilated by cropping and imprisoned indefinitely for publishing anti-episcopal pamphlets.
When Charles attempted to impose his religious policies in Scotland he faced numerous difficulties. Although born in Scotland, Charles had become estranged from it; his first visit since early childhood was for his Scottish coronation in 1633. To the dismay of the Scots, who had removed many traditional rituals from their liturgical practice, Charles insisted that the coronation be conducted using the Anglican rite. In 1637, he ordered the use of a new prayer book in Scotland that was almost identical to the English Book of Common Prayer, without consulting either the Scottish Parliament or the Kirk. Although it had been written, under Charles's direction, by Scottish bishops, many Scots resisted it, seeing it as a vehicle to introduce Anglicanism to Scotland. On 23 July, riots erupted in Edinburgh upon the first Sunday of the prayer book's usage, and unrest spread throughout the Kirk. The public began to mobilise around a reaffirmation of the National Covenant, whose signatories pledged to uphold the reformed religion of Scotland and reject any innovations not authorised by Kirk and Parliament. When the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland met in November 1638, it condemned the new prayer book, abolished episcopal church government by bishops, and adopted presbyterian government by elders and deacons.
### Bishops' Wars
Charles perceived the unrest in Scotland as a rebellion against his authority, precipitating the First Bishops' War in 1639. He did not seek subsidies from the English Parliament to wage war, instead raising an army without parliamentary aid and marching to Berwick-upon-Tweed, on the Scottish border. The army did not engage the Covenanters, as the king feared the defeat of his forces, whom he believed to be significantly outnumbered by the Scots. In the Treaty of Berwick, Charles regained custody of his Scottish fortresses and secured the dissolution of the Covenanters' interim government, albeit at the decisive concession that both the Scottish Parliament and General Assembly of the Scottish Church were called.
The military failure in the First Bishops' War caused a financial and diplomatic crisis for Charles that deepened when his efforts to raise funds from Spain while simultaneously continuing his support for his Palatine relatives led to the public humiliation of the Battle of the Downs, where the Dutch destroyed a Spanish bullion fleet off the coast of Kent in sight of the impotent English navy.
Charles continued peace negotiations with the Scots in a bid to gain time before launching a new military campaign. Because of his financial weakness, he was forced to call Parliament into session in an attempt to raise funds for such a venture. Both the English and Irish parliaments were summoned in the early months of 1640. In March 1640, the Irish Parliament duly voted in a subsidy of £180,000 with the promise to raise an army 9,000 strong by the end of May. But in the English general election in March, court candidates fared badly, and Charles's dealings with the English Parliament in April quickly reached stalemate. The earls of Northumberland and Strafford attempted to broker a compromise whereby the king would agree to forfeit ship money in exchange for £650,000 (although the cost of the coming war was estimated at around £1 million). Nevertheless, this alone was insufficient to produce consensus in the Commons. The Parliamentarians' calls for further reforms were ignored by Charles, who still retained the support of the House of Lords. Despite the protests of the Earl of Northumberland, the Short Parliament (as it came to be known) was dissolved in May 1640, less than a month after it assembled.
By this stage the Earl of Strafford, Lord Deputy of Ireland since 1632, had emerged as Charles's right-hand man and, together with Archbishop Laud, pursued a policy of "Thorough" that aimed to make central royal authority more efficient and effective at the expense of local or anti-government interests. Although originally a critic of the king, Strafford defected to royal service in 1628, in part due to the Duke of Buckingham's persuasion, and had since emerged, alongside Laud, as the most influential of Charles's ministers.
Bolstered by the failure of the English Short Parliament, the Scottish Parliament declared itself capable of governing without the king's consent, and in August 1640 the Covenanter army moved into the English county of Northumberland. Following the illness of Lord Northumberland, who was the king's commander-in-chief, Charles and Strafford went north to command the English forces, despite Strafford being ill himself with a combination of gout and dysentery. The Scottish soldiery, many of whom were veterans of the Thirty Years' War, had far greater morale and training than their English counterparts. They met virtually no resistance until reaching Newcastle upon Tyne, where they defeated the English forces at the Battle of Newburn and occupied the city, as well as the neighbouring county of Durham.
As demands for a parliament grew, Charles took the unusual step of summoning a great council of peers. By the time it met, on 24 September at York, Charles had resolved to follow the almost universal advice to call a parliament. After informing the peers that a parliament would convene in November, he asked them to consider how he could acquire funds to maintain his army against the Scots in the meantime. They recommended making peace. A cessation of arms, although not a final settlement, was negotiated in the humiliating Treaty of Ripon, signed in October 1640. The treaty stated that the Scots would continue to occupy Northumberland and Durham and be paid £850 per day until peace was restored and the English Parliament recalled, which would be required to raise sufficient funds to pay the Scottish forces. Consequently, Charles summoned what later became known as the Long Parliament. Once again, his supporters fared badly at the polls. Of the 493 members of the Commons returned in November, over 350 were opposed to the king.
## Long Parliament
### Tensions escalate
The Long Parliament proved just as difficult for Charles as had the Short Parliament. It assembled on 3 November 1640 and quickly began proceedings to impeach the king's leading counsellors for high treason. Strafford was taken into custody on 10 November; Laud was impeached on 18 December; Finch, now Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, was impeached the next day, and consequently fled to The Hague with Charles's permission on 21 December. To prevent the king from dissolving it at will, Parliament passed the Triennial Act, which required Parliament to be summoned at least every three years, and permitted the Lord Keeper and 12 peers to summon Parliament if the king failed to do so. The Act was coupled with a subsidy bill, and to secure the latter, Charles grudgingly granted royal assent in February 1641.
Strafford had become the principal target of the Parliamentarians, particularly John Pym, and he went on trial for high treason on 22 March 1641. But the key allegation by Sir Henry Vane that Strafford had threatened to use the Irish army to subdue England was not corroborated, and on 10 April Pym's case collapsed. Pym and his allies immediately launched a bill of attainder, which simply declared Strafford guilty and pronounced the sentence of death.
Charles assured Strafford that "upon the word of a king you shall not suffer in life, honour or fortune", and the attainder could not succeed if Charles withheld assent. Furthermore, many members and most peers opposed the attainder, not wishing, in the words of one, to "commit murder with the sword of justice". But increased tensions and an attempted coup by royalist army officers in support of Strafford and in which Charles was involved began to sway the issue. The Commons passed the bill on 20 April by a large margin (204 in favour, 59 opposed, and 230 abstained), and the Lords acquiesced (by 26 votes to 19, with 79 absent) in May. On 3 May, Parliament's Protestation attacked the "wicked counsels" of Charles's "arbitrary and tyrannical government". While those who signed the petition undertook to defend the king's "person, honour and estate", they also swore to preserve "the true reformed religion", Parliament, and the "rights and liberties of the subjects". Fearing for his family's safety in the face of unrest, Charles reluctantly assented to Strafford's attainder on 9 May after consulting his judges and bishops. Strafford was beheaded three days later.
Also in early May, Charles assented to an unprecedented Act that forbade the dissolution of the English Parliament without its consent. In the following months, ship money, fines in distraint of knighthood and excise without parliamentary consent were declared unlawful, and the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission were abolished. All remaining forms of taxation were legalised and regulated by the Tonnage and Poundage Act. The House of Commons also launched bills attacking bishops and episcopacy, but these failed in the Lords.
Charles had made important concessions in England, and temporarily improved his position in Scotland by securing the Scots' favour on a visit from August to November 1641 during which he conceded to the official establishment of presbyterianism. But after an attempted royalist coup in Scotland, known as "The Incident", Charles's credibility was significantly undermined.
### Irish rebellion
Ireland's population was split into three main sociopolitical groups: the Gaelic Irish, who were Catholic; the Old English, who were descended from medieval Normans and also predominantly Catholic; and the New English, who were Protestant settlers from England and Scotland aligned with the English Parliament and the Covenanters. Strafford's administration had improved the Irish economy and boosted tax revenue, but had done so by heavy-handedly imposing order. He had trained up a large Catholic army in support of the king and weakened the Irish Parliament's authority, while continuing to confiscate land from Catholics for Protestant settlement at the same time as promoting a Laudian Anglicanism that was anathema to presbyterians. As a result, all three groups had become disaffected. Strafford's impeachment provided a new departure for Irish politics whereby all sides joined together to present evidence against him. In a similar manner to the English Parliament, the Old English members of the Irish Parliament argued that while opposed to Strafford they remained loyal to Charles. They argued that the king had been led astray by malign counsellors, and that, moreover, a viceroy such as Strafford could emerge as a despotic figure instead of ensuring that the king was directly involved in governance.
Strafford's fall from power weakened Charles's influence in Ireland. The dissolution of the Irish army was unsuccessfully demanded three times by the English Commons during Strafford's imprisonment, until lack of money eventually forced Charles to disband the army at the end of Strafford's trial. Disputes over the transfer of land ownership from native Catholic to settler Protestant, particularly in relation to the plantation of Ulster, coupled with resentment at moves to ensure the Irish Parliament was subordinate to the Parliament of England, sowed the seeds of rebellion. When armed conflict arose between the Gaelic Irish and New English in late October 1641, the Old English sided with the Gaelic Irish while simultaneously professing their loyalty to the king.
In November 1641, the House of Commons passed the Grand Remonstrance, a long list of grievances against actions by Charles's ministers committed since the beginning of his reign (that were asserted to be part of a grand Catholic conspiracy of which the king was an unwitting member), but it was in many ways a step too far by Pym and passed by only 11 votes, 159 to 148. Furthermore, the Remonstrance had very little support in the House of Lords, which the Remonstrance attacked. The tension was heightened by news of the Irish rebellion, coupled with inaccurate rumours of Charles's complicity. Throughout November, a series of alarmist pamphlets published stories of atrocities in Ireland, including massacres of New English settlers by the native Irish who could not be controlled by the Old English lords. Rumours of "papist" conspiracies circulated in England, and English anti-Catholic opinion was strengthened, damaging Charles's reputation and authority. The English Parliament distrusted Charles's motivations when he called for funds to put down the Irish rebellion; many members of the Commons suspected that forces he raised might later be used against Parliament itself. Pym's Militia Bill was intended to wrest control of the army from the king, but it did not have the support of the Lords, let alone Charles. Instead, the Commons passed the bill as an ordinance, which they claimed did not require royal assent. The Militia Ordinance appears to have prompted more members of the Lords to support the king. In an attempt to strengthen his position, Charles generated great antipathy in London, which was already fast falling into lawlessness, when he placed the Tower of London under the command of Colonel Thomas Lunsford, an infamous, albeit efficient, career officer. When rumours reached Charles that Parliament intended to impeach his wife for supposedly conspiring with the Irish rebels, he decided to take drastic action.
### Five members
Charles suspected, probably correctly, that some members of the English Parliament had colluded with the invading Scots. On 3 January 1642, Charles directed Parliament to give up five members of the Commons—Pym, John Hampden, Denzil Holles, William Strode and Sir Arthur Haselrig—and one peer, Lord Mandeville, on the grounds of high treason. When Parliament refused, it was possibly Henrietta Maria who persuaded Charles to arrest the five members by force, which he intended to do personally. But news of the warrant reached Parliament ahead of him, and the wanted men slipped away by boat shortly before Charles entered the House of Commons with an armed guard on 4 January. Having displaced Speaker William Lenthall from his chair, the king asked him where the MPs had fled. Lenthall, on his knees, famously replied, "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here." Charles abjectly declared "all my birds have flown", and was forced to retire empty-handed.
The botched arrest attempt was politically disastrous for Charles. No English sovereign had ever entered the House of Commons, and his unprecedented invasion of the chamber to arrest its members was considered a grave breach of parliamentary privilege. In one stroke Charles destroyed his supporters' efforts to portray him as a defence against innovation and disorder.
Parliament quickly seized London, and Charles fled the capital for Hampton Court Palace on 10 January, moving two days later to Windsor Castle. After sending his wife and eldest daughter to safety abroad in February, he travelled northwards, hoping to seize the military arsenal at Hull. To his dismay, he was rebuffed by the town's Parliamentary governor, Sir John Hotham, who refused him entry in April, and Charles was forced to withdraw.
## English Civil War
In mid-1642, both sides began to arm. Charles raised an army using the medieval method of commission of array, and Parliament called for volunteers for its militia. The negotiations proved futile, and Charles raised the royal standard in Nottingham on 22 August 1642. By then, his forces controlled roughly the Midlands, Wales, the West Country and northern England. He set up his court at Oxford. Parliament controlled London, the south-east and East Anglia, as well as the English navy.
After a few skirmishes, the opposing forces met in earnest at Edgehill, on 23 October 1642. Charles's nephew Prince Rupert of the Rhine disagreed with the battle strategy of the royalist commander Lord Lindsey, and Charles sided with Rupert. Lindsey resigned, leaving Charles to assume overall command assisted by Lord Forth. Rupert's cavalry successfully charged through the parliamentary ranks, but instead of swiftly returning to the field, rode off to plunder the parliamentary baggage train. Lindsey, acting as a colonel, was wounded and bled to death without medical attention. The battle ended inconclusively as the daylight faded.
In his own words, the experience of battle had left Charles "exceedingly and deeply grieved". He regrouped at Oxford, turning down Rupert's suggestion of an immediate attack on London. After a week, he set out for the capital on 3 November, capturing Brentford on the way while simultaneously continuing to negotiate with civic and parliamentary delegations. At Turnham Green on the outskirts of London, the royalist army met resistance from the city militia, and faced with a numerically superior force, Charles ordered a retreat. He overwintered in Oxford, strengthening the city's defences and preparing for the next season's campaign. Peace talks between the two sides collapsed in April.
The war continued indecisively over the next couple of years, and Henrietta Maria returned to Britain for 17 months from February 1643. After Rupert captured Bristol in July 1643, Charles visited the port city and laid siege to Gloucester, further up the river Severn. His plan to undermine the city walls failed due to heavy rain, and on the approach of a parliamentary relief force, Charles lifted the siege and withdrew to Sudeley Castle. The parliamentary army turned back towards London, and Charles set off in pursuit. The two armies met at Newbury, Berkshire, on 20 September. Just as at Edgehill, the battle stalemated at nightfall, and the armies disengaged. In January 1644, Charles summoned a Parliament at Oxford, which was attended by about 40 peers and 118 members of the Commons; all told, the Oxford Parliament, which sat until March 1645, was supported by the majority of peers and about a third of the Commons. Charles became disillusioned by the assembly's ineffectiveness, calling it a "mongrel" in private letters to his wife.
In 1644, Charles remained in the southern half of England while Rupert rode north to relieve Newark and York, which were under threat from parliamentary and Scottish Covenanter armies. Charles was victorious at the battle of Cropredy Bridge in late June, but the royalists in the north were defeated at the battle of Marston Moor just a few days later. The king continued his campaign in the south, encircling and disarming the parliamentary army of the Earl of Essex. Returning northwards to his base at Oxford, he fought at Newbury for a second time before the winter closed in; the battle ended indecisively. Attempts to negotiate a settlement over the winter, while both sides rearmed and reorganised, were again unsuccessful.
At the battle of Naseby on 14 June 1645, Rupert's horsemen again mounted a successful charge against the flank of Parliament's New Model Army, but elsewhere on the field, opposing forces pushed Charles's troops back. Attempting to rally his men, Charles rode forward, but as he did so, Lord Carnwath seized his bridle and pulled him back, fearing for the king's safety. The royalist soldiers misinterpreted Carnwath's action as a signal to move back, leading to a collapse of their position. The military balance tipped decisively in favour of Parliament. There followed a series of defeats for the royalists, and then the siege of Oxford, from which Charles escaped (disguised as a servant) in April 1646. He put himself into the hands of the Scottish presbyterian army besieging Newark, and was taken northwards to Newcastle upon Tyne. After nine months of negotiations, the Scots finally arrived at an agreement with the English Parliament: in exchange for £100,000, and the promise of more money in the future, the Scots withdrew from Newcastle and delivered Charles to the parliamentary commissioners in January 1647.
### Captivity
Parliament held Charles under house arrest at Holdenby House in Northamptonshire until Cornet George Joyce took him by threat of force from Holdenby on 3 June in the name of the New Model Army. By this time, mutual suspicion had developed between Parliament, which favoured army disbandment and presbyterianism, and the New Model Army, which was primarily officered by congregationalist Independents, who sought a greater political role. Charles was eager to exploit the widening divisions, and apparently viewed Joyce's actions as an opportunity rather than a threat. He was taken first to Newmarket, at his own suggestion, and then transferred to Oatlands and subsequently Hampton Court, while more fruitless negotiations took place. By November, he determined that it would be in his best interests to escape—perhaps to France, Southern England or Berwick-upon-Tweed, near the Scottish border. He fled Hampton Court on 11 November, and from the shores of Southampton Water made contact with Colonel Robert Hammond, Parliamentary Governor of the Isle of Wight, whom he apparently believed to be sympathetic. But Hammond confined Charles in Carisbrooke Castle and informed Parliament that Charles was in his custody.
From Carisbrooke, Charles continued to try to bargain with the various parties. In direct contrast to his previous conflict with the Scottish Kirk, on 26 December 1647 he signed a secret treaty with the Scots. Under the agreement, called the "Engagement", the Scots undertook to invade England on Charles's behalf and restore him to the throne on condition that presbyterianism be established in England for three years.
The royalists rose in May 1648, igniting the Second Civil War, and as agreed with Charles, the Scots invaded England. Uprisings in Kent, Essex, and Cumberland, and a rebellion in South Wales, were put down by the New Model Army, and with the defeat of the Scots at the Battle of Preston in August 1648, the royalists lost any chance of winning the war.
Charles's only recourse was to return to negotiations, which were held at Newport on the Isle of Wight. On 5 December 1648, Parliament voted 129 to 83 to continue negotiating with the king, but Oliver Cromwell and the army opposed any further talks with someone they viewed as a bloody tyrant and were already taking action to consolidate their power. Hammond was replaced as Governor of the Isle of Wight on 27 November, and placed in the custody of the army the following day. In Pride's Purge on 6 and 7 December, the members of Parliament out of sympathy with the military were arrested or excluded by Colonel Thomas Pride, while others stayed away voluntarily. The remaining members formed the Rump Parliament. It was effectively a military coup.
## Trial
Charles was moved to Hurst Castle at the end of 1648, and thereafter to Windsor Castle. In January 1649, the Rump House of Commons indicted him for treason; the House of Lords rejected the charge. The idea of trying a king was novel. The Chief Justices of the three common law courts of England—Henry Rolle, Oliver St John and John Wilde—all opposed the indictment as unlawful. The Rump Commons declared itself capable of legislating alone, passed a bill creating a separate court for Charles's trial, and declared the bill an act without the need for royal assent. The High Court of Justice established by the Act consisted of 135 commissioners, but many either refused to serve or chose to stay away. Only 68 (all firm Parliamentarians) attended Charles's trial on charges of high treason and "other high crimes" that began on 20 January 1649 in Westminster Hall. John Bradshaw acted as President of the Court, and the prosecution was led by Solicitor General John Cook.
Charles was accused of treason against England by using his power to pursue his personal interest rather than the good of the country. The charge stated that he was devising "a wicked design to erect and uphold in himself an unlimited and tyrannical power to rule according to his will, and to overthrow the rights and liberties of the people". In carrying this out he had "traitorously and maliciously levied war against the present Parliament, and the people therein represented", and that the "wicked designs, wars, and evil practices of him, the said Charles Stuart, have been, and are carried on for the advancement and upholding of a personal interest of will, power, and pretended prerogative to himself and his family, against the public interest, common right, liberty, justice, and peace of the people of this nation." Presaging the modern concept of command responsibility, the indictment held him "guilty of all the treasons, murders, rapines, burnings, spoils, desolations, damages and mischiefs to this nation, acted and committed in the said wars, or occasioned thereby." An estimated 300,000 people, or 6% of the population, died during the war.
Over the first three days of the trial, whenever Charles was asked to plead, he refused, stating his objection with the words: "I would know by what power I am called hither, by what lawful authority...?" He claimed that no court had jurisdiction over a monarch, that his own authority to rule had been given to him by God and by the traditional laws of England, and that the power wielded by those trying him was only that of force of arms. Charles insisted that the trial was illegal, explaining that,
> no earthly power can justly call me (who am your King) in question as a delinquent ... this day's proceeding cannot be warranted by God's laws; for, on the contrary, the authority of obedience unto Kings is clearly warranted, and strictly commanded in both the Old and New Testament ... for the law of this land, I am no less confident, that no learned lawyer will affirm that an impeachment can lie against the King, they all going in his name: and one of their maxims is, that the King can do no wrong ... the higher House is totally excluded; and for the House of Commons, it is too well known that the major part of them are detained or deterred from sitting ... the arms I took up were only to defend the fundamental laws of this kingdom against those who have supposed my power hath totally changed the ancient government.
The court, by contrast, challenged the doctrine of sovereign immunity and proposed that "the King of England was not a person, but an office whose every occupant was entrusted with a limited power to govern 'by and according to the laws of the land and not otherwise'."
At the end of the third day, Charles was removed from the court, which then heard over 30 witnesses against him in his absence over the next two days, and on 26 January condemned him to death. The next day, the king was brought before a public session of the commission, declared guilty, and sentenced. The judgement read, "For all which treasons and crimes this court doth adjudge that he, the said Charles Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the good people of this nation, shall be put to death by the severing of his head from his body." Fifty-nine of the commissioners signed Charles's death warrant.
## Execution
Charles's execution was scheduled for Tuesday, 30 January 1649. Two of his children remained in England under the control of the Parliamentarians: Elizabeth and Henry. They were permitted to visit him on 29 January, and he bade them a tearful farewell. The next morning, he called for two shirts to prevent the cold weather causing any noticeable shivers that the crowd could have mistaken for fear: "the season is so sharp as probably may make me shake, which some observers may imagine proceeds from fear. I would have no such imputation."
He walked under guard from St James's Palace, where he had been confined, to the Palace of Whitehall, where an execution scaffold had been erected in front of the Banqueting House. Charles was separated from spectators by large ranks of soldiers, and his last speech reached only those with him on the scaffold. He blamed his fate on his failure to prevent the execution of his loyal servant Strafford: "An unjust sentence that I suffered to take effect, is punished now by an unjust sentence on me." He declared that he had desired the liberty and freedom of the people as much as any, "but I must tell you that their liberty and freedom consists in having government ... It is not their having a share in the government; that is nothing appertaining unto them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things." He continued, "I shall go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be."
At about 2:00 p.m., Charles put his head on the block after saying a prayer and signalled the executioner when he was ready by stretching out his hands; he was then beheaded in one clean stroke. According to observer Philip Henry, a moan "as I never heard before and desire I may never hear again" rose from the assembled crowd, some of whom then dipped their handkerchiefs in the king's blood as a memento.
The executioner was masked and disguised, and there is debate over his identity. The commissioners approached Richard Brandon, the common hangman of London, but he refused, at least at first, despite being offered £200 – a considerably large sum for the time. It is possible he relented and undertook the commission after being threatened with death, but others have been named as potential candidates, including George Joyce, William Hulet and Hugh Peters. The clean strike, confirmed by an examination of the king's body at Windsor in 1813, suggests that the execution was carried out by an experienced headsman.
It was common practice for the severed head of a traitor to be held up and exhibited to the crowd with the words "Behold the head of a traitor!" Charles's head was exhibited, but those words were not used, possibly because the executioner did not want his voice recognised. On the day after the execution, the king's head was sewn back onto his body, which was then embalmed and placed in a lead coffin.
The commission refused to allow Charles's burial at Westminster Abbey, so his body was conveyed to Windsor on the night of 7 February. He was buried in private on 9 February 1649 in the Henry VIII vault in the chapel's quire, alongside the coffins of Henry VIII and Henry's third wife, Jane Seymour, in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. The king's son, Charles II, later planned for an elaborate royal mausoleum to be erected in Hyde Park, London, but it was never built.
## Legacy
Ten days after Charles's execution, on the day of his interment, a memoir purportedly written by him appeared for sale. This book, the Eikon Basilike (Greek for the "Royal Portrait"), contained an apologia for royal policies, and proved an effective piece of royalist propaganda. John Milton wrote a Parliamentary rejoinder, the Eikonoklastes ("The Iconoclast"), but the response made little headway against the pathos of the royalist book. Anglicans and royalists fashioned an image of martyrdom, and in the Convocations of Canterbury and York of 1660 King Charles the Martyr was added to the Church of England's liturgical calendar. High church Anglicans held special services on the anniversary of his death. Churches, such as those at Falmouth and Tunbridge Wells, and Anglican devotional societies such as the Society of King Charles the Martyr, were founded in his honour.
With the monarchy overthrown, England became a republic or "Commonwealth". The House of Lords was abolished by the Rump Commons, and executive power was assumed by a Council of State. All significant military opposition in Britain and Ireland was extinguished by the forces of Oliver Cromwell in the Third English Civil War and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. Cromwell forcibly disbanded the Rump Parliament in 1653, thereby establishing the Protectorate with himself as Lord Protector. Upon his death in 1658, he was briefly succeeded by his ineffective son, Richard. Parliament was reinstated, and the monarchy was restored to Charles I's eldest son, Charles II, in 1660.
Charles's unprecedented 1642 invasion of the House of Commons' chamber, a grave violation of the liberties of Parliament, and his unsuccessful attempt to arrest five Members of Parliament is commemorated annually at the State Opening of Parliament.
### Art
Partly inspired by his visit to the Spanish court in 1623, Charles became a passionate and knowledgeable art collector, amassing one of the finest art collections ever assembled. In Spain, he sat for a sketch by Velázquez, and acquired works by Titian and Correggio, among others. In England, his commissions included the ceiling of the Banqueting House, Whitehall, by Rubens and paintings by other artists from the Low Countries such as van Honthorst, Mytens, and van Dyck. His close associates, including the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Arundel, shared his interest and have been dubbed the Whitehall Group. In 1627 and 1628, Charles purchased the entire collection of the Duke of Mantua, which included work by Titian, Correggio, Raphael, Caravaggio, del Sarto and Mantegna. His collection grew further to encompass Bernini, Bruegel, Leonardo, Holbein, Hollar, Tintoretto and Veronese, and self-portraits by both Dürer and Rembrandt. By Charles's death, there were an estimated 1,760 paintings, most of which were sold and dispersed by Parliament.
### Assessments
In the words of John Philipps Kenyon, "Charles Stuart is a man of contradictions and controversy". Revered by high Tories who considered him a saintly martyr, he was condemned by Whig historians, such as Samuel Rawson Gardiner, who thought him duplicitous and delusional. In recent decades, most historians have criticised him, the main exception being Kevin Sharpe, who offered a more sympathetic view that has not been widely adopted. Sharpe argued that the king was a dynamic man of conscience, but Barry Coward thought Charles "the most incompetent monarch of England since Henry VI", a view shared by Ronald Hutton, who called him "the worst king we have had since the Middle Ages".
Archbishop William Laud, whom Parliament beheaded during the war, described Charles as "A mild and gracious prince who knew not how to be, or how to be made, great." Charles was more sober and refined than his father, but he was intransigent. He deliberately pursued unpopular policies that brought ruin on himself. Both Charles and James were advocates of the divine right of kings, but while James's ambitions concerning absolute prerogative were tempered by compromise and consensus with his subjects, Charles believed he had no need to compromise or even to explain his actions. He thought he was answerable only to God. "Princes are not bound to give account of their actions," he wrote, "but to God alone".
## Titles, styles, honours and arms
### Titles and styles
- 23 December 1600 – 27 March 1625: Duke of Albany, Marquess of Ormonde, Earl of Ross and Lord Ardmannoch
- 6 January 1605 – 27 March 1625: Duke of York
- 6 November 1612 – 27 March 1625: Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay
- 4 November 1616 – 27 March 1625: Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester
- 27 March 1625 – 30 January 1649: His Majesty The King
The official style of Charles I as king in England was "Charles, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc." The style "of France" was only nominal, and was used by every English monarch from Edward III to George III, regardless of the amount of French territory actually controlled. The authors of his death warrant called him "Charles Stuart, King of England".
### Honours
- KB: Knight of the Bath, 6 January 1605
- KG: Knight of the Garter, 24 April 1611
### Arms
As Duke of York, Charles bore the royal arms of the kingdom differenced by a label Argent of three points, each bearing three torteaux Gules. As the Prince of Wales, he bore the royal arms differenced by a plain label Argent of three points. As king, Charles bore the royal arms undifferenced: Quarterly, I and IV Grandquarterly, Azure three fleurs-de-lis Or (for France) and Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England); II Or a lion rampant within a tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland). In Scotland, the Scottish arms were placed in the first and fourth quarters with the English and French arms in the second quarter.
## Issue
Charles had nine children, two of whom eventually succeeded as king, and two of whom died at or shortly after birth.
## Ancestry
|
1,435,357 |
André Messager
| 1,170,337,021 |
French opera composer and conductor
|
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"Commanders of the Legion of Honour",
"Directors of the Paris Opera",
"French ballet composers",
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"Pupils of Camille Saint-Saëns"
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André Charles Prosper Messager (; 30 December 1853 – 24 February 1929) was a French composer, organist, pianist and conductor. His compositions include eight ballets and thirty opéras comiques, opérettes and other stage works, among which his ballet Les Deux Pigeons (1886) and opéra comique Véronique (1898) have had lasting success; Les P'tites Michu (1897) and Monsieur Beaucaire (1919) were also popular internationally.
Messager took up the piano as a small child and later studied composition with, among others, Camille Saint-Saëns and Gabriel Fauré. He became a major figure in the musical life of Paris and later London, both as a conductor and a composer. Many of his Parisian works were also produced in the West End and some on Broadway; the most successful had long runs and numerous international revivals. He wrote two operatic works in English, and his later output included musical comedies for Sacha Guitry and Yvonne Printemps.
As a conductor, Messager held prominent positions in Paris and London, at the head of the Opéra-Comique, the Paris Opéra, the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Although as a composer he is known chiefly for his light works, as a conductor he presented a wide range of operas, from Mozart to Richard Strauss, and he acquired a reputation as a conductor of Wagner. In Paris he conducted the world premieres of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, Massenet's Grisélidis and Charpentier's Louise. At Covent Garden, he gave the British premieres of operas by Saint-Saëns and Massenet.
Messager's music became known for its melodic and orchestral invention, musical craftsmanship, and characteristically French elegance and grace. Although most of his works have been infrequently revived, historians of music consider him the last major figure in French opéra comique and opérette.
## Life and career
### Early years
Messager was born at Montluçon, Allier, in central France on 30 December 1853, the son of Paul-Philippe-Émile Messager, a prosperous local tax collector, and his wife Sophie-Cornélie, née Lhôte de Selancy. He recalled, "You would not find any musicians among my ancestors. When very young I learned the piano; but later on my intentions to become a composer met with such opposition from my father". At the age of seven he was sent as a boarder to a Marist school where he continued his interest in the piano.
Towards the end of the 1860s disastrous stock-market speculation brought Messager's family financial ruin and they could no longer afford to keep him at the Marist school. They dropped their objection to music as a profession, viewing a post as a church organist as a respectable and steady career. He was awarded a bursary to study at the École Niedermeyer in Paris, an academy known for its focus on church music. This was at the time of the Paris Commune (1871), and to escape the violence in the city the school was temporarily evacuated to Switzerland. Messager studied piano with Adam Lausset, organ with Clément Loret, and composition with Eugène Gigout, Gabriel Fauré and (after leaving Niedermeyer's school) Camille Saint-Saëns. The musicologist Jean-Michel Nectoux comments that after his studies Messager developed into one of the finest orchestrators of the period.
Fauré and Messager quickly moved from being master and pupil to being firm friends and occasional collaborators. In 1874 Messager succeeded Fauré as organiste du chœur (choir organist) at Saint-Sulpice, Paris, under the principal organist, Charles-Marie Widor. In 1876 he won the gold medal of the Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique with a symphony, the work being warmly received when performed by the Concerts Colonne at the Théâtre du Châtelet in January 1878. He won further prizes for his cantatas Don Juan et Haydée and Prométhée enchaîné.
In 1879 Fauré and Messager travelled to Cologne to see Wagner's Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, and later to Munich for the complete Ring cycle, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Tannhäuser; in 1888 they went to Bayreuth for Die Meistersinger and Parsifal. They frequently performed as a party piece their joint composition, the irreverent Souvenirs de Bayreuth (c. 1888). This short, skittish piano work for four hands burlesques motifs from The Ring. The two composers had a more serious collaboration, their Messe des pêcheurs de Villerville (1881).
### First successes
In 1878 Messager was appointed conductor at the Folies Bergère, and he began his career composing for the stage with two short ballets, Fleur d'oranger (1878) and Les Vins de France (1879). In 1880 a former manager of the Folies, M. Comy, was appointed to run the new Eden Théâtre in Brussels. At his invitation, Messager resigned from the Folies in 1880 and became conductor of the Eden. He returned to Paris in 1881 as organist of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis church, and from 1882 to 1884 he was organist and choirmaster at Ste Marie-des-Batignolles, a small church in the north west of Paris, where his assistant was another young composer, Claude Terrasse.
Messager's career took a new turn in 1883 when the composer Firmin Bernicat died leaving an unfinished opérette, François les bas-bleus. Messager was invited to complete it; he orchestrated the entire work and composed between twelve and fifteen numbers. It was staged in November 1883 at the Théâtre des Folies-Dramatiques and was an immediate critical and popular success. It was later produced in London and New York. In 1883, while deputising for Saint-Saëns as the soloist at a concert in Le Havre, Messager met a young woman, Edith Clouette, whom he married in the same year. Fauré played the organ at the ceremony, and composed a mildly cynical song, "Madrigal", as a wedding present. There was one child of the marriage, Jean André Emile Charles (1886–1952).
In December 1883 Messager and Emmanuel Chabrier gave the first performance of the latter's Trois valses romantiques at the Société Nationale de Musique. The concert also included the premiere of the two-piano version of España, arranged by Messager. Messager and Chabrier were close friends until the latter's death in 1894. Both were known for their comic operas and opérettes, but Chabrier's one serious opera, Gwendoline, appealed strongly to Messager, who vowed to conduct it in Paris, which he later did. He also prepared a piano reduction of the orchestral parts for the vocal score of the work.
Following the success of François les bas-bleus Messager accepted simultaneous invitations to compose a ballet for the Opéra and an opérette for the Folies-Dramatiques. The opérette, La Fauvette du temple, first performed on 17 November 1885, confirmed Messager's early reputation. It ran well into the following year in Paris, and he was able to sell the British rights immediately, though the work was not staged in London until 1891. The ballet, Les Deux Pigeons, which became one of Messager's best known works, took longer to reach the stage. It was put into rehearsal at the Opéra, but the staging, which showed a tree being struck by lightning in a storm scene, was considered a fire hazard by the police, and the production was temporarily shelved.
A month after the opening of La Fauvette du temple the Bouffes-Parisiens premiered Messager's opéra comique La Béarnaise, with Jeanne Granier in the title role. It ran for three months and was successfully produced in Britain the following year with a cast including Florence St. John and Marie Tempest, running for more than 200 performances. The Times said of this production that it gave Messager a secure footing in London, which led to important results later in his career. A production of La Béarnaise in New York followed in 1887, under the title Jacquette.
In 1886 Les Deux Pigeons was finally produced at the Paris Opéra and was a box office triumph. It was Messager's last popular success for four years. His attempt at a more serious opera, Le Bourgeois de Calais (1888), was not well received. Richard Traubner remarks in Operetta: A Theatrical History on its "boring historical plot, bad lyrics, and a banal score"; a contemporary critic wrote, "That Le Bourgeois de Calais will have a successful career there is not the faintest chance, for all the patriotic bolstering in the world could not make it an attractive piece." Messager followed this with a musical fairy tale, Isoline (1888), which was slightly better received, and a three-act opérette, Le Mari de la reine (1889), which failed, although Messager thought it "the best of my flops".
### Fin de siècle
Messager's fortunes revived in 1890 with La Basoche, produced with much success at the Opéra-Comique. The critic who had pronounced so unfavourably on Le Bourgeois de Calais wrote of the new piece, "an exceptionally pleasing work ... a dainty piece which cannot fail to obtain widespread popularity." An English-language version was produced in London in 1891 by Richard D'Oyly Carte. The theatrical newspaper The Era said, "The Basoche is more than a success; it is a triumph", but the piece had only a modest London run of three months. A New York production was given in 1893 but was not a success.
Messager was a dandy and a philanderer. The musical historian D. Kern Holoman describes him as "given to immaculately tailored suits emphasizing his thin frame, careful grooming with particular attention to his mustaches, fine jewelry, and spats ... a witty conversationalist with an inexhaustible store of anecdotes and bons mots" and a womaniser. In the early 1890s Edith Messager, tired of her husband's infidelities, divorced him. Shortly afterwards she became ill; her condition deteriorated, and Messager visited her daily. By the time of her death in 1892 the two had become close again, and Messager felt her loss deeply.
In 1892 Messager's career as a conductor began to advance when he was invited to conduct Die Walküre at Marseille. As a composer the early 1890s brought him mixed fortunes. Madame Chrysanthème, staged at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in 1893, was a setting of Pierre Loti's story of a betrayed geisha, a theme that later inspired Puccini's Madama Butterfly; it was politely rather than enthusiastically received. Mirette, produced by Carte at the Savoy Theatre in 1894, was Messager's first opera written expressly for the London stage and was the only original Savoy opera by a French composer. To assist him in what was for him (at the time) an unfamiliar idiom, Messager enlisted the help of the songwriter Dotie (Alice Maude) Davis (1859–1938), known professionally as Hope Temple. She became Messager's second wife in 1895. According to Bernard Shaw, Messager, concluding from the reception of La Basoche in London that it was unwise to offer the British public anything too intelligent, decided that the new opera was going to be as commonplace as possible. It ran for 41 performances, was withdrawn and revised, and then ran for another 61 performances. Messager vetoed any production in Paris. His next opera, a serious work, Le Chevalier d'Harmental (1896), was unsuccessful, and for a while he and his new wife withdrew to the English countryside near Maidenhead, Berkshire.
From 1897 Messager's career revived. He later recalled that he had received by post an unsolicited libretto:
> I was attracted by the gaiety of its subject, and putting aside my dark thoughts, I set to work on it with such enthusiasm that the work was completed in three months, and performed in the same year at the Bouffes, with great success. I have since found out that the libretto had been turned down by two or three composers.
This was the opérette Les P'tites Michu, which was presented to great acclaim at the Bouffes-Parisiens. Its 1905 English adaptation in London ran for 401 performances. Soon afterwards he was appointed musical director of the Opéra-Comique, and in the commercial theatre had another outstanding success with Véronique (1898).
In 1898 Messager's only child from his second marriage, Madeleine Hope Andrée (d. 1986) was born. From that year to 1904 Messager's work at the Opéra-Comique left him little time for composition, particularly after 1901, when he also spent May to July at the Royal Opera House in London. He turned down W. S. Gilbert's offer of a collaboration, and wrote only two stage works between 1898 and 1914. His international fame as a composer nevertheless grew, with productions of Les P'tites Michu and Véronique in countries including Britain, Spain, Switzerland, Germany and the US. Unusually for the London stage at the time, Véronique was given in French in 1903. An English translation was staged the following year and ran for 496 performances. Messager conducted the first nights of both productions. The English version was staged in New York the following year, running for 81 performances.
### Twentieth century
At the Opéra-Comique, Messager conducted the premieres of Massenet's Grisélidis and Charpentier's Louise, and gave the first French performances of operas as contrasted as Hansel and Gretel and Tosca. But by far the best known of his premieres was Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande (1902). Messager encouraged the composer to complete the opera and worked closely with him in getting the orchestration ready for the premiere. In gratitude Debussy dedicated the work to Messager. Holoman writes, "his championing of Pelléas et Mélisande alone would have earned him a place in music history." Debussy regarded Messager as the ideal conductor. Before the premiere he had trusted him to "make his dream into a reality"; after it he praised him for knowing "how to awaken the inner sound world of Pelléas with tender delicacy". After Messager's commitments obliged him to leave Paris for London, Debussy found the performances much less satisfactory. As a conductor, Messager won praise on both sides of the English Channel. The English music critic Francis Toye wrote that, good though Arturo Toscanini's conducting of Pelléas et Mélisande was at La Scala in Milan, Messager's was still better. The Parisian critic Pierre Lalo said of Messager:
> He was an incomparable conductor of Pelléas – perfect and complete. With him, nothing was missing from this work of Debussy, with extreme refinement and lightness at the same time, and the most penetrating and delicate poetry, all the necessary emphasis, all the accents right and fine, and never anything hard or exaggerated – truly a marvel.
From 1901 to 1907 Messager was one of the directors of the Grand Opera Syndicate, which ran the annual seasons at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, featuring the leading singers of the day, including Nellie Melba and Enrico Caruso. Much of his time was spent on administration, and he had limited scope for conducting. From 1901, for two years, Messager had an affair with the Scottish soprano Mary Garden, whom he met at the Opéra-Comique and conducted when she took over the title role of Louise. She also appeared in a revival of his Madame Chrysanthème. His first appearance as a conductor at Covent Garden was in 1902 for the first performance of Princess Osra by Herbert Bunning. He next conducted there in 1904 in the British premiere of Saint-Saëns's Hélène, followed in 1905 by Carmen, Don Giovanni, Faust, the world première of Franco Leoni's L'oracolo, Orphée et Euridice and Roméo et Juliette; in his final year, 1906, he conducted Armide, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Faust, the British premiere of Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame, and Roméo et Juliette. In 1906 he also introduced to Covent Garden his ballet Les Deux Pigeons. Despite his reputation as a Wagnerian, he yielded the baton for Wagner performances to Hans Richter, widely regarded as the world's foremost exponent of Wagner's music. In 1906 Messager and the London Symphony Orchestra travelled to Paris to play a programme of English music at the Châtelet Theatre, including works by Sullivan, Parry and Stanford. When he left Covent Garden in 1907, the directors found it necessary to appoint two people to fill his place: Neil Forsyth as general manager and Percy Pitt as musical director.
In 1907 Messager returned to composition. His "comédie lyrique" Fortunio was presented at the Opéra-Comique with great success. In the same year he was appointed joint director of the Paris Opéra, responsible for the artistic direction, with Frederick Broussan, formerly director of the Lyons Opera, taking charge of administration. The partnership lasted until 1913, but its success was hampered by shortage of funds and internal disputes. Messager decided on a policy of making the Opéra "more genuinely French". He revived Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, for the first time in Paris since 1767, and presented unusual French repertoire including Fauré's Pénélope. Foreign opera was not neglected; Messager gave Paris its first complete Ring cycle, presented a Russian season starring Félia Litvinne and Feodor Chaliapin, and conducted the French premiere of Richard Strauss's Salome. At the invitation of the Emperor Wilhelm II, Messager and Broussan took the Opéra company to Berlin in 1908. Relations between the two co-directors were not always harmonious; after the French government refused Messager's resignation on at least one occasion, he finally announced it in November 1913, a year before his term of office was due to expire. He consented to return in January 1914 to conduct Parsifal – its first performance in Europe outside Bayreuth. His conducting of the work won critical praise.
On the strength of his experience as a Wagnerian, Messager was appointed conductor of the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire in 1908. It was at the time, and for many years, the most prestigious symphony orchestra in France, and Messager was determined that it should enjoy the international prestige of the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras. Alongside the main orchestral repertoire of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt and French classics, Messager conducted major choral works by J. S. Bach, Handel, Schumann and Berlioz, as well as introducing early French music such as that of Janequin. In the 1913–14 season, he conducted a chronological cycle of Beethoven's symphonies and his Missa solemnis, as well as Verdi's Requiem, for the Italian composer's centenary. Messager took the orchestra outside Paris to Lille, Lyon and Antwerp during these years. During the First World War he took the orchestra on tour to Argentina (1916), Switzerland (1917), and the US and Canada (1918–19), giving concerts in more than 50 cities. After their concert at the Metropolitan Opera House in October 1918, the orchestra and Messager received a prolonged ovation that was typical of their reception as the tour progressed. At the end of that tour Messager retired from his post.
Messager was criticised for performing the music of Wagner during the war, but he maintained that German music represented the noble side of the enemy nation's nature. Like Fauré, Messager refused to have anything to do with the National League for the Defence of French Music (La Ligue Nationale pour la Defense de la Musique Française), led by Saint-Saëns, which sought to boycott German music.
In 1914 Messager composed Béatrice, described as a "légende lyrique", based on the 1911 play The Miracle. The premiere was in Monte Carlo. The work was performed in Paris in 1917 but was not successful. In 1915 Messager joined with other musicians in contributing compositions to King Albert's Book to raise money for "the relief of the suffering Belgian people"; the other composers included Debussy, Elgar, Mascagni and Saint-Saëns.
In 1919 Messager's operetta Monsieur Beaucaire was premiered in Birmingham prior to a long run in the West End. The composer, who generally conducted British premieres of his works, was suffering from sciatica and could not even be in the audience for the first nights in either city. The work received its Paris premiere at the Théâtre Marigny in 1925, and it ran for 143 performances on Broadway. Later in 1919 Messager resumed the musical directorship of the Opéra-Comique for the 1919–20 season, conducting among other works the first complete performance in France of Così fan tutte.
### Last years
In the 1920s, Messager kept pace with the change in fashion in musical theatre, consciously absorbing the styles of musical comedy, lightening his orchestration, but maintaining a Gallic flavour, mostly avoiding American dance-rhythm influences. He collaborated with Sacha Guitry on the musical comedies L'Amour masqué (1923) and Deburau (1926), starring Yvonne Printemps. The former was a considerable success in Paris, but in London the official censor, the Lord Chamberlain, declared it "unfit for the English public", and banned C. B. Cochran's planned production starring Printemps and Guitry. In Messager's late stage works his lighter touch was balanced by echoes of the nineteenth century, with hints of Fauré and, particularly, Chabrier's L'Étoile. Fauré, by 1923 too frail and deaf to go to the theatre, was lent a copy of the score of L'Amour masqué and wrote to Messager, "Your wit is the same as always – it never grows old – and so are your charm and very personal brand of music that always remains exquisite even amid the broadest clowning". Fauré died the following year, and Messager dedicated the music of Deburau to his memory.
In 1924 Sergei Diaghilev persuaded Messager to conduct the Paris premieres of Auric's ballet Les Fâcheux and Poulenc's Les Biches. In 1928 Messager played a key role in establishing important updates to copyright law, though he was on the losing side of the case. He sued the BBC for breach of copyright for broadcasting his works without his consent. He lost because he had assigned his British performing rights to George Edwardes, whose estate had given the BBC permission for the broadcast. The case established that as the broadcasting rights had not been specifically reserved, the Edwardes estate's rights included them.
After a short illness Messager died in Paris on 24 February 1929 aged 75. He was interred in the Passy Cemetery near the graves of Debussy and Fauré. His last completed work, the opérette Coups de roulis, was running in Paris when he died. A contemporary critic commented, "Its tuneful melodies show that the veteran composer had lost nothing of the qualities that made Véronique such a success. Throughout his life Messager remained without a peer as a composer of light music."
### Honours and awards
Messager was elected President of the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques in 1926, the first composer to hold this office. In the same year he was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts. In 1927 he was appointed Commander of the Légion d'honneur. In his native town of Montluçon, the music academy, opened in 2009, is named in his honour. In 2003, to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth, Messager was the subject of a large exhibition at the Musée des musiques populaires de Montluçon, recounting his biography and illustrating his works in the various genres. Among the comité d'honneur of the exhibition were the composer's three grandchildren, and the singers Susan Graham, Dame Felicity Lott and Mady Mesplé, the conductors Sir John Eliot Gardiner, John Nelson and Michel Plasson, and the director Jérôme Savary.
## Music
In his 1991 study of Messager, John Wagstaff writes that the composer's music is notable for its fine orchestration, easy-flowing melody, and skilfully written music, dance-like in character. Unlike his teacher Fauré, Messager enjoyed orchestrating. He said that musical ideas came to him "already clothed in the appropriate instrumental shades", and after the concentrated effort of composing his scores he found it relaxing to work on "the handling of instruments, the balancing of different sonorities, the grouping of colours and the structuring of effects". He remarked that composers who had their music orchestrated by assistants presumably did not care if their helpers lacked "that indefinable sixth sense which would indicate the right combination of sonorities to carry out the original intentions of the composer". To Messager, passages often depended for their significance or flavour on the orchestral writing alone.
Gervase Hughes, in a study of French opérette, comments that Messager's only technical defect was "one all too common to many composers of operetta – too close an adherence to repetitive rhythmic figures and four-bar rigidity", although such was Messager's "innate artistry that criticism on that score would be academic pedantry". One of the composer's distinguishing characteristics was a liking for chromaticism; this appealed to a younger generation of composers. His "Eh que ne parliez-vous?", from La Basoche, was quoted note-for-note by Poulenc in Les Mamelles de Tirésias. Although Messager greatly admired Wagner, and was a celebrated conductor of his music, he distanced himself from Wagnerian influences in his own compositions. In Madame Chrysanthème he made use of leitmotifs, and included other references to Wagner, but such examples are rare in his works.
Unlike some older contemporaries such as Saint-Saëns and Massenet, Messager remained open to new ideas and idioms throughout his life, and his style evolved to match the spirit of the times. His biographer and former pupil Henry Février commented that from classic opéras comiques, such as La Basoche, Messager's later works, such as Les P'tites Michu and Véronique, show a difference in style, "bringing an altogether fresher approach to the genre." Towards the end of his career Messager successfully moved to "comédie musicale", the French form of musical comedy.
Ballets apart, Messager composed thirty works for the stage; they fall into several different, or sometimes overlapping, genres; the most numerous are opéras comiques (9), opérettes (7) and comédies musicales (3). The composer remarked late in his career:
> I have never intended to write what is nowadays called "opérette". This designation – which all too often has pejorative overtones – seems to have become common since the work of Lecocq. Many of my works ... were only called operéttes at the request of theatre directors who saw in that term some extra chance of success. Neither did I wish to compose opéra-bouffes, the best examples of which were provided by the works of Offenbach, where the element of parody is very dominant. My idea was always to continue the tradition of French opéra-comique (with dialogue) as established by Dalayrac, Boieldieu and Auber.
### Early stage works
Although Messager called some of his early stage works opéras comiques they have, Gervase Hughes suggests, more in common with opérette than their composer acknowledged. Nevertheless, Messager introduced adventurous modern harmonic details in his early pieces, and strove to raise the artistic standards of opérette to that of opéra comique while retaining the essential panache of the genre. Hughes finds the first stage works uneven in quality but La Fauvette du temple (1884) to contain two fine expressive duets as well as waltzes and polkas with "an Offenbach lilt". Hughes judges the next two scores, La Béarnaise and La Fauvette (both 1885), less satisfying but nonetheless at least as good as anything by Messager's older contemporaries Planquette, Serpette and Lecocq.
Wagstaff writes that the composer's most enduring work is the ballet score Les Deux Pigeons (1886). The piece is based on the fable The Two Pigeons by Jean de La Fontaine. The music is best known in the five-movement suite arranged from the full score, which includes the "Entrée de tziganes". Messager revived the ballet in 1906 in London and in 1912 in Paris in a shortened, two-act version. In 1961 John Lanchbery revised this for Frederick Ashton's new version of the ballet, with a closing reconciliation scene from earlier music and a passage transcribed from Véronique. This was first given at Covent Garden, is revived regularly by the Royal Ballet and has been staged by such other companies as CAPAB and Australian Ballet.
Isoline (1888), a musical fairy story ("conte des fées"), is neither an opérette nor an opéra comique. Writing in 1908, Fauré called it "one of the most poetic, most expressive works that have been written in France in the last twenty years", but it made little impact. The score remained in obscurity until 1930 when Reynaldo Hahn staged the ballet section of the work at Cannes. The whole piece was revived at the Opéra-Comique in 1958; it failed again, but the ballet, unencumbered by the portentousness of the libretto, which weighs down the rest of the piece, has remained in the repertory.
### 1890s stage works
The decade began well for Messager with the artistic and commercial success of La Basoche (1890). Février in his André Messager: Mon Maître, Mon Ami calls it "the last of the great nineteenth-century French comic operas" ("le dernier des grands opéras-comique français du XIX siècle") and considers it of the greatest importance not only in Messager's career but in the history of French musical theatre. Hughes says it has a good claim to be the composer's masterpiece. The musicologist James Harding rates it "the best Messager had written to date ... one of his finest works". When the work was given in London, a year after its Parisian premiere, the reviewer in The Times called it, "A work of great beauty and charm", although "the influence of Die Meistersinger is felt to an extent that is almost absurd both in the bright overture and again in the procession of the guild, but elsewhere the music is as original as it is charming".
With Madame Chrysanthème (1893), a four-act "lyric comedy" with no spoken dialogue, Messager reached a turning point in his development. The crux of the plot was the same as that later used by Puccini for Madama Butterfly (1904): a young Japanese geisha wooed and then abandoned by a foreign sailor. Messager's treatment of the story was praised for its sensitivity – reviewers in the Parisian press applauded him for raising opérette to the level of "comédie lyrique" – but he was a self-critical artist, and he felt he had strayed too far in the direction of opera and away from his chosen genre. Harding suggests that the unusual seriousness of the score may be connected with the recent illness and death of Edith Messager. Both Hughes and Harding comment that Messager's score is subtler than Puccini's, but add that the almost total eclipse of Madame Chrysanthème by Madama Butterfly may be partly due to the relative effectiveness of their libretti. After this, Messager consciously simplified his style, greatly reducing the harmonic subtleties that had been characteristic of his earlier works.
The works from the middle of the decade were unsuccessful financially and artistically. Le Chevalier d'Harmental (1896), classed by Hughes as Messager's first true opéra comique ("in a somewhat pretentious style") was a failure, and an unpretentious opérette in the same year, La Fiancée en loterie, fared no better. After these disappointments Messager finished the 1890s with two considerable successes. Traubner describes Les P'tites Michu (1897) as "a sensational hit", and Harding calls it the best of Messager's opérettes so far (classing Le Basoche as opéra comique, as did its composer). The plot was not strikingly original: critics commented that its story of babies switched at birth was already very familiar from Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Traubner describes the piece as "one of those unusual works that begin well enough and gets better and better". Setting a scene in the market of Les Halles was not innovative, but Messager's chorus for the marchands and marchandes was out of the ordinary, and Traubner also singles out the duet for the Michus in Act 1: "clever, lilting ... pulsating with an elegance and grace that other operetta composers have failed to obtain". He also judges the finales as outstanding, including a waltz number that in other hands would be predictable but is turned by Messager into something much more symphonic.
The final work from the decade was Véronique. Messager described it as an opéra comique, but commentators have classed it as a mixture of opérette and opéra comique. The score contains two of the composer's best known numbers, the "Swing duet" ("Poussez, poussez l'escarpolette") and the "Donkey duet" ("De ci, de la"). When the work was revived at the Proms in London in the 1960s, the music critic of The Times commented, "Charming as it can prove in the theatre, the music alone is a little thin, with none of the piquancy that – thanks perhaps to Gilbert – redeems Messager's famous English contemporary Sullivan ... but Véronique has plenty of pretty things". It became and has remained the composer's most performed musical theatre piece.
### 20th century
Messager's work running opera houses in Paris and London limited his composing between Véronique and the period after the First World War. Fortunio (1907) was a rare example in his oeuvre of a sung-through opera. Eight decades later the critic Edward Greenfield described it as "a long-buried jewel of a piece ... an improbable cross between musical comedy and Tristan und Isolde". From 1919 onwards Messager composed no more opéras comiques. Among his post-war stage works, Monsieur Beaucaire, a "romantic operetta" (1919), was his second work to an English libretto. French critics were inclined to look down on "Messager's English operetta" as over-sweet and sentimental to suit Anglo-Saxon tastes. Harding comments that the composer was successful in his attempt to produce an English flavour: one number is "pure Edward German" and there is much pastiche throughout the score. Despite the critics the piece ran well not only in Britain and the US, but also in France, with more than 300 performances in Paris and a long life in French provincial theatres.
Of Messager's 1920s comédies musicales the best known is L'Amour masqué (1923). The Théâtre Édouard VII where it was premiered had a small orchestra pit, and Messager developed a new style of orchestration to deliver his desired musical effects with a small number of players. Harding comments that the piece was up-to-date enough to include a tango, "a beautifully written example with luscious harmonies that by contrast show up the threadbare nature of most other efforts of the time".
### Non-stage works and role in French music
Messager wrote songs for solo voice with piano throughout his career. Like Fauré, he was fond of the poetry of Armand Sylvestre, and from "La Chanson des cerises" in 1882 to the cycle Amour d'hiver in 1911 he set thirteen of Sylvestre's poems. Others whose verse he set ranged widely, from Victor Hugo to Frederic Weatherly (author of among other things "Danny Boy").
In his old age Messager said that he would have liked to write more concert works, but had never had the opportunity. The Symphony in A, written when he was 22, is on the normal classical plan with sonata form in the first and last movements, a songlike theme in the adagio and a scherzo third movement. Looking back he described it as "très classique". In notes to a 1992 recording of the piece, Xavier Deletang comments that although the influence of Mendelssohn and possibly Schumann may be discernible, the work reveals a mastery of instrumentation and a quintessentially French flavour, particularly in the wind parts. The two main subjects of the Allegro con moto first movement are strongly contrasted, with the opening string theme followed by a chorale-like theme for the winds.
When Messager was elected to membership of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1926 the influential musical journal Le Ménestrel remarked that this conferred on his chosen genre – opérette – official status and recognition; but his fame as a composer of light music has tended to obscure his considerable standing in contemporary serious musical circles. It was said of him that he had "seen all, heard all, and remembered all". The leading composers of the time valued his friendship and advice. Fauré called him "familiar with everything, knowing it all, fascinated by anything new". Messager's younger colleague, the composer Reynaldo Hahn, wrote, "I do believe that no musician has ever loved music as much as André Messager did. In any case, it would be impossible to have a greater musical curiosity than he did, up to the end of his life, too." Like Fauré, Messager wrote musical criticism for Le Figaro and other publications in the first decades of the 20th century. Unlike Fauré, who was known for his kindly reviews, Messager was frequently severe. His views carried weight: some of his criticisms were reported in the international press.
In 1908 Fauré wrote of Messager, "There are not many examples in the history of music of an artist with such a complete education, of such profound knowledge, who consents to apply his gifts to forms regarded, nobody knows why, as secondary". Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians says of Messager, "His style may be described as enlightened eclecticism; his music was characteristically French, and more specifically Parisian, in its elegance and gaiety." In his book Composers of Operetta, Hughes comments that Messager combined "a flow of spontaneous melody worthy of Offenbach with a flair for economic workmanship at least the equal of Lecocq's" and in much of his music "a measure of Massenet's fluent grace, Saint-Saëns's aristocratic elegance, even Fauré's refined subtlety". He observes that Messager spanned an entire era: "Auber, Rossini and Meyerbeer were still alive when he began his studies, yet he survived the First World War and witnessed the rise and decline of "les Six". ... For forty years he carried aloft the torch kindled by Adolphe Adam in 1834; after his death it soon flickered out".
### Conductor
The wide range of Messager's musical sympathies was noted by Le Menéstral, which said that he "has served Wagner, Debussy, Fauré, Ravel and Stravinsky when their works were still struggling for recognition". He was widely admired as a conductor. He avoided extravagant gesturing on the podium; Harding records, "His manner was precise and undemonstrative. The baton flicked neatly here and there in a way that meant little to the audience behind him but conveyed volumes to the orchestra". The music critic Pierre Lalo wrote that under Messager's direction, Parsifal, without losing any of its grandeur, "assumed a French clarity, and a sobriety, nobility and order ... even the most famous Bayreuth conductors have not always been able to do this." Not everyone shared Lalo's view; some audience members equated undemonstrativeness with dullness: Reynaldo Hahn commented, "[Messager] is not a master of the theatre ["chef du théâtre"], being too exclusively musical; he sets too much store by detail without feeling the spirit of the public behind him, and does not understand the variable musical flow that makes one hold one's breath, sigh and wait." Nevertheless, Hahn admired Messager as an orchestral conductor:
> André Messager is the most French of conductors; I mean that in this art he embodies sharpness. Grace and clarity are not uniquely French qualities: they are frequently found among the Italians and even some Germans. But sharpness is a French virtue, and nothing but French. M. André Messager has it to an exceptional degree, and it shows in how he writes, orchestrates, dresses, talks, and plays the piano. But it is when he conducts the orchestra that what one might call his organic sharpness shows itself most forcefully.
### Recordings
In 1918 Messager conducted recordings in New York, with the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, of Les Chasseresses and Cortège de Bacchus from Sylvia by Delibes, Sérénade and Mules from Impressions d'Italie by Charpentier, the Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila and the Prelude to Le Déluge, both by Saint-Saëns, and 41⁄2-minute extracts from Capriccio espagnol by Rimsky-Korsakov and Le Rouet d'Omphale by Saint-Saëns. In Wagstaff's 1991 study of Messager, the list of recordings of the composer's music runs to 40 pages; 24 of his works are represented in the list of recordings up to that date.
#### Complete operas
Complete recordings exist of several of Messager's stage works. There are three complete sets of Véronique – a 1953 mono recording for the Société française du son conducted by Pierre Dervaux, a 1969 stereo EMI recording conducted by Jean-Claude Hartemann, and a 1998 recording sung in English, conducted by J. Lynn Thompson. Other complete sets include L'Amour masqué (1970; conductor, Raymond Legrand), La Basoche (1960; Tony Aubin), Coups de roulis (1963; Marcel Cariven), Fortunio (1987; John Eliot Gardiner), Isoline (1947; Louis Beydts), Monsieur Beaucaire (1958; Jules Gressier), Passionnément (1964; Jean-Paul Kreder; and 2021; Armando Noguera); and Les p'tites Michu (2019; Pierre Dumoussaud).
#### Individual numbers
Singers who have recorded individual numbers by Messager include role creators such as Jean Périer (Véronique), Lucien Fugère (La Basoche), Pierre Darmant and Yvonne Printemps (L'Amour masqué), Koval (Passionnément), Marcelle Denya (Coups de roulis), and Maggie Teyte (Monsieur Beaucaire), as well as other contemporaries – Aino Ackté, Emma Eames, and John McCormack – whose recordings have been reissued on compact disc. Singers of the next generation who recorded Messager numbers included Georges Thill and Ninon Vallin. More recent examples include Mady Mesplé, Susan Graham, and Felicity Lott.
#### Non-operatic recordings
Of Messager's non-operatic works, his Messe des pêcheurs de Villerville, written jointly with Fauré, has been recorded by, among others, Harmonia Mundi, conducted by Philippe Herreweghe (1989). Messager's other collaboration with Fauré, the Wagner send-up Souvenirs de Bayreuth, has been recorded by piano duettists including Kathryn Stott and Martin Roscoe (1995, Hyperion), and, in an orchestral arrangement, by the orchestra of the Bayreuth Festival. A suite from Les Deux Pigeons has been recorded several times, for example by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducted by Hugo Rignold (1948) and by Charles Mackerras (1958); in 1993 Decca recorded the complete score with the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera conducted by Richard Bonynge. His ballet-pantomime Scaramouche was recorded by the Toulon Opera orchestra under Guillaume Tourniaire (2018). The Symphony in A has been recorded by the Orchestre Symphonique du Mans, conducted by José-André Gendille (2001).
## List of works
### Stage works (except ballets)
### Ballets
Single act, except where shown
- Fleur d'oranger 1878
- Les Vins de France 1879
- Mignons et vilains 1879
- Les Deux Pigeons (2 acts) 1886
- Scaramouche (2 acts) 1891 (with Georges Street)
- Amants éternels 1893
- Le Procès des roses 1896
- Le Chevalier aux fleurs 1897 (with Raoul Pugno)
- Une aventure de la Guimard 1900
### Orchestral
- Symphony in A major 1875
- Loreley, ballade for orchestra, c. 1880
### Chamber and instrumental
- 3 valses, piano 4 hands (1884)
- "Souvenirs de Bayreuth", piano 4 hands, with Gabriel Fauré, c. 1888
- For solo piano (1889):
- Impromptu, Op.10
- Habañera, Op.11
- Menuet, Op.12
- Mazurka, Op.13
- Caprice polka, Op.14
- Valse, Op.15
- "Pavane des fées"
- Trois pièces, violin and piano (1897): Barcarolle, Mazurka, Sérénade
- Solo de concours, clarinet and piano (1899)
### Choral
- Don Juan et Haydée (Byron), cantata, c. 1875
- Prométhée enchaîné (Georges Clerc), cantata, c. 1877
- Messe des pêcheurs de Villerville, with Gabriel Fauré, 1881, for choir with solo violin and harmonium; orchestral accompaniment added 1882.
### Songs
For solo voice with orchestral accompaniment
- Sérénade (Louis Legendre), written for the play Colibri, 1889
For solo voice with piano accompaniment
- "Regret d'avril" (Armand Silvestre) (1882)
- "Chanson de ma mie" (Théodore de Banville) (1882)
- "Mimosa" (Armand Silvestre) (1882)
- "Nouveau printemps" (Heinrich Heine, translated by Georges Clerc), 5 songs (1885), dedicated to Fauré
- "Gavotte" – danse chantée (Théodore de Banville) (1887)
- "Chanson mélancolique" (Catulle Mendès) (1889)
- "La Chanson des cerises" (Armand Silvestre) (1889)
- "Neige rose" (Armand Silvestre) (1889)
- "Fleurs d'hiver" (Armand Silvestre) (1889)
- "O canto do Paris n'America" (unnamed) (1890)
- "À une fiancée" (Victor Hugo) (1891)
- "Arioso" (Paul Burani) (1891)
- "Ritournelle" (Henry Gauthier-Villars) (1894)
- "Chanson d'automne" (Paul Delair) (1894)
- "Chant d'amour" (Armand Silvestre) (1894)
- "Le Bateau rose" (Jean Richepin) (1894)
- "Douce chanson" (Émile Blémont) (1894)
- "Notre amour" (Armand Silvestre) (1896)
- "Aimons nous" (Emile Blémont) (1897)
- "Curly Locks" (Frederic Weatherly) (1897)
- "Amour d'hiver" (Armand Silvestre), 6 songs (1911)
- "Pour la patrie" (Victor Hugo) (1914)
- "La Paix de blanc vêtue" (Léon Lahovary) (1922)
- "Va chercher quelques fleurs" (Louis Aufauvre) (1922)
Source: Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians; L'académie nationale de l'opérette; and Wagstaff: André Messager.
## Notes, references and sources
|
1,070,746 |
Ham House
| 1,170,849,776 |
17th-century house in London, England
|
[
"1610 establishments in England",
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"Grade I listed buildings in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames",
"Grade I listed houses in London",
"Grade I listed museum buildings",
"Grade II* listed parks and gardens in London",
"Ham, London",
"Historic house museums in London",
"History of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames",
"Houses completed in 1610",
"Houses in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames",
"Jacobean architecture in the United Kingdom",
"Museums in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames",
"Museums on the River Thames",
"National Trust properties in London"
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Ham House is a 17th-century house set in formal gardens on the bank of the River Thames in Ham, south of Richmond in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. The original house was completed in 1610 by Thomas Vavasour, an Elizabethan courtier and Knight Marshal to James I. It was then leased, and later bought, by William Murray, a close friend and supporter of Charles I. The English Civil War saw the house and much of the estate sequestrated, but Murray's wife Katherine regained them on payment of a fine. During the Protectorate his daughter Elizabeth, Countess of Dysart on her father's death in 1655, successfully navigated the prevailing anti-royalist sentiment and retained control of the estate.
The house achieved its greatest period of prominence following Elizabeth's second marriage—to John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale, in 1672. The Lauderdales held important roles at the court of the restored Charles II, the duke being a member of the Cabal ministry and holder of major positions in Scotland, while the Duchess exercised significant social and political influence. They began an ambitious program of development and embellishment at Ham. The house was almost doubled in size and equipped with private apartments for the Duke and Duchess, as well as princely accommodation suites for visitors. The house was furnished to the highest standards of courtly taste and decorated with "a lavishness which transcended even what was fitting to their exalted rank". The Lauderdales accumulated notable collections of paintings, tapestries and furniture, and redesigned the gardens and grounds to reflect their status and that of their guests.
After the Duchess's death, the property passed through the line of her descendants. Occasionally, major alterations were made to the house, such as the reconstruction undertaken by Lionel Tollemache, 4th Earl of Dysart, in the 1730s. For the most part, later generations of owners focused on the preservation of the house and its collections. The family did not retain the high position at court held by the Lauderdales under Charles II, and a strain of family eccentricity and reserve saw the fifth Earl refuse a request from King George III to visit Ham. On the death of the 9th Earl – the last Earl to live at Ham – in 1935, the house passed to his second cousin, Lyonel; he and his son, Major (Cecil) Lyonel Tollemache, donated it to the National Trust in 1948. During the second half of the 20th century the house and gardens were opened to the public, and were extensively restored and researched. The property has become a popular filming location for cinema and television productions, which make use of its period interiors and gardens.
The house is built of red brick, and was originally constructed to a traditional Elizabethan era H-plan; the southern, garden frontage was infilled during the Lauderdales' rebuilding. The architect of Vavasour's house is unknown although drawings by Robert Smythson and his son John exist. The Lauderdales first consulted William Bruce, a cousin of the Duchess, but ultimately employed William Samwell to undertake their rebuilding. Ham retains many original Jacobean and Caroline features and furnishings, most in an unusually fine condition, and is a "rare survival of 17th-century luxury and taste". The house is a Grade I listed building and received museum accreditation from Arts Council England in 2015. Its park and formal gardens are listed at Grade II\*. Bridget Cherry, in the revised London: South Pevsner published in 2002, acknowledged that the exterior of Ham was "not as attractive as other houses of this period", but noted the interior's "high architectural and decorative interest". The critic John Julius Norwich described the house as a "time machine – enclosing one in the elegant, opulent world of Van Dyck and Lely".
## The builders
### Early years
In the early 17th century the manors of Ham and Petersham were bestowed by James I on his son, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. The original construction of Ham House was completed in 1610 by Sir Thomas Vavasour, Knight Marshal to James I. The Thames-side location was ideal for Vavasour, allowing him to move between the palaces at Richmond, Hampton, London and Windsor as his court role required. It originally comprised an H-plan layout consisting of nine bays and three storeys, as shown in a 1649 miniature by Alexander Marshal, but the lack of estate documentation makes it impossible to verify the names of persons involved in the design and construction of the house. Robert Smythson's survey drawing of the house and gardens is a key record of the early structure. Prince Henry died in 1612, and the lands passed to James's second son, Charles, several years before his coronation in 1625. After Vavasour's death in 1620, the house was granted to John Ramsay, 1st Earl of Holderness, until he died in 1626.
### William Murray, 1st Earl of Dysart (1643–55)
In 1626, Ham House was leased to William Murray, courtier, a close childhood friend and alleged whipping boy of Charles I. Murray's initial lease was for 39 years and, in 1631, a further 14 years were added. When Gregory Cole, a neighbouring landowner, had to sell his property in Petersham as part of the enclosure of Richmond Park in 1637, he made over the remaining leases on his land to Murray. Shortly afterwards William and his wife Katherine (or Catherine) engaged the services of skilled craftsmen, including the artist Franz Cleyn and the painter Matthew Goodrich (or Goodricke), to begin improvements on the house as befitting a Lord of the Manors of Ham and Petersham. He extended the Great Hall and added an arch that leads to the ornate cantilever staircase to create a processional route for guests as they approached the dining room on the first floor. He remodelled the Long Gallery and added the adjoining Green Closet that was influenced by Charles I's own "Cabbonett Room" at Whitehall Palace, to which Murray had donated two pieces. As part of the Whitehall Group, Murray would have been in touch with the latest tastes in art and architecture at court.
In 1640 William was also granted a lease on the nearby Manor of Canbury, now in Kingston upon Thames, but in the run-up to civil war in 1641 he signed over the house to Katherine and his four daughters, appointing trustees to safeguard the estate for them. The principal of these was Thomas Bruce, Lord Elgin, a relative of his wife and an important Scottish Presbyterian, Parliamentarian supporter and ally of the Puritan party in London. Murray was raised to the peerage as Earl of Dysart in 1643, although his elevation appears not to have been confirmed at that time. As a Scottish title, the earldom could be inherited by daughters, as well as by sons.
Shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War, the house and estates were sequestrated, but persistent appeals by Katherine regained them in 1646 on payment of a £500 fine. Katherine skilfully defended her ownership of the house throughout the Civil War and Commonwealth, and it remained in the family's possession despite Murray's close ties with the Royalist cause. Katherine died at Ham on 18 July 1649 (Charles I had been executed on 30 January of the same year). The Parliamentarians sold off much of the Royal Estate, including the Manors of Ham and Petersham. These, including Ham House, were bought for £1,131.18s on 13 May 1650 by William Adams, the steward acting on behalf of Murray's eldest daughter, Elizabeth and her husband Lionel Tollemache, 3rd Baronet of Helmingham Hall, Suffolk. Ham House became Elizabeth and Lionel's primary residence, as Murray was in exile abroad, predominantly in France.
### Elizabeth, Countess of Dysart (1655–98) and Sir Lionel Tollemache Bt. (1640–69)
Elizabeth and Lionel Tollemache were married in 1648. He was from a family of Royalists who had estates in Suffolk, Northamptonshire and London, and they celebrated their union at Ham with a display of arms that can be seen in the spandrels of the arch above the main entrance to the house: on the left an earl's coronet above the Tollemache horse's head and on the right the Tollemache argent a fret sable quartering Murray.
When her father died in 1655 Elizabeth became the 2nd Countess of Dysart in her own right, but at that time during the Interregnum the title would have held little prestige. Of far more interest to The Protectorate authorities was the matter of Elizabeth's allegiance. Her parents' activities during the Civil War had raised suspicion among both Royalists and Parliamentarians, and similar speculation attached to Elizabeth, which was heightened when she began a close relationship with Oliver Cromwell in the early 1650s. Her family and connections provided the perfect cover for an agent, especially a double agent, and her movements were closely monitored by both Royalist and Parliamentarian spies.
Between 1649 and 1661, Elizabeth bore eleven children, five of whom survived to adulthood; Lionel, Thomas, William, Elizabeth, and Catherine. Elizabeth and Lionel made few substantial changes to the house during this busy time. On the Restoration in 1660, Charles II rewarded Elizabeth with a pension of £800 for life and, while many of the Parliamentarian sales of Royal lands were put aside, Elizabeth retained the titles to the Manors of Ham and Petersham. In addition, in about 1665, following William's death, Lionel was granted freehold of 75 acres (30 ha; 0.117 sq mi) of land in Ham and Petersham including that surrounding the house and a 61-year lease of 289 acres (117 ha; 0.452 sq mi) of demesne lands. The grant was made in trust to Robert Murray for the daughters of the, then, late Earl of Dysart, "in consideration of the service done by the late Earl of Dysart and his Daughter, and of the losses sustained by them by the enclosure of the New Park". Lionel died in 1669, leaving his Ham and Petersham estate to Elizabeth along with Framsden Hall in Suffolk, which had been her jointure on their marriage.
### Elizabeth and John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale (1645–82)
Elizabeth may have become acquainted with John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale at some time in the 1640s, when he was one of the Scottish Commissioners on the Committee of Both Kingdoms who petitioned for her father's release on charges of treason in 1646. She felt sufficient gratitude towards him to claim in later years that she appealed to Cromwell to show clemency following his capture after the Battle of Worcester, a gesture Maitland repaid in his will when he left her £1,500 in gold for "preserving my life when I was a prisoner in the year 1651". They became much closer following the death of her husband and he began visiting Ham regularly. Already a favourite of the King, he was appointed High Commissioner for Scotland in August 1669 which, on top of his political influence as Secretary of State and participation in Charles's Cabal ministry, made him one of the most powerful men in the country. In 1671 Lauderdale was granted by Letters patent full freehold rights to the Manors of Ham and Petersham and the 289 acres of leased land. In 1672 Elizabeth and Lauderdale were married, and soon afterwards he was created Duke of Lauderdale and Knight of the Garter. With Lauderdale's part in the Cabal Ministry, the family remained close to the heart of court intrigue.
As Duchess and consort to a very political Duke, Elizabeth had risen to the peak of Restoration society where she could exercise her many talents and interests. Image was paramount and the Lauderdales began a programme of aggrandisement of their properties – Elizabeth consulted her cousin, William Bruce, and Maitland commissioned William Samwell, respectively amateur and professional architects. Ham was extended on the south front with an enfilade of rooms created each side of a central axis around a new downstairs Dining Room. Most grand houses at that time had apartments laid out in this way, comprising a suite of rooms approached one through the other. The original plan was to create the Duchess's apartments to the left (east) and the Duke's to the right, she having two closets for privacy and entertainment and he having a staircase connecting his bedroom to the library above, but Elizabeth appears to have changed her mind while the rooms were being built and eventually each came to have a bedchamber within the other's apartment. This alteration may have been due to the installation of a bathroom downstairs which had to be near the kitchen (the source of hot water) in the basement at the Duke's end of the house. Despite the swap of bedchambers, she retained her original closets at the east side of the house.
Closets formed an exclusive and very private end to the sequence into which only the most important guests were invited. Visitors knew that they would only progress through the rooms according to their rank or significance in society: being entertained in one of Elizabeth's closets would have been an honour. Her White Closet was designed for entertaining and had a private door opening onto the Cherry Garden. It was decorated in the most advanced tastes of the day and according to the 1679 inventory that it had "one Indian furnace for tee garnish'd wt silver", a luxury at a time when tea was only beginning to be drunk outside of exclusive royal residences. For this reason, too Elizabeth kept her tea secure in a "Japan box" in her adjoining Private Closet.
Upstairs the existing State Apartments (Great Dining Room, North Drawing Room and Long Gallery) were extended with the addition of a State Bedroom apartment. The bedchamber itself was being referred to as "the Queen's Bedchamber" in 1674 which suggests that the Queen, Catherine of Braganza, a friend of Elizabeth's, had occupied it at least once. This was the most important room in the house and the focal point towards which one progressed on the first floor. Another benefit of transforming the house from single to double-pile – a "pile" is a row of rooms, single-pile houses have only one row while double-pile houses are two rows deep, often with a corridor between the rows – had been that it allowed the creation of hidden passages and staircases for servants who could now enter rooms via discreet jib doors rather than by moving through one room to get to another. Michael Wilson notes the "positive warren" of such passages at Ham.
The eldest daughter of Elizabeth and Lionel, also named Elizabeth (1659–1735), married Archibald Campbell, 1st Duke of Argyll in Edinburgh in 1678. Their first child, John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, was born at Ham House in 1680; their second son, Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll was born there a few years later.
The glorious years for the Lauderdales began to wane in 1680 when the Duke had a stroke and his influence declined. On his death in 1682 he left the Ham and Petersham property to Elizabeth, thereby securing the estate for the Tollemache dynasty. However, Elizabeth also inherited her husband's debts including mortgages on his former properties in England and Scotland and her latter years were marred by a financial dispute with her brother-in-law, Charles, Earl of Lauderdale. Even the intervention of the newly crowned James II failed to reconcile them and the matter was finally settled in her favour in the Scottish courts in 1688. Although this may have suppressed Elizabeth's lavish lifestyle, she went on to make further alterations to the house at Ham, opening the Hall ceiling and creating the Round Gallery in about 1690. As she got older her movements became restricted by gout and she rarely went upstairs, living mainly in what had been the Duke's apartments, but her intellect remained and she liked to be kept informed about events at court and in politics. Elizabeth Maitland continued to live at Ham House until her death in 1698 at the age of 72.
## Architecture of the house
Ham House is a brick building of three storeys and nine bays, with a hip roof and ashlar dressings, representing two distinctively different architectural styles and periods. Michael Wilson, referencing Ham in his work, The English Country House and its furnishings, considers the later 17th century as the finest period of English brick building. The first phase is the original main house facing north-east to the river Thames, built in 1610 in the early Jacobean English renaissance style on a traditional H-plan for Thomas Vavasour, Knight Marshal at the court of James I. Simon Jenkins, in his study, England's Thousand Best Houses, records that the original entrance had a tower over the porch and flanking, projecting turrets, which were removed in subsequent reconstruction, and suggests that Vavasour's original house may have been of an E-plan type. John Julius Norwich also notes the original configuration of the north front, which he considers "forbidding", and the "damson-coloured" brickwork. Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner, in the London: South volume of the Buildings of England series, record the "not specially impressive" nature of the remaining doorway but are clear that Ham was built to an H-plan. The architect of Vavasour's house is not known although survey drawings by Robert and John Smythson exist.
The second phase of reconstruction is the ambitious expansion to the south or garden side of the original house by the Duke and Duchess of Lauderdale in 1672 to display their high status in the court of King Charles II. They infilled the space between the southern wings of the H-plan building, almost doubling the volume of the house. Jenkins considers the Lauderdales' remodelling one of the earliest examples in England of the creation of a suite of state rooms for the accommodation and entertainment of royalty. Although the Lauderdales initially consulted William Bruce, the architect ultimately employed to undertake the reconstruction of their south front was William Samwell. Bruce did design the gates fronting the Thames on the north facade.
The northern façade retains the Jacobean arched loggias on either side of the front door and also includes an array of marble and lead busts, which continue into the flanking courtyard walls. The southern Caroline façade is loosely based on a classical style introduced from the continent by the architect Inigo Jones (1573–1652). At the time the Lauderdales' remodelling project was considered impressive, the façades giving the impression of two separate houses, while the interior blends them harmoniously. Roger North, a contemporary aristocrat, amateur architect and critic, described the remodelling in his treatise, Of Building, and considered it as the best work he had seen. The renovation also included a very early installation of sash windows, a French invention which were refined with weights and pulleys in England. The east front of the house retains many of its 17th century windows, as well as the door to the Great Staircase and the door from the Duchess's private apartments to the cherry garden. The west front of the house contains a mixture of 17th and 18th century windows and has long served as the service entrance to the house. Structures such as the bake house, still house, bath house, dairy and ice house were located to the west of the house, although some no longer survive.
### Listing designations
Historic England is an organisation dedicated to the protection of England's historic environment and is responsible for the listing of buildings. There are three available designations: Grade I, Grade II\* and Grade II, with the first being applied to buildings of "exceptional interest". The house is a Grade I listed building. Ham was also given Accredited Museum status in 2015, having demonstrated compliance with UK industry standards for museums and galleries. The Park and Garden has a Grade II\* listing. A number of the surrounding features have a Grade II listing: the Forecourt, the entrance gates and railings, the Garden walls and gatepiers to the south, the Orangery (now used as a tea room), the Ice House, the service yard to the west of the house and the Gatehouse.
### Plan
## Interiors and collections
### Introduction
Ham House is unusual in retaining much of its original 17th-century interior decoration, offering a rare experience of the style of the courts of Charles I and Charles II. Ham House's rooms display collections of 17th-century paintings, portraits and miniatures, in addition to cabinets, tapestries and furniture amassed and retained by generations of the Murray and Tollemache families. Geoffrey Beard, in his study, The National Trust Book of English Furniture, noted the extraordinarily high quality of the Lauderdales' furnishing of the house, undertaken with "a lavishness which transcended even what was fitting to their exalted rank". Bridget Cherry, in the London: South volume of the Pevsner Architectural Guides suggested that, while the exterior of Ham was "not as attractive as other houses of this period", the "high architectural and decorative interest" of its interior should be recognised. John Julius Norwich considered the interiors, a "time machine – enclosing one in the elegant, opulent world of Van Dyck and Lely".
### Great Hall
This room forms part of the original 1610 construction and is off-set from the centre, in the English Gothic and Tudor tradition. During this time, the hall may have been used for both dining and entertainment. The distinctive black and white marble chequerboard flooring is also believed to date from the original construction. By the early 18th century the room had been expanded upwards by opening the ceiling to the room above, now known as the Round Gallery. The room contains a number of large and notable paintings.
- Charlotte Walpole, Countess of Dysart (1738–1789), by Sir Joshua Reynolds, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1775.
- John Constable, a family friend, was commissioned to make copies of two family portraits: Anna Maria Lewis, Countess of Dysart (1745–1804) as Miranda, painted in 1823 after Joshua Reynolds and Lady Louisa Tollemache, Countess of Dysart (1745–1840), painted in 1823–25 after John Hoppner.
- Hanging side by side are John Vanderbank's portraits of Lionel Tollemache, 4th Earl of Dysart (1708–1770) painted in 1730 and of his wife Lady Grace Carteret, Countess of Dysart (1713–1755), signed and dated 1737.
### Chapel
Formerly the family's sitting room, this room was converted to a chapel during the major renovations of the 1670s. It was decorated with crimson velvet and damask wall hangings, which were changed to black velvet upon the Duke's death in 1682. While designed for Protestant worship, the chapel was used in the late 19th century by the wife of the 8th Earl for Roman Catholic services. The sumptuous and rare 17th-century textiles require that the light levels remain low, in order to minimise damage.
### Great Staircase
The Great Staircase, described by the historian Christopher Rowell as "remarkable" and "apparently without a close parallel in the British Isles", was created for William Murray at the east end of the Great Hall in 1638–39 as part of a series of improvements to the house which reflected his rising status at Court. An ornately carved archway marks the entrance from the Great Hall to the stairs, which were designed as a grand processional route giving access to the State Apartments on the first floor. The cantilever staircase rises over three floors above a square stairwell. The balustrade is composed of boldly hand-carved pierced wooden panels depicting trophies of war. Each panel is different, with varying images on each face of arms and armour, including a set of horse armour. The wide range of arms includes field guns with cannonballs and barrels of gunpowder, swords, shields, quivers of arrows and halberds. Dolphins, elephant heads, dragons and other fantastical creatures also appear on the dado panelling, together with military drums and trumpets. The martial theme of these panels is interspersed with drops of relief carvings of bay leaves, richly carved newel posts topped with baskets of fruit designed to carry candles or candelabra, and miniature swags decorating the outer string. Originally gilded and grained to resemble walnut, in the 19th century the balustrade and other woodwork were picked out in bronze, traces of which survive. According to Rowell, "There is no other architectural wood carving on this scale and of such sophistication surviving from the late 1630s."
A collection of 17th century copies of Old Master paintings in their original carved frames hangs on the staircase wall. Two were copied from originals in the collection of Charles I: Venus with Mercury and Cupid (The School of Love) by Correggio at the base of the stairs (the original in the National Gallery, London), while on the first floor landing there is a copy of The Venus Del Pardo (Venus and a Satyr) by Titian (the original in the Louvre, Paris).
### Round Gallery
Before the upward expansion of the Great Hall this room had served as the Great Dining Room, as created by William Murray in the 1630s. The ornate white plasterwork ceiling was created by Joseph Kinsman, master craftsman and member of the London Plasterers' Company. Engaged by the Royal Works at Goldsmith's Hall, Whitehall and Somerset House, he was employed by William Murray at Ham House during the 1637 renovation and creation of the State Apartments. The ceilings at Ham are the only surviving example of his work, showing the influence of Inigo Jones in their design of deep beams with rosettes at the intersections, enclosing geometric compartments. The white plaster high relief oval swags of luscious fruit, flowers and ribbons, including the odd worm, contrasted with the elaborate frieze which was originally coloured blue and gold.
Notable paintings include Peter Lely's final portrait of Elizabeth, painted c. 1680, and the earlier double portrait, John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale and Elizabeth Murray, Countess of Dysart and Duchess of Lauderdale painted by Lely c. 1675.
### North Drawing Room
After dinner in the adjacent dining room, guests would have retired to the North Drawing Room for conversation. This room was decorated at the same time as the Great Dining Room, and was later hung with tapestries. Kinsman continued his elaborate plasterwork in the white ceiling in this room. Deep beams enclose rectangles bursting with individually crafted fruit and flowers. The hemispherical rosettes at the intersections are unusual, possibly unique.
A notable piece of furniture in this room is the ivory cabinet: veneered in rippled ivory panels on the exterior and the interior, this large oak and cedar cabinet opens to reveal 14 drawers. An inner door conceals small drawers, further secret drawers and a compartment. It was recorded as being moved to the prestigious Queen's Bedchamber shortly after its appearance in the 1677 inventory and is considered the most impressive piece of furniture designed or bought for the house (with the exception of the State Bed, which no longer exists). The cabinet may have been made in the Northern Netherlands based on furniture inlaid in ivory brought back in 1644 by John Maurice, Prince of Nassau-Siegen, the former Governor of Dutch Brazil for his home in The Hague, now called the Mauritshuis.
Also notable in the room are a vibrant set of tapestries. James I established the Mortlake Tapestry Works in 1619 just three miles from Ham House, from which the Lauderdales had purchased a set of tapestries showing the seasons incorporating gold thread for the Queen's Bedchamber. While these are no longer at the house, the 4th Earl of Dysart acquired a set woven in Lambeth in 1699–1719 by the ex-Mortlake weaver Stephen de May, probably to the Mortlake design. Altered to hang in the North Drawing Room, this set of The Seasons was originally commissioned by the 1st Lord Shelburne. Tapestries were important in Europe for comfort in draughty manor houses and as status objects because of their expense. Sets with designs showing the seasons or months were popular and had a number of variations depicting appropriate seasonal activities such as milking for April, ploughing and sowing for September, and wine-making for October.
### Long Gallery
The Long Gallery was part of the original 1610 house, but was extensively redecorated in 1639 by William Murray. It has been used as an exercise space as well as a gallery to showcase portraits of family and important royal connections. Notable paintings include:
- Sir John Maitland, 1st Baron Maitland of Thirlestane (1543–1595), aged 44 attributed to Adrian Vanson. In late 2016 an X-ray revealed that underneath the main painting was another, unfinished portrait likely of Mary, Queen of Scots, dated 1589—two years after her execution. According to the National Trust, this painting "shows that portraits of the queen were being copied and presumably displayed in Scotland around the time of her execution, a highly contentious and potentially dangerous thing to be seen doing".
- King Charles I (1600–1649) by Sir Anthony van Dyck and studio. In recognition of their friendship this painting was given by Charles I to William Murray; a 1638–39 memorandum of pictures bought by the King from Van Dyck includes framed pictures, one of which is believed to be this portrait.
- Colonel The Hon. John Russell (1620–1681) by John Michael Wright is signed and dated 1659.
- Of the 15 portraits by Peter Lely in Ham House, 11 are hung in the Long Gallery. These include Elizabeth Murray with a Black Servant, John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale (1616–1682) in Garter robes, and Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron Clifford of Chudleigh KG (1630–1673) in Garter robes.
Picture frames at Ham House date from the 17th century and its Long Gallery portraits are a showcase of elaborately carved, gilded frames in the auricular style (literally 'of the ear'). Two frames date from the 1630s, Charles I and Henrietta Maria. Later frames, for instance on the portraits of Elizabeth Murray with a Black Servant and Lady Margaret Murray, Lady Maynard are in a similar auricular style with straight sight edges. These frames, referred to as Sunderland frames, are distinguished by their irregular sight edges. They take their name from the 2nd Earl of Sunderland, who displayed many pictures at his estate Althorp framed in this style. There are examples of Sunderland frames on the portraits of John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale (1616–1682) in Garter Robes and Colonel The Hon. John Russell (1620–1681).
This room also displays some notable furniture:
- Floral marquetry cabinet: Ham House has a number of tables and cabinets decorated with floral marquetry including this, the earliest inventoried example in England, dating from 1675. The naturalistic representations of flowers and fruit are cut from contrasting woods such as ebony, walnut and stained fruitwood and laid onto the carcass. The woods and other materials were often dyed to create a greater range of colours and the green leaves on this piece are made from stained ivory or bone. This cabinet, as well as other tables and a mirror in the house, is attributed by the National Trust to Gerrit Jensen, who was the cabinet maker in ordinary to Catherine of Braganza.
- Japanese lacquered cabinet: Japanese lacquered furniture was fashionable in the 17th century and this cabinet from 1650 remains in the Long Gallery where it has stood since then. Decorated with hills, trees and birds in raised gold and silver lacquer, the doors open on engraved brass hinges to reveal 10 drawers. The giltwood stand has four legs carved as elephant trunks topped with winged cherub busts.
- Chinese lacquered chest: China was another Asian source of lacquered furniture in the 17th century. Decorated with watery landscapes and branches, this chest is lacquered in gold and red on a dark crimson ground. It was a standard form of storage chest for linens and other textiles. The English stand c. 1730 is japanned, a technique developed by English and European craftsmen to approximate the hard, smooth and shiny surfaces of popular Asian lacquered goods.
### Green Closet
Used for the display of miniature paintings and smaller-scale furniture, in contrast to the Long Gallery, this room is a very rare survival of a room in the style of Charles I's court. In the 1630s the Green Closet was specifically designed by William Murray to display miniatures and small paintings. The ceiling paintings are tempera on paper, and represent some of Franz Cleyn's best surviving work. Two preliminary drawings for the capricci of putti by Cleyn and an associate are held by the University of Southampton.
Today it contains 87 items including Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) painted c. 1590 by Nicholas Hilliard, and A Man Consumed by Flames painted c. 1610 by Isaac Oliver.
### Library
The Library dates from the 1672–74 enlargement of the house. The architectural historian Mark Girouard considers it probably "the oldest country house library" still in existence. Although some shelves were moved from what is now the Queen's Antechamber, most of the cedar fixed furniture, including the secretaire, was provided by Henry Harlow. The Duke of Lauderdale added substantially to the contents: he was an avid reader and collector (so much so that his Highgate house was said to be in danger of collapse due to the weight of his substantial book collection), and he owed huge sums to booksellers when he died. Mark Purcell, in his 2017 study The Country House Library, notes that the probate inventory undertaken on the Duke's death estimated the value of his books at half of the total worth of the house's chattels. Many volumes were sold at auctions between 1688 and 1692, in part due to the Duchess's money difficulties upon the Duke's death.
Later members of the family rebuilt the collection, notably the 4th Earl who bought at the Harleian auction and elsewhere. He acquired 12 books printed by William Caxton and many other incunabula; in 1904 a visitor, William Younger Fletcher, described the library as containing books of greater value, in proportion to its size, than any other in Europe. Most of the books were sold in 1938, and the bulk of the remainder after the Second World War. A notable exception, a Book of Common Prayer from Whitehall Palace, is sometimes on display in the chapel.
After the war Norman Norris, a Brighton book dealer, assembled a collection of books from a range of post-war country house sales. He bequeathed the collection to the National Trust and many eventually came to Ham, primarily those pre-dating the mid-18th century. One, Jus Parliamentarium, which has the Dysart coat of arms on its cover, is from the Dysart collection. The ceiling and friezes in the room display a lively naturalism. Two globes with rare leather covers (acquired in 1745 and 1746) and two fire screens (1743) are notable.
### Queen's Apartments
This suite of three rooms, now referred to as the Queen's Apartments, was created by the Duke and Duchess of Lauderdale when the house was enlarged in 1673. Intended for use by Catherine of Braganza, they reflect the latest innovations from France, where royalty received important visitors in the State Bedchamber. The rooms are decorated with increasing splendour, beginning with the relatively modest Antechamber, culminating in the small but richly gilded and decorated Queen's Closet.
#### Antechamber
The first of the suite of rooms is the antechamber, where visitors would wait for an audience with the Queen. The ceiling of this waiting room is the first of the three ceilings by the plasterer Henry Wells. A circular garland of leaves is thickly studded with small flowers, surrounded by four spandrels containing foliage and ribbons. The oak parquet floor, an innovation from France, continues through to the far side of the Queen's Bedchamber where it is then replaced with a more elaborate marquetry design where the State Bed would have stood. The blue velvet and damask wall hangings, installed during the period 1679–1683, are extremely rare survivals.
#### Queen's Bedchamber
This room, built on the central axis of the house, was designed for the reception of guests and visiting dignitaries who would have waited to be summoned from the Antechamber. The State Bed stood prominently on a raised dais at the east end of the room facing the door. A balustrade separated the bed from the main area of the room where visitors may have gathered for their audience with the Queen. The bed was on an elaborate marquetry floor inlaid with the cipher and ducal coronet of the Duke and Duchess of Lauderdale, their initials J, E and L entwined in cedar and walnut, a feature that repeats in the Queens's Closet. The floor remains in excellent condition. This ceiling has the richest plaster decoration in the house, a large deep oval of bay leaves dotted with roses. These cluster more densely at the east end, above the area of the Queen's State Bed. The spandrels are also more decorative, acanthus leaves swirl to fill the panels, each corner hiding a grotesque figure among the foliage or bursting from the flowers.
The bed had been removed by 1728 and the rooms were closed and rarely used, contributing to their excellent state of preservation. The change of use to a drawing room took place in the mid‐18th century with the lowering of the dais in line with the rest of the floor, and the purchase of new furniture and a set of William Bradshaw's popular early 18th century pastoral tapestries. Woven in 1734–40 for Henry O'Brien, 8th Earl of Thomond, and purchased in 1742 for £184 on behalf of the 4th Earl of Dysart, the tapestries needed only slight alterations to fit three of the walls of his newly decorated drawing room. Bradshaw's signature can be seen on The Dance tapestry. Woven in Soho, London, the four wool and silk tapestries have narrow borders in the style of picture frames and are thought to incorporate several different images from works by the French painters Antoine Watteau, Nicolas Lancret and Jean-Baptiste Pater.
#### Queen's Closet
The smallest, most intimate of the suite of rooms, the third and final room was designed for private use and could be closed off, away from the business of the State Bedchamber. Rarely used and preserved largely intact, the decoration, textiles and furniture give a unique record of late 17th century interior decoration. The marquetry floor incorporating the ducal coronet and cipher continues from the Bedchamber into the Closet. The ceiling painting of Ganymede and the Eagle is in the style of the Italian artist Antonio Verrio (1636–1707). Framed by a plaster garland, following the designs of the previous rooms, the richness of the effect is emphasised by gilding of the roses. Three ceiling paintings, again in the style of Verrio, of cupids sprinkling flowers, are partly hidden from view above the alcove. The elaborate chimney piece, hearth and windowsill, again including the Lauderdale cipher and ducal coronet, are made from scagliola, possibly the earliest documented example of scagliola in this country.
### Private Closet
This was the Duchess's most private and intimate room where she would read, write and entertain her closest family and friends. The elaborate oil on plaster ceilings in both of the Duchess's closets are by Antonio Verrio. They are among his earliest commissions in England, and his earliest surviving work following his arrival from France in 1672. As his reputation grew he was commissioned by royal and aristocratic clients for larger projects including for Charles II at Windsor Castle, interiors for the Earl of Exeter at Burghley House and for William III at Hampton Court. The ceiling painting of The Penitent Magdalene Surrounded by Putti Holding Emblems of Time, Death and Eternity was completed around 1675. The central figure floats above the room, circled by three putti carrying symbols of time (an hourglass), death (a skull), and eternity (a snake eating its own tail). Verrio linked the ceiling design to the room by enclosing it in a narrow painted grey marble surround, matching the marble fireplace. The room also contains a portrait of Catherine Bruce, Mrs William Murray (d. 1649), by John Hoskins the Elder, a watercolour on vellum in an ebony travelling case, signed and dated 1638.
### White Closet
Adjoining the Private Closet and richly decorated, this room was used by the Duchess for relaxing and entertaining, its double glazed door leading out to the Cherry Garden. The coved ceiling of this glamorous room, originally decorated with white silk hangings and marble effect walls, emphasises the advanced taste of the Duke and Duchess of Lauderdale in a room intended for their most important visitors. Painted by Verrio in oil on plaster in 1673/74, it is described by the art historians Peter Thornton and Maurice Tomlin as "decorated with one of the earliest examples of Baroque illusionism to have been executed in a domestic interior in this country". Putti climb up over a trompe l'oeil balustrade to reach the figures of Divine Wisdom Presiding Over The Liberal Arts, represented by seven mainly female figures bearing the symbols of Verrio's version of the liberal arts. The figure of Wisdom floats on clouds pointing to the all-seeing eye in the open sky above. Verrio linked the ceiling design to the room by enclosing it in a narrow painted red marble surround, matching the red marble fireplace, as in the Private Closet. The heavily gilded coving includes medallions of the four Cardinal virtues. Notable collection items include:
- Ham House from the South (1675–79) by Hendrick Danckerts depicts a finely dressed couple (possibly the Duke and Duchess of Lauderdale) in front of the south front and formal gardens, and was set into the chimneypiece in the White Closet shortly after the building was completed.
- Escritoire of kingwood oysterwork: this elegant oak scriptor (c. 1672–75) is veneered with South American kingwood using the oystering technique and features silver mounts. Made for the Duchess of Lauderdale, it is listed in the 1679 inventory of Ham House and is believed to have been made in London by a French or Dutch craftsman. Kingwood was one of the most expensive woods used in furniture making in the 17th century.
### Marble Dining Room
Since 1675 the walls of the Marble Dining Room have been decorated with leather panels. Today visitors can see two distinct designs. The earlier design of 1675 complemented the original black and white marble floor, for which the room is named, with brightly coloured Flemish leather panels of fruits and flowers such as tulips and roses mixed with birds and butterflies on a white background. These had been embossed and some elements gilded, giving the room a sumptuous look.
In 1756, the 4th Earl removed the marble floor and replaced it with a fine marquetry floor of tropical hardwoods. He also commissioned John Hutton of London to make a new set of leather wall hangings with an embossed diaper rosette surrounded by four leaves. The parts of the design which are now brown would originally have appeared to be gold, made by varnishing silver leaf in yellow. The fashion for leather wall decoration spread from Spain and the Spanish Netherlands in the 17th century and was considered ideal for dining rooms as leather did not become impregnated with the odours of food like the fabric of a tapestry. The Ham House inventory of 1655 indicates the "two parlers facing the river were hung with gilt leather."
### Withdrawing Room
After dining in the adjacent Marble Dining Room, guests would retire to this space for entertainment and conversation. It also served as an antechamber to the adjacent bedchamber. Notable in this room is the ebony and tortoiseshell cabinet: this cabinet (c. 1650–1675) on a possibly 19th century stand features red tortoiseshell decoration on a somewhat austere ebonised pine exterior that does not prepare the viewer for the ornate interior. Two doors open to reveal multiple shallow drawers on either side of an architectural exterior, which then opens to a theatrical set framed by golden pillars and mirrors. Known as the Antwerp cabinet, it is embellished with ivory, pietra paesina (a type of naturally patterned limestone) and gilt bronze and brass.
### Duchess's Bedchamber
Originally the Duke's bedchamber, it is believed it became the Duchess's bedchamber following the installation of the bathroom which is accessed via the door to the left of the bed alcove. The ceiling above the bed in the alcove is painted in the style of Antonio Verrio and shows the partially clothed Flora Attended by Cupids floating above the tester of the four poster bed. The monogram initials J, E and L (John, Elizabeth, Lauderdale) are entwined in each corner. Notable paintings include:
- Elizabeth Murray (1626–1698) painted by Peter Lely in 1648, the year of her marriage to Lionel Tollemache.
- A set of four overdoor maritime paintings by Willem van de Velde the Younger, signed and dated 1673, including Calm: An English Frigate at Anchor Firing a Salute, which remain from the decoration scheme planned for the room's use as the Duke's bedchamber.
### Back Parlour
This was the room in which senior male staff would have eaten their meals and spent any free time. Hanging in this room is: Elizabeth Murray, Countess of Dysart (1626–1698), with her First Husband, Sir Lionel Tollemache (1624–1669), and her Sister, Margaret Murray, Lady Maynard (c. 1638–1682) painted c. 1648 by Joan Carlile, a friend and neighbour to the Murrays.
## Garden and grounds
The gardens and pleasure grounds at Ham cover approximately 12 hectares (30 acres). They follow an axial plan, with avenues originally leading east, west and south from the house. The fourth, northern, side of the estate fronts the River Thames. The listed avenues leading to the house from the A307 are formed by more than 250 trees stretching east from the house to the 19th-century Jacobethan gate house at Petersham, and south across the open expanse of Ham Common where it is flanked by a pair of more modest gatehouses. A third avenue to the west no longer exists, and the view to and from the Thames completes the principal approaches to the house. The gardens and grounds are listed Grade II\* on Historic England's Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. From the initial survey drawings produced by Robert Smythson and son in 1609, it is clear that the garden design was considered as important as that of the house and that the two were intended to be in harmony. The original design shows the house set within a range of walled gardens, each with different formal designs as well as an orchard and vegetable garden. Uncertainty remains as to how much of the original design was actually realised; nevertheless, the plans illustrate the influence of the French formal garden of the time, with its emphasis on visual effects and perspectives.
The 1671 plans for the renovation undertaken by the Duke and Duchess of Lauderdale, which have been attributed to John Slezer and Jan Wyck, demonstrate the continued importance of the garden design, with many features that exist today such as the Orangery, the Cherry Garden, the Wilderness and eight grass squares (plats) on the south side of the house. Both the private apartments for the Duke and Duchess and the State Apartments added to the south front of the house were designed to overlook the formal gardens, an innovation that was highly commended by contemporaries. John Evelyn remarked favourably on the garden design observed during his August 1678 visit, noting "...the Parterres, Flower Gardens, Orangeries, Growves, Avenues, Courts, Statues, Perspectives, Fountaines, Aviaries...". The Duchess also commissioned a set of iron gates for the north entrance to the property, which remain in place today.
The 3rd and 4th Earls of Dysart who subsequently inherited the estate maintained the formal garden features into the 18th century, while also planting avenues of trees in the wider vicinity. After inheriting the estate in 1799, the 6th Earl opened the north front of the property to the river and installed the Coade stone statue of the River God at the front of the house. He also created the ha-ha which runs along the north entrance of the property. Louisa Manners, 7th Countess of Dysart, inherited the estate upon her brother's death and was acquainted with the artist John Constable, who completed a sketch of Ham House from the south gardens during a visit in 1835.
By 1972, the gardens had become greatly overgrown – large bay trees at the front blocked the view of the busts in their niches, the south lawn had reverted to a single large expanse of grass and the Wilderness was overgrown with rhododendrons and sycamore trees. Work to restore the 17th century design to the eastern and southern parts of the garden began in 1975. In 1974, an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum entitled "The Destruction of the Country House" had included a model of Ham House with its gardens shown according to the 1672 plans created by Ms. Lucy (Henderson) Askew. This model illustrated the details of the 17th-century design in terms of both layout and plant selection and was used to garner support for the restoration project. By 1977, the grass plats and the structure of the Wilderness to the south of the house were re-established. The 1675 painting by Henry Danckaerts showing the Duke and Duchess in the south gardens was used to guide the restoration of the furniture and statues now in place.
In approaching the restoration of the "cherry garden" on the east side of the house, there was less documentary evidence available to guide the design. A set of diagonally-set parterres outlined by box hedges and cones were planted with lavender, with the whole garden being enclosed by tunnel arbours and double yew hedges. Later archaeological studies completed in the 1980s indicated no evidence of formal gardens in this area prior to the 20th century; despite this finding, the National Trust's Gardens Panel decided not to remove the garden, but rather allow it to remain so long as visitors to the property were clearly informed of its origins. The focus of garden restoration since 2000 has been the walled kitchen garden to the west of the house, to restore its use as a supply of fresh fruit, vegetables and flowers. The produce is used in the Orangery cafe, while the flowers are used to decorate the house. The garden itself is also used as an exhibition space, with information about tulip varieties and the range of edible flowers.
## Later owners
### Lionel Tollemache, 3rd Earl of Dysart (1698–1727)
Elizabeth and Lionel Tollemache's eldest son and heir, Lionel, became 3rd Earl of Dysart on his mother's death in 1698, inheriting Ham House, the adjoining estates and the manors of Ham and Petersham. Already the owner of his father's estates in Suffolk and Northamptonshire, he had also acquired 20,000 acres (8,100 ha; 31 sq mi) in Cheshire through his marriage in 1680 to Grace, daughter of Sir Thomas Wilbraham, 3rd Baronet. He only spent short periods at Ham, and apparently did little for the upkeep of the house though he kept the garden well. He did use his wealth to pay off the interest on the outstanding mortgages but was not considered generous, even with his immediate family. His only son, Lionel, predeceased him in 1712 and on his death he was succeeded as Earl of Dysart by his grandson, also named Lionel.
### Lionel, 4th Earl (1727–70)
Lionel Tollemache was only 18 years old when he became the 4th Earl of Dysart and head of the family in 1727. Shortly after returning from the Grand Tour in 1729 he married Grace Carteret, the 16-year-old daughter of John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville, and began repairing existing furniture as well as commissioning new pieces for his properties at Ham and at Helmingham Hall in Suffolk. Ham House had been largely neglected since the death of Elizabeth; in 1730 he ordered a structural survey of the building from John James which revealed serious problems, especially on the north front. Repairs began in the 1740s. At the front of the house the "Advance", a projecting frontispiece which extended two storeys to form a porch over the main entrance, had become detached from the wall and was in danger of pulling down the roof. It was removed completely and the stone reused for repairs to the first and second floors. The canted bays on the projections at each end of the house were rebuilt as deeper three-window bays, with corresponding alterations made to the bays on the south front. Major repairs were also made to the roof, where old unfashionable red tiles on the outer pitches were replaced with slate and reused for repairs to the inner pitches where they would not be visible.
Much new furniture was commissioned, but the 4th Earl seems to have also been committed to preserving existing artefacts, making repairs to fixtures from the Lauderdale period where necessary. He made three large changes to the interior of the house: the Queen's Bedchamber on the first floor became the principal drawing room with furniture and tapestries supplied by the London upholsterer and textile producer William Bradshaw; the Volury on the ground floor became another drawing room with the addition of tapestries and its distinctive X-framed seat furniture; and in the Dining Room the marble floor was replaced with marquetry, with matching gilded leather panels on the walls. By means of his extensive investment, the house would have become sumptuously furnished by the mid-18th century.
Of the sixteen children of the 4th Earl and Countess, only seven lived to maturity. Three of their five sons died in the pursuit of their naval careers. The Countess died in 1755 aged 42, and the Earl in 1770 aged 61. He was survived by his sons Lionel, Lord Huntingtower, and Wilbraham, as well as three daughters: Jane, Louisa and Frances.
### Lionel, 5th Earl (1770–99)
Lionel Tollemache, 5th Earl of Dysart succeeded to the title in 1770 on his father's death. Despite spending on the house, the 4th Earl had kept his son short of money during his lifetime, causing friction in the relationship; he married without his father's consent. His wife, Charlotte, was the youngest illegitimate daughter of Sir Edward Walpole, second son of Robert Walpole, and niece of Horace Walpole who lived near to Ham across the Thames at Strawberry Hill. The 5th Earl seems to have been a reclusive and introverted individual who shunned publicity, preferring to remain on his estates and refusing to allow changes or renovations to Ham House. His aversion to visitors was so marked as to lead him to refuse a request to visit from George III; "whenever my house becomes a public spectacle, His Majesty shall certainly have the first view". In contrast to his conserving instincts at Ham, he demolished two properties in Northamptonshire and Cheshire, although retaining the productive, and lucrative, estates. He continued the family tradition of acquiring fine furniture, most notably a marquetry commode which can be seen in the Queen's Bedchamber, and the sunburst chairs in the White Closet.
Charlotte died, childless, in 1789 and although Lionel remarried he remained without an heir. The families of his surviving sisters, Louisa and Jane, reverted to the family name of Tollemache in anticipation of eventual succession. On his death in 1799 his brother, Wilbraham became the 6th Earl of Dysart.
### Wilbraham, 6th Earl (1799–1821)
Wilbraham was aged 60 when he inherited the title in 1799. One of his first acts was to buy the rights of the Manor of Kingston/Canbury from George Hardinge, extending the Dysarts' property south into Kingston. He had the wall which isolated the property and separated Ham House from the river demolished and replaced by a ha-ha, leaving the gates free-standing. Coade stone pineapples were added to decorate the balustrades to the north of the property and John Bacon's statue of the river god which is placed in front of the north entrance, pictured here, also in Coade stone, dates from this period. Several busts of Roman emperors which had adorned the now-demolished walls since the 17th century were relocated to niches in the front of the house. Further restoration of the old furniture took place as well as the addition of Jacobean reproductions. The 6th Earl became a patron of John Constable at this time. Wilbraham's wife died in 1804 and, devastated, he moved away, close to the estate in Cheshire. Wilbraham died without heir in 1821, aged 82.
### Louisa, 7th Countess (1821–40)
Of the 4th Earl's children, only the eldest daughter, Lady Louisa, by then widow of John Manners MP, was still surviving when her brother Wilbraham, the 6th Earl, died. Already heiress to Manners' 30,000 acres (12,000 ha; 47 sq mi) at Buckminster Park, Louisa inherited the title and estates at Ham in 1821 at the age of 76. The remaining Tollemache estates were bequeathed to the heirs of Lady Jane. Louisa continued the patronage of John Constable who was a frequent and welcome visitor to Ham. Increasingly infirm and blind in old age, Louisa lived to the age of 95, dying in 1840.
### Lionel, 8th Earl (1840–1878)
Louisa's eldest son, William, had predeceased her in 1833. Her grandson, Lionel William John Tollemache, inherited the title and became the 8th Earl of Dysart in 1840. Lionel preferred to live in London and invited his brothers, Frederick and Algernon Gray Tollemache, to manage the estates and Ham and Buckminster. Lionel became increasingly reclusive and eccentric. Lionel's only son, William, a controversial figure who amassed great debts guaranteed by the expectation of inheriting the family fortune also predeceased his father, who subsequently bequeathed the estates to his grandson William John Manners Tollemache, with the 8th Earl's brothers Frederick and Algernon along with Charles Hanbury-Tracy acting as trustees until 1899. Following the 8th Earl's death, his son's creditors brought an action in the High Court against the Tollemache family who ultimately had to pay a sum of £70,000 to avoid forfeiting much of the Ham estate.
### William, 9th Earl (1878–1935)
The 9th Earl inherited in 1878. In his autobiography, Augustus Hare recounts a visit to Ham House the following year, contrasting the dilapidation and disrepair of the house and estate with the treasures the house still contained. Shortly afterwards, the 9th Earl, with agreement from the trustees, undertook extensive renovation of the house and its contents and by 1885 it was again in a suitable state to host social activities, notably a garden party to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887. In 1890 Ada Sudeley, a niece of the 8th Earl, published her 570-page book Ham House, Belonging to the Earl of Dysart.
On 23 September 1899, full control of the Tollemache estates at Ham and Buckminster was transferred from trustees to the 9th Earl, then aged about 40, in accordance with his grandfather's will. By the early 1900s the Dysarts had installed electricity and central heating at the house along with other modern gadgets including, in the Duchess's basement bathroom, a bath with jets and even a wave machine. The 9th Earl travelled widely, rode despite blindness, invested successfully in the stock market, and while eccentric and difficult, nonetheless was hospitable and supportive of the local community. His cantankerous nature proved too much for his wife who left him in the early 1900s but he lived on with other family members at Ham for many years. In the 1920s and 1930s he employed a staff of up to 20 including a chauffeur for his four cars including a Lanchester and Rolls-Royce. When he died in 1935 he left investments worth £4,800,000 but had no direct heir. He was the last Earl of Dysart to live at the house.
### Sir Lyonel Tollemache, Bt. (1935–52)
On the 9th Earl's death in 1935, his inheritance passed to the families of his sisters. His niece, Wynefrede, daughter of his sister Agnes, inherited the earldom. Wynefrede's cousin, Lyonel, at the age of 81, inherited the baronetcy and the estates at Ham and Buckminster. He and his middle-aged son, Cecil Lyonel Newcomen Tollemache, lived at the house, but the lack of available staff during the Second World War added to the difficulty of maintaining it. The nearby Hawker Siddeley aircraft factory was a target for bombing raids, and the house and grounds suffered some minor damage. Much of the house's contents were removed to the countryside for safety. Most of the family papers were deposited in Chancery Lane but, while they survived the Blitz, they suffered significant water damage from fire hoses. Thought for some time to have been lost, an additional set of papers was subsequently recovered from the Ham House stables in 1953, though many were in poor condition from inadequate storage conditions.
### National Trust (1948–present)
In 1943, Sir Lyonel invited the National Trust's first Historic Buildings Secretary, James Lees-Milne, to visit the house. Lees-Milne saw the neglected state of the house and grounds but, even though devoid of its contents, the historical importance of the underlying estate was immediately apparent. He recorded his impressions in his diary for 1947, extracts from which were later reproduced in the volume Some Country Houses and their Owners: "The grounds are indescribably overgrown and unkempt. All the rooms are dirty and dusty. The garden and front doors look as they had not been used for decades." Despite the neglect, a report commissioned by Lees-Milne in 1946 concluded that it was "by far the finest, most valuable and most representative building of the period to which it belongs in the United Kingdom". Following lengthy negotiations, Sir Lyonel and his son donated the house and its grounds to the Trust in 1948. The stables and other outlying buildings were sold privately and much of the remaining estate was auctioned in 1949.
The National Trust at first transferred ownership of Ham House to the state on a long lease to the Ministry of Works. The contents of the house were purchased by the government who entrusted them to the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) after considerable urging by the director of the museum, Sir Leigh Ashton. His efforts were essential because the National Land Fund, which had been established in 1946 through the sale of surplus war materials, allowed for the purchase of property but not art or other interior furnishings. The legislation was amended in 1953, following the agreement that properties such as Ham House ought to retain their historic collections.
By 1950, the house was open to the public and a series of research and restoration works since undertaken, restoring and reproducing much of the house's former grandeur. The arrival of Peter Thornton as the Keeper of the Furniture Department at the V&A led to a new approach in the management of the collection; efforts focused on arranging pieces within the house according to the documented history of the property, rather than treating individual items as simply part of the museum inventory. Research on historic interiors emerged as a discipline from the late 1960s, with an important source made available through the publication of the Ham House bills and inventories in 1980.
The government relinquished its lease in 1990, and the compensation was used to form a fund to support maintenance. The collections were fully transferred from the V&A to the National Trust in 2002. Since that time, the National Trust has invested in recreating the period interiors of the house by rehanging the collection and placing furniture according to inventory records as well as commissioning replica textiles based on archival descriptions. To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the property, a symposium was held to stimulate interest in new research; this led to the publication of a major historical survey overseen by Christopher Rowell in 2013. The Trust continues to acquire items at auction with a historical connection to the house, such as paintings which were formerly in the collection. Restoration is an additional area of major investment, such as that completed for the Queen's Antechamber wallhangings in 2010. In its 2018/2019 Annual Report, the Trust reported that Ham received 127,195 visitors.
## In film and television
Ham House is a popular film location. It has also appeared in television and radio programmes. Films that have used the house and its grounds include: Left Right and Centre (1959), Spice World (1997), The Young Victoria (2009), Never Let Me Go (2010), Anna Karenina (2012), John Carter (2012), A Little Chaos (2014), Victoria and Abdul (2017), The Last Vermeer (2019), and Rebecca (2020). Television programmes filmed at Ham include: Steptoe and Son (1964), Sense and Sensibility (2008), Taboo (2017), Bodyguard (2018), Belgravia (2020), The Great (2020), and the Antiques Roadshow (2021).
## Access
The house can be reached by public transport and is located in Transport for London travel zone 4; from Richmond station (London) the 65 bus service serves Petersham Road and the 371 bus service serves Sandy Lane. These routes terminate near Kingston station. There is a free council car park north-west of the house, next to the Thames. Hammerton's Ferry, to the north-east, links to a playground between Orleans House Gallery and Marble Hill House below Twickenham's central embankment. The house is accessible to pedestrians and cyclists via the Thames Path national trail.
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Vithoba
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Hindu god considered as a manifestation of Vishnu or Krishna
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[
"Forms of Krishna",
"Forms of Vishnu",
"Haridasa",
"Regional Hindu gods",
"Titles and names of Krishna",
"Warkari"
] |
Vithoba (IAST: viṭhōbā), also known as Vitthala (IAST: viṭṭhala), and Panduranga (IAST: pāṇḍraṅga), is a Hindu god predominantly worshipped in the Indian state of Maharashtra and Karnataka. He is a form of the god Vishnu. Vithoba is often depicted as a dark young boy, standing arms akimbo on a brick, sometimes accompanied by his consort Rakhumai.
Vithoba is the focus of an essentially monotheistic, non-ritualistic bhakti-driven Varkari faith in Maharashtra and the Brahminical Haridasa sect established in Dvaita Vedanta in Karnataka. Vithoba Temple, Pandharpur is his main temple. Vithoba legends revolve around his devotee Pundalik who is credited for bringing the deity to Pandharpur, and around Vithoba's role as a saviour to the poet-saints of the Varkari faith. The Varkari poet-saints are known for their unique genre of devotional lyric, the abhang, dedicated to Vithoba and composed in Marathi. Other devotional literature dedicated to Vithoba includes the Kannada hymns of the Haridasa and the Marathi versions of the generic aarti songs associated with rituals of offering light to the deity. The most important festivals of Vithoba are held on Devshayani Ekadashi in the month of Ashadha, and Prabodhini Ekadashi in the month of Kartik.
The historiography of Vithoba and his sect is an area of continuing debate, even regarding his name. Though the origins of both his sect and his main temple are likewise debated, there is clear evidence that they already existed by the 13th century.
## Etymology and other names
Vithoba (Marathi: विठोबा, ) is known by many names, including: Vitthala, Panduranga, Pandharinath, Hari and Narayan.
There are several theories about the origins and meanings of these names. Varkari tradition suggests that the name Vitthala (also spelled as Vitthal, Viththal, Vittala and Vithal; Marathi: विठ्ठल, Kannada: ವಿಠ್ಠಲ, Telugu: విఠ్ఠల and Gujarati: વિઠ્ઠલ; all ) is composed of two Sanskrit-Marathi words: ', which means 'brick'; and thal, which may have originated from the Sanskrit sthala, meaning 'standing'. Thus, Vitthala would mean 'one standing on a brick'. William Crooke, orientalist, supported this explanation. The prescribed iconography of Vithoba stipulates that he be shown standing arms-akimbo upon a brick, which is associated with the legend of the devotee Pundalik. However, the Varkari poet-saint Tukaram proposed a different etymology—that Vitthala is composed of the words vittha (ignorance) and la (one who accepts), thus meaning 'one who accepts innocent people who are devoid of knowledge'. Historian Ramakrishna Gopal Bhandarkar offers yet another possibility—that Vitthu () is a Kannada corruption of the name Vishnu adopted in Marathi. The suffixes -la and -ba (meaning 'father' in Marathi) were appended for reverence, producing the names Vitthala and Vithoba. This corruption of Vishnu to Vitthu could have been due to the tendency of Marathi and Kannada people to pronounce the Sanskrit ' () as ' (), attested since the 8th century.
According to research scholar M. S. Mate of the Deccan College, Pundalik—who is assumed to be a historical figure—was instrumental in persuading the Hoysala king Vishnuvardhana alias Bittidev to build the Pandharpur temple dedicated to Vishnu. The deity was subsequently named as Vitthala, a derivative of Bittidev, by the builder-king. Other variants of the name include (King Vitthala), and (Mother Vitthala). The people of Gujarat add the suffix -nath (Lord) to Vitthala, which yields the name Vitthal-nath. The additional honorific suffix -ji may be added, giving the name Vitthalnathji. This name is generally used in the Pushtimarg sect.
Panduranga (Marathi: पांडुरंग, Kannada: ಪಾಂಡುರಂಗ, Telugu: పాండురంగ; all ), also spelt as Pandurang and Pandaranga, is another popular epithet for Vithoba, which means 'the white god' in Sanskrit. The Jain author-saint Hemachandra (1089–1172 AD) notes it is also used as an epithet for the god Rudra-Shiva. Even though Vithoba is depicted with dark complexion, he is called a "white god". Bhandarkar explains this paradox, proposing that Panduranga may be an epithet for the form of Shiva worshipped in Pandharpur, and whose temple still stands. Later, with the increasing popularity of Vithoba's cult, this was also transferred to Vithoba. Another theory suggests that Vithoba may initially have been a Shaiva god (related to Shiva), only later identified with Vishnu, thus explaining the usage of Panduranga for Vithoba. Crooke, however, proposed that Panduranga is a Sanskritised form of Pandaraga (belonging to Pandarga), referring to the old name of Pandharpur. Another name, Pandharinath, also refers to Vithoba as the lord of Pandhari (yet another variant for Pandharpur).
Finally, Vithoba is also addressed by the names of Vishnu like Hari and Narayana, in the Vaishnava sect.
## Origins and development
Reconstruction of the historical development of Vithoba worship has been much debated. In particular, several alternative theories have been proposed regarding the earliest stages as well as the point at which he came to be recognised as a distinct deity. The Pandurangashtakam stotra, a hymn attributed to Adi Shankaracharya of the 8th century, indicates that Vithoba worship had already existed at an early date.
According to Richard Maxwell Eaton, author of A Social History of the Deccan, Vithoba was first worshiped as the pastoral god Krishna as early as the 6th century. Vithoba's arms-akimbo iconography is similar to Bir Kuar, associated with Krishna, the cattle-god of the Ahirs of Bihar. Vithoba was probably later assimilated into the Shaiva pantheon and identified with the god Shiva, like most other pastoral gods. This is backed by because of the facts that the temple at Pandharpur is surrounded by Shaiva temples (most notably of the devotee Pundalik himself), and that Vithoba is crowned with the Linga, symbol of Shiva. However since the 13th century, the poet-saints like Namdev, Eknath and Tukaram identified Vithoba with Vishnu.
Christian Lee Novetzke of the University of Washington suggests that Vithoba's worship migrated from Karnataka to the formerly Shaiva city of Pandharpur some time before 1000 CE; but under the possible influence of a Krishna-worshipping Mahanubhava sect, the town was transformed into a Vaishnava center of pilgrimage. This proposal is consistent with contemporary remnants of Shaiva worship in the town.
The religious historian R.C. Dhere, winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award for his book Sri Vitthal: Ek Mahasamanvaya, opines that Vithoba worship may be even older—"Vedic or pre-Vedic", hence pre-dating the worship of Krishna. According to this theory, Vithoba is an amalgam of various local heroes, who gave their lives to save their cattle. He was first worshipped by the Dhangar, the cattle-owning caste of Maharashtra. The rise of the Yadava dynasty, which had cowherd ancestry, could have led to the glorification of Vithoba as Krishna, who is often depicted as a cowherd. This Vaishnavization of Vithoba also led to conversion of the Shaiva Pundarika shrine to the Vaishnava shrine of the devotee Pundalik, who—according to legend—brought Vithoba to Pandharpur. There may have been an attempt to assimilate Vithoba into Buddhism; today, both are viewed as a form of Vishnu in Hinduism.
Vithoba is associated more with "compassion, an infinite love and tenderness for his bhaktas (devotees) that can be compared to the love of the mother for her children pining for the presence of his devotees the way a cow pines for her far-away calf."
G. A. Deleury, author of The cult of Vithoba, proposes that the image of Vithoba is a viragal (hero stone), which was later identified with Vishnu in his form as Krishna, and that Pundalik transformed the Puranic, ritualistic puja worship into more idealised bhakti worship—"interiorized adoration prescinding caste distinction and institutional priesthood .." Indologist Dr. Tilak suggests that Vithoba emerged as "an alternative to the existing pantheon" of brahminical deities (related to classical, ritualistic Hinduism). The emergence of Vithoba was concurrent with the rise of a "new type of lay devotee", the Varkari. While Vishnu and Shiva were bound in rigid ritualistic worship and Brahmin (priestly) control, Vithoba, "the God of the subaltern, became increasingly human." Vithoba is often praised as the protector of the poor and needy. Stevenson (1843) suggests that Vithoba could have been a Jain saint, as the Vithoba images were similar to Jain images.
### Pandharpur temple and inscriptions
Scholastic investigation of Vithoba's history often begins with consideration of the dating of the chief temple at Pandharpur, which is believed to be the earliest Vithoba temple. The oldest part of the temple dates to the Yadava period of the 12th and 13th centuries. Most of the temple is believed to have been built in the 17th century, though addition to the temple has never ceased. The date the temple was first established is unclear to Bhandarkar, but he insists there is clear evidence to suggest it existed by the 13th century. According to S. G. Tulpule, the temple stood as early as 1189. In fact, a monument dated 1189 records establishment of a small Vithoba shrine at the present location of the temple; thus, Tulpule concludes, the worship of Vithoba predates 1189.
A stone inscription dated 1237, found on an overhead beam of the present Vithoba temple, mentions that the Hoysala king Someshvara donated a village for the expense of the bhoga (food offering) for "Vitthala". An inscription on a copper plate, dated 1249, records the Yadava king Krishna granting to one of his generals the village Paundrikakshetra (kshetra of Pundarik), on the river Bhimarathi, in the presence of the god Vishnu. Another stone inscription in Pandharpur narrates a sacrifice at Pandurangapura due to which "people and Vitthal along with the gods were gratified". Thus from the 13th century, the city is known as the city of Panduranga. Inside the temple, a stone inscription records gifts to the temple between 1272 and 1277 from various donors, notably the Yadava king Ramachandra's minister Hemadri.
Ranade believes that an inscription, found in Alandi and referring to Vitthala and Rakhumai, is the oldest related to Vithoba, and dates it to 1209. However, the name Pandaranga is found on a Rashtrakuta copper plate inscription, dated 516. Citing this, Pande infers that Vithoba's cult was well established by the 6th century.
### Central image
The physical characteristics of the central murti (image) of Vithoba at Pandharpur, and various textual references to it, have inspired theories relating to Vithoba worship. Sand concludes, from a version of Pundalik's legend in the Skanda Purana (see Legend' below), that two distinct murtis must have existed at Pandharpur—one each of tirtha and kshetra type. The earlier one was a tirtha murti, an image purposely sited near a holy body of water (tirtha), in this case facing west, on the Bhima riverbed, near the Pundalik shrine. The later murti, according to Sand, was a kshetra murti, located at a place of holy power (kshetra), in this case facing east, on the hill where the current temple has stood since about 1189. Thus, Sand proposes that the worship of Vithoba may predate the temple itself.
Deleury suggests that although the temple may have been built in the 13th century, given the Hemadpanthi style architecture, the statue of Vithoba is of an earlier style so may have been carved for an earlier, smaller shrine that existed in Pandharpur. The workmanship of the image is earlier than the style of the Yadava (1175–1318), the Anhivad Chalukya (943–1210) and even the Ajmer Chohans (685–1193) eras. Although no other existing Vishnu temple has iconography like Pandharpur's Vithoba, Deleury finds similarities between the Pandharpur image and the third-century, arms-akimbo Vishnu images at Udaygiri Caves, Madhya Pradesh but declares that they are from different schools of sculpture.
### Pundalik
The devotee Pundalik, thrower of the brick (see Legend below), is a major character in the legends of Vithoba. He is commonly perceived to be a historical figure, connected with the establishment and propagation of the Vithoba-centric Varkari sect. Ramakrishna Gopal Bhandarkar considers Pundalik to be the founder of the Varkari sect and the one who promulgated the sect in Maratha country. Stevenson (1843) goes further, suggesting he might have been a Jain or a Buddhist, since Varkari tradition is a combination of Jain and Buddhist morals, and Vithoba is viewed as Vishnu in his form as Buddha. Frazer, Edwards and P.R. Bhandarkar (1922) all suggest that Pundalik tried to unify Shiva and Vishnu, and that this sect originated in Karnataka. Ranade (1933) thinks that Pundalik, a Kannada saint, was not only the founder of the Varkari sect but also the first great devotee or first high priest of the Pandharpur temple. Upadhyaya supports the priest theory but declines the Kannada origin theory. According to M. S. Mate, Pundalik was instrumental in coaxing the Hoysala king Vishnuvardhana to build the Pandharpur temple to Vishnu, placing him in the early 12th century. Other scholars like Raeside (1965), Dhanpalvar (1972), and Vaudeville (1974) have questioned the historicity of Pundalik altogether, and dismissed him as a mythical figure.
### Identifications
Primarily, there are three Hindu deities associated with Vithoba: Vishnu, Krishna and Shiva. Gautama Buddha is also associated with Vithoba, consistent with Hindu deification of the Buddha as the ninth incarnation of Vishnu. However, Varkari consider Vithoba to be the svarup (original) Vishnu himself, not an Avatar (manifestation) of Vishnu like Krishna, despite legends and consorts linking Vithoba to Krishna. However, even the Mahanubhavas, who rose in the 13th century as a Krishna-worshipping sect, not only dismissed the notion that Vithoba is Krishna but also frequently vilified Vithoba.
In some traditions though, Vithoba is also worshipped as a form of Shiva. The Dhangars still consider Vithoba to be a brother of the god Viroba, and view Vithoba as a Shaiva god rather than a Vaishnava one. Underhill proposes that the shrine of Pandharpur is a combined form of Vishnu-Shiva established by the Bhagavata sect that worships Vishnu-Shiva—the Lord, which is what bhagavata means. However, for the chief priests of the Pandharpur temple—Brahmins of the Badva family —" is neither nor . is " (IAST original). Despite this, some priests of the temple point to marks on the Vithoba image's chest as proof of Vithoba being Vishnu, in his form as Krishna.
Vithoba's image replaces the traditional representation of Buddha, when depicted as the ninth avatar of Vishnu, in some temple sculptures and Hindu astrological almanacs in Maharashtra. In the 17th century, Maratha artists sculpted an image of Pandharpur's Vithoba in the Buddha's place on a panel showing Vishnu's avatars. This can be found in the Shivneri Caves. Stevenson goes so far as to call devotees of Vithoba (Vithal-bhaktas) Buddhist Vaishnavas (Bauddho-Vaishnavas), since they consider Vithoba to be the ninth—namely Buddha—avatar of Vishnu. Some of the poet-saints praised Vithoba as a form of Buddha. B. R. Ambedkar, an Indian political leader and Buddhist convert, suggested that the image of Vithoba at Pandharpur was in reality the image of the Buddha.
## Iconography
All Vithoba images are generally modelled on his central image in Pandharpur. The Pandharpur image is a black basalt sculpture that is 3 feet 9 inches (1.14 m) tall. Vithoba is depicted as dark young boy. The poet-saints have called him "Para-brahman with a dark complexion". He wears high, conical headgear or a crown, interpreted as Shiva's symbol—the Linga. Thus, according to Zelliot, Vithoba represents Shiva as well as Vishnu. The first Varkari poet-saint, Dnyaneshwar (13th century), states that Vithoba (Vishnu) carries Shiva, who according to Vaishnavism is Vishnu's first and foremost devotee, on his own head.
Vithoba is shown standing arms-akimbo on the brick thrown by the devotee Pundalik. He wears a necklace of tulasi-beads, embedded with the legendary kaustubha gem, and makara-kundala (fish-shaped earrings) that the poet-saint Tukaram relates to the iconography of Vishnu. Pandharpur's Vithoba holds a shankha (conch) in his left hand and a chakra (discus) or lotus flower in his right, all of which are symbols traditionally associated with Vishnu. Some images depict Vithoba's right hand making a gesture that has been traditionally misunderstood as a blessing; no gesture of blessing is present in the Pandharpur image. Though usually depicted two-armed, four-armed representations of the deity also exist.
The Pandharpur image, when not clothed by its attendant priest to receive devotees, provides Vithoba with the detailed features distinctive of a male body, visible in full relief. However, close inspection of the stonework reveals the outline of a loincloth, supported by a kambarband (waist belt), traced by thin, light carvings. Other images and pictures depict Vithoba clothed, usually with pitambara – a yellow dhoti and various gold ornaments—the manner in which he is attired by the priests in the daily rites.
The Pandharpur image also bears, on the left breast, the mark known as the srivatsalanchhana—said to be a curl of white hair, usually found on the breast of Vishnu and Krishna images. The image is also dignified with a ring-shaped mark called shriniketana on the right breast, mekhala (a three-stringed waist-belt), a long stick (kathi) embedded in the ground between the legs, and double ring and pearl bracelets on the elbows.
## Consorts
Vithoba is usually depicted with his main consort, Rakhumai, on his left side. Rakhumai (or Rakhamai) literally means 'mother Rukmini'. Rukmini is traditionally viewed as the wife of Krishna. Hindus generally consider Krishna to be a form of Vishnu, hence his consort as a form of Lakshmi. Just like her consort, Rakhumai is also depicted in the arms-akimbo posture, standing on a brick. She has an independent cella in the Pandharpur temple complex. According to Ghurye, Rukmini—a princess of the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra—was elevated to the status of the main consort, because of her affiliation with the region. According to Dhangar tradition, Rukhumai is worshipped by the community as Padmavati or Padubai, a protector of the community and cattle in particular. Dhangar folklore explains the reason behind separate shrines for Vithoba and Padubai as the outcome of Vithoba invoking a curse on his consort, and his non-attachment to samsara (the householder's life). Apart from Rakhumai, two other consorts Satyabhama and Rahi (derived from Radha) are worshipped too. All three consorts are regarded as Krishna's in Hindu mythology.
## Worship
Vithoba is a popular deity in Maharashtra and Karnataka; devotees also exist in Goa, Telangana and Tamil Nadu but not in the same numbers. Vithoba is worshipped and revered by most Marathis, but he is not popular as a kuldevta (family deity). The main temple of Vithoba, which includes a distinct, additional shrine for his consort Rakhumai, is located at Pandharpur. In this context, Pandharpur is affectionately called "Bhu-Vaikuntha" (the place of residence of Vishnu on earth) by devotees. Devotees, from across Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana, have visited Vithoba's central temple at Pandharpur, since the times of Dnyaneshwar (13th century).
Two distinct traditions revolve around the worship of Vithoba in Maharashtra: ritual worship inside the temple by the Brahmin priests of the Badva family; and spiritual worship by the Varkaris. The ritual worship includes five daily rites. First, at about 3 am, is an arati to awaken the god, called . Next comes the , a puja that includes a bath with five (pancha) sweet substances called panchamrita. The image is then dressed to receive morning devotions. The third rite is another puja involving re-dressing and lunch at noon. This is known as . Afternoon devotions are followed by a fourth rite for dinner at sunset—the . The final rite is , an arati for putting the god to sleep. In addition to the rites at the main temple in Pandharpur, Haridasa traditions dedicated to Vitthala flourish in Karnataka.
### Varkari sect
The Varkari Panth (Pilgrim Path) or Varkari Sampradaya (Pilgrim Tradition) is one of the most important Vaishnava sects in India. According to Raeside, it is an essentially monotheistic, bhakti sect, focused on the worship of Vithoba and based on traditional Bhagavata dharma. The sect, according to Vaudeville, is a "Shaiva-Vaishnava synthesis" and "nominal Vaishnavism, containing a free mix of other religions". It is believed to have originated in Karnataka and migrated to Maharashtra. This last theory is based on a reference to Vithoba as "Kānaḍā" (belonging to Karnataka) in the work of the first of the poet-saints, Dnyaneshwar. However, this word can also be interpreted as "difficult to understand". Varkaris and scholars who believe Pundalik to have been a historical figure also consider him to be founder of the cult of Vithoba. This is evidenced by the liturgical call—Pundalikavarada Hari Vitthala!—which means "O Hari Vitthala (Vithoba), who has given a boon to Pundalik!" However, according to Zelliot, the sect was founded by Dnyaneshwar (also spelled Jnaneshwar), who was a Brahmin poet and philosopher and flourished during the period 1275–1296. Varkaris also give him credit with the saying—Dnyanadev rachila paya—which means "Dnyaneshwar laid the foundation stone".
Namdev (c. 1270–1350), a Shudra tailor, wrote short Marathi devotional poems in praise of Vithoba called abhangas (literally 'unbroken'), and used the call-and-response kirtan (literally 'repeating') form of singing to praise the glory of his Lord. Public performance of this musical devotion led to the spread of the Vithoba faith, which accepted women, Shudras and outcaste "untouchables", something forbidden in classical brahminical Hinduism. In the times of Muslim rulers, the faith faced stagnation. However, after the decline of the Vijayanagara empire, when wars erupted in the Deccan region, the Muslim rulers had to accept the faiths of Maharashtra in order to gather the support of its people. In this period, Eknath (c. 1533–99) revived the Varkari tradition. With the foundation of the Maratha empire under Shivaji, Tukaram (c. 1568–1650), a Vaishya grocer, further propagated the Vithoba-centric tradition throughout the Maharashtra region.
All these poet-saints, and others like Janabai, the maidservant of Namdev, wrote poetry dedicated to Vithoba. This Marathi poetry advocates pure devotion, referring to Vithoba mostly as a father, or in the case of the female saint Janabai's poetry, as a mother (Vithabai). Not only women, like Janabai, but also a wide variety of people from different castes and backgrounds wrote abhangas in praise of Vithoba: Visoba Khechara (who was an orthodox Shaiva and teacher of Namdev), Sena the barber, Narhari the goldsmith, Savata the gardener, Gora the potter, Kanhopatra the dancing girl, Chokhamela the "untouchable" Mahar, and even the Muslim Sheikh Muhammad (1560–1650). Anyone born Shaiva or Vaishnava who considers Vithoba his maya-baap (mother-father) and Pandharpur his maher (maternal house of a bride) is accepted as a Varkari by the sect irrespective of the barriers of caste. Varkaris often practice Vithoba japa (meditative repetition of a divine name), and observe a fast on the ekadashi of each month.
### Haridasa sect
Haridasa means servant (dasa) of Vishnu (Hari). According to Haridasa tradition, their sampradaya, also known as Haridasa-kuta, was founded by Achalananda Vitthala (c. 888). It is a distinct branch within Vaishnavism, centered on Vitthala (the Haridasa–Kannada name for Vithoba). Where Varkari are normally associated with Maharashtra, Haridasa are normally associated with Karnataka. The scholar Sharma considers Vithoba worship first emerged in Karnataka, only later moving to Maharashtra. He argues this on the basis of the reference by Dnyaneshwar, mentioned in section "Varkari sect" above. Lutgendorf credits the movement to Vyasatirtha (1478–1539), the royal guru (rajguru) to king Krishnadevaraya of the Vijayanagara empire. Vitthala enjoyed royal patronage in this era. Krishnadevaraya is also credited with building Vitthala's temple at the then capital city Vijayanagara (modern Hampi).
Haridasas consider the temple of Pandharpur to be sacred, as well that of Hampi, and worship Vitthala along with forms of Krishna. Haridasa literature generally deals with praise dedicated to Vitthala and Krishna. Haridasa poets like Vijaya Vitthala, Gopala Vitthala, Jagannatha Vitthala, Venugopala Vitthala and Mohana Vitthala assumed pen-names ending with "Vitthala", as an act of devotion. The Haridasa poet Purandara Dasa or Purandara Vitthala (1484–1564), "father of Carnatic music", often ended his Kannada language compositions with a salutation to Vitthala.
### Pushtimarg sect
The founder of the Hindu sect Pushtimarg – Vallabhacharya (1479–1531) is believed to have visited Pandharpur at least twice and was ordered to marry by Vithoba (called Vitthalnath or Vitthalnathji in the sect) and have children so that he could be born as Vallabhacharya's son. Later, Vallabhacharya married. His second son and successor was recognized as a manifestation of Vithoba and named Vitthalnath, also known as Gusainji. One of the sect's Nidhi Swaroops is Vitthalnathji with his consort Yamunaji.
### Festivals
The festivals associated with Vithoba primarily correspond to the bi-annual yatras (pilgrimages) of the Varkaris. The pilgrims travel to the Pandharpur temple from Alandi and Dehu, towns closely associated with poet-saints Dnyaneshwar and Tukaram respectively. Along the way, they sing abhangas (devotional songs) dedicated to Vithoba and repeat his name, carrying the palkhis (palanquins) of the poet-saints. Varkaris do not engage in ritual worship but only practice darshan (visual adoration) of the deity. The ritual worship by the priests is restricted to five days each around the Ashadha (June–July) and Kartik (October–November) Ekadashis, when a large number of Varkaris participate in the yatras. In smaller numbers, the Varkaris also visit the temple on two other Ekadashis—in the Hindu months of Magha and Chaitra.
More than 800,000 Varkaris travel to Pandharpur for the yatra on Shayani Ekadashi, the 11th day of the waxing moon in the lunar month of Ashadha. Both Shayani Ekadashi and Prabodhini Ekadashi (in the waxing half of Kartik), are associated with the mythology of Vishnu. Hindus believe that Vishnu falls asleep in Ksheersagar (a cosmic ocean of milk), while lying on the back of Shesha-nāga (the cosmic serpent). His sleep begins on Shayani Ekadashi (literally the 'sleeping 11th') and he finally awakens from his slumber, four months later, on Prabodhini Ekadashi. The celebrations in Ashadha and Kartik continue until the full-moon in those months, concluding with torchlight processions. Inscriptions dating to the 11th century mention the Ekadashi pilgrimages to Pandharpur. On Shayani Ekadashi and Prabodini Ekadashi, the chief minister or a minister of Maharashtra state performs ritual components of worship on behalf of the Government of Maharashtra. This form of worship is known as sarkari-mahapuja.
Apart from the four Ekadashis, a fair is held on Dussera night at Pandharpur, when devotees dance on a large slab (ranga-shila) before Vithoba, accompanied with torchlight processions. Other observances at the Pandharpur temple include: Ranga-Panchami, when gulal (red powder) is sprinkled on the god's feet; and Krishna Janmashtami, Krishna's birthday, when devotees dance and sing in front of Vithoba for nine days. Other sacred days include Wednesdays, Saturdays and all other Ekadashis, all of which are considered holy in Vaishnavism.
### Devotional works
Devotional works dedicated to Vithoba can be categorised into the Varkari tradition, the Brahmin tradition and what Raeside calls a "third tradition", that includes both Varkari and Brahmin elements. The Varkari texts are written in Marathi, the Brahmin texts in Sanskrit, and the "third tradition" are Marathi texts written by Brahmins.
The Varkari texts are: Bhaktalilamrita and Bhaktavijaya by Mahipati, Pundalika-Mahatmya by Bahinabai, and a long abhanga by Namdev. All these texts describe the legend of Pundalik. The Brahmin texts include: two versions of Panduranga-Mahatmya from the Skanda Purana (consisting of 900 verses); Panduranga-Mahatmya from the Padma Purana (consisting of 1,200 verses); Bhima-Mahatmya, also from the Padma Purana; and a third devotional work, yet again called Panduranga-Mahatmya, which is found in the Vishnu Purana. The "third tradition" is found in two works: Panduranga-Mahatmya by the Brahmin Sridhara (consisting of 750 verses), and another work of the same name written by Prahlada Maharaj (consisting of 181 verses).
In addition to the above, there are many abhangas, the short Marathi devotional poems of the Varkaris, and many stutis (songs of praise) and stotras (hymns), some of them originating from the Haridasa tradition. The best known of these is "Pandurangastaka" or "Pandurangastrotra", attributed to Adi Shankaracharya, although this attribution is questioned. A text called "Tirthavali-Gatha", attributed to Namdev or Dnyaneshwar but possibly a collection of writings of many poet-saints, also centers on the propagation of Varkari faith and Vithoba worship. Other devotional works include aratis like "Yuge atthavisa vitevari ubha" by Namdev and "Yei O Vitthala majhe mauli re". These aratis sing of Vithoba, who wears yellow garments (a characteristic of Vishnu) and is served by Garuda (mount of Vishnu) and Hanuman (the monkey god, devotee of Rama—an avatar of Vishnu). Finally, the Telugu poet Tenali Ramakrishna (16th century) refers to Vithoba, as Panduranga, in his poem Panduranga-Mahatmyamu: "(O Parvati), accepting the services of Pundarika and Kshetrapala (Kala-bhairava), becoming the wish fulfilling tree by assuming a subtle body for the sake of devotees, fulfilling their wishes, the deity Panduranga resides in that temple."
### Temples
There are many Vithoba temples in Maharashtra, and some in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Goa and Andhra Pradesh. However, the main centre of worship is Vithoba's temple in Pandharpur. The temple's date of establishment is disputed, though it is clear that it was standing at the time of Dnyaneshwar in the 13th century. Along with Vithoba and his consorts—Rukmini, Satyabhama and Radha—other Vaishnava deities are worshipped. These include: Venkateshwara, a form of Vishnu; Mahalakshmi, a form of Vishnu's consort Lakshmi; Garuda and Hanuman (see previous section). Shaiva deities are also worshipped, such as: Ganesha, the elephant-headed god of wisdom and beginnings; Khandoba, a form of Shiva; and Annapurna, a form of Shiva's consort Parvati. The samadhis (memorials) of saints like Namdev, Chokhamela and Janabai, and of devotees such as Pundalik and Kanhopatra, are in and around the temple. Other significant temples in Maharashtra are located: at Dehu, the birthplace of Tukaram, which attracts visitors at all ekadashis of the year; at Kole (Satara district), in memory of Ghadge Bova, which has a fair on the fifth day of the bright fortnight (waxing moon) in Magha month; at Kolhapur and Rajapur, which host fairs on Shayani Ekadashi and Prabodini Ekadashi; Madhe — a refuge of the Pandharpur image when it was moved to protect from Muslim invaders and finally at the Birla Mandir in Shahad.
Several temples are found in Goa, the well-known ones being the temples at Sanquelim, Sanguem and Gokarna Math. Similarly temple festivals celebrated in Vitthala temples in Margao, Ponda attract a lot a pilgrims. Vitthal is also worshipped as Vitthalnath at the Nathdwara in Rajasthan.
Vithoba was introduced to South India during the Vijayanagara and Maratha rule. In South India he is generally known as Vitthala. The Hampi temple (mentioned above) is a World Heritage Site and the most important of Vitthala's temples outside Maharashtra. Constructed in the 15th century, the temple is believed to have housed the central image from Pandharpur, which the Vijayanagara king Krishnadevaraya took "to enhance his own status" or to save the image from plunder by Muslim invaders. It was later returned to Pandharpur by Bhanudas (1448–1513), the great-grandfather of poet-saint Eknath. Today, the temple stands without a central image, though between 1516 and 1565, most important transactions, which would have been carried out previously in the presence of the original state deity Virupaksha (a form of Shiva), were issued in presence of the central image of Vitthala. Three of Madhvacharya's eight mathas (monasteries) in Karnataka—Shirur, Pejavara and Puttige—have Vitthala as their presiding deity. A Vitthaleshwara temple stands at Mulbagal, Karnataka. In Tamil Nadu, Vitthala shrines are found in Srirangam, Vittalapuram near thiruporur and in Tirunelveli district, and Thennangur, Govindapuram near Kumbakonam and sculptures are also found in Kanchi.
## Legend
Legends regarding Vithoba usually focus on his devotee Pundalik or on Vithoba's role as a savior to the poet-saints of the Varkari faith. As discussed in the devotional works section above, the Pundalik legend appears in the Sanskrit scriptures Skanda Purana and Padma Purana. It is also documented in Marathi texts: Panduranga-Mahatmya by a Brahmin called Sridhara; another work of the same name written by Prahlada Maharaj; and also in the abhangas of various poet-saints.
There are three versions of the Pundalik legend, two of which are attested as textual variants of the Skanda Purana (1.34–67). According to the first, the ascetic Pundarika (Pundalik) is described as a devotee of god Vishnu and dedicated to the service of his parents. The god Gopala-Krishna, a form of Vishnu, comes from Govardhana as a cowherd, accompanied by his grazing cows, to meet Pundarika. Krishna is described as in digambar form, wearing makara-kundala, the srivatsa mark (described above), a head-dress of peacock feathers, resting his hands on his waist and keeping his cow-stick between his thighs. Pundarika asks Krishna to remain in this form on the banks of the river Bhima. He believes that Krishna's presence will make the site a tirtha and a kshetra. The location is identified with modern-day Pandharpur, which is situated on the banks of the Bhima. The description of Krishna resembles the characteristics of the Pandharpur image of Vithoba.
The second version of the legend depicts Vithoba appearing before Pundalik as the five-year-old Bala Krishna (infant Krishna). This version is found in manuscripts of both Puranas, Prahlada Maharaj, and the poet-saints, notably Tukaram. The remaining version of the Pundalik legend appears in Sridhara and as a variant in the Padma Purana. Pundalik, a Brahmin madly in love with his wife, neglected his aged parents as a result. Later, on meeting sage Kukkuta, Pundalik underwent a transformation and devoted his life to the service of his aged parents. Meanwhile, Radha, the milkmaid-lover of Krishna, came to Dwarka, the kingdom of Krishna, and sat on his lap. Radha did not honour Rukmini, the chief queen of Krishna, nor did Krishna hold Radha accountable for the offence. Offended, Rukmini left Krishna and went to the forest of Dandivana near Pandharpur. Saddened by Rukmini's departure, Krishna searched for his queen and finally found her resting in Dandivana, near Pundalik's house. After some coaxing, Rukmini was pacified. Then Krishna visited Pundalik and found him serving his parents. Pundalik threw a brick outside for Krishna to rest on. Krishna stood on the brick and waited for Pundalik. After completing his services, Pundalik asked that his Lord, in Vithoba form, remain on the brick with Rukmini, in Rakhumai form, and bless His devotees forever.
Other legends describe Vithoba coming to the rescue of his devotees in the form of a commoner, an outcast Mahar "untouchable" or a Brahmin beggar. Mahipati, in his work Pandurangastrotra'', narrates how Vithoba helped female saints like Janabai in their daily chores, such as sweeping the house and pounding the rice. He narrates how Vithoba came to the aid of Sena the barber. The king of Bidar had ordered Sena to be arrested for not coming to the palace despite royal orders. As Sena was engrossed in his prayers to Vithoba, Vithoba went to the palace in the form of Sena to serve the king, and Sena was saved. Another tale deals with a saint, Damaji, the keeper of the royal grain store, who distributed grain to the people in famine. Vithoba came as an outcaste with a bag of gold to pay for the grain. Yet another story narrates how Vithoba resurrected the child of Gora Kumbhar (potter), who had been trampled into the clay by Gora while singing the name of Vithoba.
|
303,772 |
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages
| 1,169,116,819 |
2001 video games
|
[
"2001 video games",
"Flagship (company) games",
"Game Boy Color games",
"Nintendo Switch Online games",
"Single-player video games",
"The Legend of Zelda video games",
"Top-down video games",
"Video games about time travel",
"Video games developed in Japan",
"Video games scored by Kiyohiro Sada",
"Video games set in castles",
"Video games with alternative versions",
"Virtual Console games",
"Virtual Console games for Nintendo 3DS"
] |
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages are two 2001 action-adventure games in The Legend of Zelda series, developed by Flagship (a subsidiary of Capcom) and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Color.
The player controls the protagonist Link from an overhead perspective. In Seasons, the Triforce transports Link to the land of Holodrum, where he sees Onox kidnap Din, the Oracle of Seasons. In Ages, the Triforce transports Link to Labrynna, where Veran possesses Nayru. The main plot is revealed once the player finishes both games. Link is armed with a sword and shield as well as a variety of secondary weapons and items for battling enemies and solving puzzles. The central items are the Rod of Seasons, which controls the seasons in Holodrum, and the Harp of Ages, which lets Link travel through time in Labrynna. Before he can infiltrate Onox's castle and Veran's tower, Link must collect the eight Essences of Nature and the eight Essences of Time, which are hidden in dungeons and guarded by bosses.
After experimenting with porting the original Legend of Zelda to the Game Boy Color, the Flagship team, supervised by Yoshiki Okamoto, began developing three interconnected Zelda games that could be played in any order. The complexity of this system led the team to cancel one game. Both Seasons and Ages were a critical success, and sold 3.96 million units each. Critics complimented the gameplay, colorful designs and graphic quality, but criticized the inconsistent sound quality.
Both games were re-released on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console in May 2013, and on the Nintendo Switch Online service in July 2023.
## Gameplay
The gameplay of Oracle of Seasons and Ages is similar to that of Link's Awakening (1993) for Game Boy, copying basic controls, graphics, and sounds. Like most Legend of Zelda games, exploration and combat take place from an overhead perspective. Link uses a sword for his primary attack, complemented by secondary weapons and items. Basic items such as bombs and a boomerang are common to both games. Other items are exclusive to one game, with a counterpart in the other (e.g., the slingshot in Seasons and the seed shooter in Ages both shoot seeds, while the magnetic gloves in Seasons and the switch hook in Ages are used to access otherwise unreachable areas). Unlike most Zelda games, a sword and shield is not always equipped when the player possesses them; they can be assigned like any other item into either of two available slots. Most of each of the games is spent finding the eight Essences hidden in dungeons—large, usually underground, areas containing enemies and puzzles. Each dungeon culminates with a boss that guards the Essence.
When not in a dungeon, Link explores the overworld. In Seasons, the overworld consists of Holodrum and the subterranean world of Subrosia inhabited by the dwarf-like Subrosian people. The two worlds are linked by several portals. In Ages, Link travels between present-day Labrynna and the past, connected by Time Holes. In either game, some areas of one world are accessible only from portals from the other and vice versa. Holodrum, Subrosia, and Labrynna contain optional side quests and upgrades for Link and his equipment. One such side quest is ring collection. Rings provide Link with various bonuses and abilities, such as improved defense. Other rings have no practical uses or effects, e.g. rings that weaken Link's attack or defense, or transform Link into an enemy creature. Another side quest is the optional trading game, in which Link receives and delivers special items to certain people throughout the land. Once completed, Link receives an upgraded sword. In both games, there are many circumstances when a previous item can be upgraded into a more useful form. The latter three dungeons in both games will hold a more powerful version of an item received earlier in the game. Both the sword's offensive power and the shield's defensive abilities can be upgraded twice.
The central item of Oracle of Seasons is the Rod of Seasons. By standing on a stump and swinging the rod, Link can change the season and affect his surroundings. For example, to cross a body of water, Link can change the season to winter and walk on the ice. Changing the season to summer causes vines to flourish, which Link can use to scale cliffs. When Link obtains the rod, he initially cannot use it. In the course of the game, Link visits four towers that house the four spirits of the seasons; each tower Link visits allows him to switch to an additional season.
In Oracle of Ages, the central item is the Harp of Ages, which Link uses to manipulate time and travel between the past and the present. In the course of the game, Link learns three tunes to play on the harp. The Tune of Echoes activates Time Portals at fixed locations, the Tune of Currents enables Link to travel from the past to the present without a Time Portal, and the Tune of Ages allows Link to switch between the two time periods at almost any location on the map.
### Interaction
Although the two are built on the same game engine, Oracle of Ages concentrates on puzzles, while Oracle of Seasons focuses on action. Each is a complete game capable of interacting with the other, via passwords or a Game Link Cable.
Upon completing either game, players receive a password that can be used to play an alternative version of the other. In this version, some characters mention passwords that can be given to characters in the first game in exchange for an item or upgrade. By taking a new password back into the linked game, the item or upgrade can be transferred. Rings can be traded by this password system or randomly created by connecting two games with a Game Link Cable.
In the alternative version, plot points are changed or expanded upon to allow the game to serve as a sequel. It also features an extended ending in which Twinrova kidnaps Zelda, and lights the third Flame of Despair to revive Ganon. The player can then enter Twinrova's lair and battle Twinrova and Ganon. Upon completing the alternative game, another password gives the player the Victory Ring, commemorating the defeat of Ganon.
## Plot
### Oracle of Seasons
Seasons begins as the Triforce calls out to Link from within Hyrule Castle. Link approaches it, and is transported to a dark forest where he encounters a traveling group led by a dancer named Din. After Din welcomes Link to Holodrum, the sky becomes covered in black clouds. A voice from the clouds calls Din the Oracle of Seasons and refers to himself as Onox, General of Darkness. A funnel cloud drops from the sky, taking Din into its dark heights. Onox seals Din in a crystal and sinks the Temple of Seasons into the subterranean land of Subrosia, sending the seasons of Holodrum into disarray and causing them to change rapidly.
Din's attendant, Impa, tells Link that they were headed for Hyrule; she instructs him to see the Maku Tree in Horon Village, the capital of Holodrum. Link finds a sword in a cave and makes his way to the tree. The Maku Tree tells Link he will need the eight Essences of Nature and gives him the Gnarled Key, which unlocks the dungeon holding the first Essence. Link retrieves the eight Essences from eight dungeons throughout Holodrum and Subrosia and brings them to the Maku Tree, who uses them to create a Huge Maku Seed, a sacred evil-cleansing seed that allows Link to enter Onox's castle. Link enters the castle, defeats Onox, and rescues Din, who tells him that he is now a true hero and must face a new trial soon. Twinrova, watching the scene remotely, states that the Flame of Destruction has been powered by the havoc Onox has wrought.
### Oracle of Ages
As with Seasons, the Triforce calls out to Link. Link is transported to a forest in the land of Labrynna, where he hears screaming. In a clearing, Link finds Impa, surrounded by monsters, but the monsters flee when they see Link. Impa then asks Link to help her find a singer in the forest. The two find Nayru, a young blue-haired woman singing on a tree stump surrounded by forest creatures. A shadow emerges from Impa and reveals itself as Veran, the Sorceress of Shadows. Veran possesses Nayru, the Oracle of Ages; this disrupts the flow of time. Through Nayru, Veran manipulates Queen Ambi into forcibly conscripting every capable man in Labrynna to construct a large Black Tower.
Link receives a sword from Impa and makes his way to the Maku Tree in Lynna City, the capital of Labrynna. Veran orders that the Maku Tree be killed; Link uses a time portal to travel to the past to prevent this. The Maku Tree tells Link he will need the eight Essences of Time to defeat Veran. Link sets out to retrieve the eight Essences, hidden in eight dungeons throughout Labrynna's past and present. After getting the sixth Essence, Link is told he can save Nayru. He invades Queen Ambi's castle and removes Veran's spirit from Nayru, but Veran then possesses Queen Ambi. Link gathers the remaining Essences and brings them to the Maku Tree, who uses them to create a Huge Maku Seed that allows Link to enter Veran's Black Tower. Link ascends the tower and defeats Veran, rescues Queen Ambi, and Nayru tells him that all has returned to normal. Twinrova, watching the scene remotely, states that Veran has lit the Flame of Sorrow.
### Linked ending
If one game is played as a sequel to the other by a linked password, Twinrova captures Princess Zelda, lighting the Flame of Despair. Link enters a warp point by the Maku Tree and faces Twinrova, who is attempting to use the three Flames to revive Ganon. Link defeats Twinrova, who sacrifice themselves in place of Zelda, resulting in Ganon being revived as a mindless raging beast that Link kills. He frees Zelda and together, they exit the crumbling castle. After the credits, Link is seen waving to a crowd from a sailboat off the shore of a land with a castle in the background.
## Development
In early 1999, Yoshiki Okamoto, then head of Capcom's screenwriter subsidiary Flagship, proposed remaking the original The Legend of Zelda for the Game Boy Color to Shigeru Miyamoto, the game designer at Nintendo who created the series. Okamoto wanted to remake the original game so that young children could play it, but also as a test for the development team to move on to a more ambitious sequel if it was successful.
Okamoto wanted to work on games and follow them up with sequels in four to five months, including Zelda games in this workflow. According to reporting by IGN, Okamoto was asked to develop six Zelda games for the Game Boy Color: two based on earlier installments and four original entries, but Okamoto disputed this.
Contrary to Miyamoto's design mentality of creating the gameplay system first, development started out with the scenario writing, which Flagship was in charge of. Some of the staff members, including the team led by director and designer Hidemaro Fujibayashi that was responsible for tasks other than the storyline, wanted to skip the remake and create an original Zelda game right away. As the original game was deemed too difficult for the new generation of players, more and more changes were applied to the point where it had an entirely different world map. As a result, the team ran into problems because the scenario and the maps had to be reworked constantly to make all the modifications match. The Game Boy Color's screen presented an additional hurdle when attempting to rework the earlier Zelda game as it was narrower than that of a television; players could not view an entire room without scrolling, which made it easy to overlook stairways or clues on walls.
Dismayed by the lack of progress, Okamoto asked Miyamoto for help, who proposed a trilogy of games, each with a different focus on gameplay elements. This trilogy was referred to as the "Triforce Series", named after the Triforce, a relic that plays a role in many Zelda games. The Triforce is composed of three parts: the Triforces of Power, Wisdom, and Courage; each game in the trilogy was going to be associated with a piece of the Triforce, with one game being the conversion of the original The Legend of Zelda. The first game was demonstrated at Nintendo's SpaceWorld trade show in 1999, under the working title Fushigi no Kinomi – Chikara no Shō (ふしぎの木の実 ~力の章~). This action-oriented game concerned Ganon's theft of Princess Zelda and the "Rod of the Seasons", which threw the seasons of Hyrule into chaos—a precursor to the plot of Oracle of Seasons. In the playable demonstration, Link solved puzzles by using the Rod of the Seasons to manipulate the environment and change the current season. Chie no Shō, which focused on color-based puzzles, and Yūki no Shō, which used the times of day to solve puzzles in a mechanic similar to the use of seasons, were not shown. In the US, the games became Mystical Seed of Power, Mystical Seed of Wisdom, and Mystical Seed of Courage.
The games interacted with each other: players could begin with any of the three games and have the actions of the first game affect the story of the other two, a concept conceived by Okamoto. More than ten of Flagship's scenarists, among them Resident Evil writer Junichi Miyashita, worked on the three stories. The developers considered using a cell phone adapter to transfer data, but decided on a password system. The limitations of this system and the difficulty of coordinating three games proved too complicated, so the project was scaled back to two games at Miyamoto's suggestion. Condensing the games into a single cartridge was never considered, as the prospect of multiple endings and the added replay value afforded by the ability to play the games in either order was too important. Oracle of Seasons was adapted from Mystical Seed of Power, Oracle of Ages was adapted from Mystical Seed of Courage, and Mystical Seed of Wisdom was canceled.
These sweeping design changes pushed the release dates closer to the release of the Game Boy Advance (GBA), the next system in the Game Boy line that is backward compatible with Game Boy Color games. The team considered adding special functionality to the game triggered only when played on a GBA, but was afraid that the additional development time required for the addition would cause the games to be released after the GBA. When the release date of the GBA was postponed, the team was able to incorporate GBA functionality and release the games approximately a month before the GBA was released. Staggered releases were abandoned in favor of releasing the games simultaneously. This made it easier for the team to test the interaction between the games and keep the style consistent. Each game was shipped on an 8-megabit (16-megabit in Europe) cartridge. The music was composed by two employees of the Japanese music and sound effect production company Pure Sound, credited under the pseudonyms "M-Adachi" and "Kyopi". Nintendo artist and series regular Yusuke Nakano designed the characters, and incorporated previous creations from Ocarina of Time into Oracle of Seasons and characters from Majora's Mask into Oracle of Ages.
## Reception
Oracle of Seasons and Ages were critical and commercial successes, selling 3.96 million copies each. In Japan, they were the third best selling Game Boy Color game, with 746,054 copies sold. Reviews were strongly positive: Chris Carle of IGN said that Seasons and Ages were "the best games ever made for the Game Boy Color", and Craig Majaski of Gaming Age called them "the two best games ever to grace a handheld system". GameSpot presented Ages and Seasons, collectively, with its annual "Best Game Boy Color Game" award. It was rated the 34th (Seasons) and 39th (Ages) best games made on a Nintendo System in Nintendo Power's Top 200 Games list. In August 2008, Nintendo Power listed Oracle of Seasons and Ages as the fourth and fifth best Game Boy/Game Boy Color video games respectively. The games placed joint 57th in Official Nintendo Magazine's 100 greatest Nintendo games of all time. Game Informer's Ben Reeves called them the 10th best Game Boy games collectively. The interconnection was seen as one of the highlight features. The ability to play the games in reverse order after completion increases the replay value, as does trading passwords between the two. GamesRadar listed The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons / Ages as one of the games they want in the 3DS Virtual Console; both Oracle of Ages and Seasons were later released on the platform on May 30, 2013.
During the 5th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Oracle of Seasons for "Hand-Held Game of the Year", while Oracle of Ages was nominated for "Console Role-Playing Game of the Year".
Critics enjoyed the graphics; GamePro called Seasons "bright and colorful" with "surprisingly expressive and well-designed" animations, and Gaming Target said Ages is "beautiful and creative", with "meticulous attention to detail". Gaming Age called both games "the pinnacle of good graphics on the Game Boy Color system". Although the two share graphics to a large extent, Seasons is distinguished by swapping the color palette to reflect the current season. IGN felt that the expressive colors used for the changing seasons made Seasons the more graphically impressive of the two.
Reviews of the audio were mixed. Reviewers noted that the sound was hampered by the poor quality of the Game Boy Color's speakers, although it fared favorably compared with other games for the system. The selection of songs was praised for complementing familiar Zelda songs and sounds with new music. The Zelda theme and the traditional sound effect played upon solving a puzzle were considered welcome additions, but other sound effects were criticized as simplistic "beeps".
## Gamebooks
Two game books were released based on the games as part of the Nintendo You Decide on the Adventure series by Scholastic. Both were written by Craig Wessel and based on the events in the games with few minor differences. The first one, based on Oracle of Seasons, was published in October 2001. The second, based on Oracle of Ages, was published in January 2002.
## See also
- Oracle of Seasons and Ages manga
|
1,615,876 |
Battle of Glasgow, Missouri
| 1,162,554,043 |
Battle of the American Civil War
|
[
"1864 in Missouri",
"Battles of the American Civil War in Missouri",
"Battles of the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War",
"Confederate victories of the American Civil War",
"Conflicts in 1864",
"Howard County, Missouri",
"October 1864 events",
"Price's Missouri Expedition"
] |
The Battle of Glasgow was fought on October 15, 1864, in and near Glasgow, Missouri, as part of Price's Missouri Expedition during the American Civil War. The battle resulted in the capture of needed weapons and improved Confederate morale, which had been dented after a defeat in the Battle of Pilot Knob.
In late 1864, the Confederate leadership in the Trans-Mississippi Theater planned a campaign into the state of Missouri, in the hope of drawing Union troops from more important theaters east of the Mississippi River. Major General Sterling Price commanded the expedition, and initially hoped to capture St. Louis. The early defeat at Pilot Knob led him to abandon this plan. After the strength of the Union garrison at Jefferson City convinced Price to cancel a planned attempt to capture the place, he led his army into the pro-Confederate region of Little Dixie, where recruiting efforts were successful. Many of these new recruits were unarmed.
Learning of a Union weapons cache at Glasgow, Price sent Brigadier General John B. Clark Jr. with two brigades on a side raid to capture it. The Union garrison of Glasgow was commanded by Colonel Chester Harding Jr., and was mostly composed of militia and men of the 43rd Missouri Infantry Regiment. At 05:00 on October 15, Confederate artillery opened fire on the Union position. After the Union commander rejected a surrender offer from Clark, the main attack began at about 08:00; it occurred late due to delays in reaching Glasgow. Harding's men were driven back into the town and burned 50,000 rations to prevent them from falling into Confederate hands. They surrendered at 13:30. Clark's men paroled the Union soldiers, captured 1,000 uniform overcoats and 1,200 weapons, and burned a steamboat. The Confederate column rejoined Price's main army the next day. On October 23, the Confederates were decisively defeated at the Battle of Westport. Price's men retreated, but were harried for much of the way by Union pursuit. The retreat eventually reached Texas.
## Context
At the start of the American Civil War in 1861, the state of Missouri was a slave state, but did not secede. The state was politically divided: Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson and the Missouri State Guard supported secession and the Confederate States of America, while Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon and the Union Army supported the United States and opposed secession. Under Major General Sterling Price, the Missouri State Guard had some early success, but by the end of the year, were restricted to the southwestern portion of the state. Meanwhile, Jackson and a portion of the state legislature voted to secede and join the Confederate States of America, but another element of the legislature voted to reject secession, essentially giving the state two governments. In March 1862, a Confederate defeat at the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas gave the Union control of Missouri, and Confederate activity in the state was largely restricted to guerrilla warfare and raids throughout 1862 and 1863.
By September 1864, the Confederates had been defeated in the Atlanta campaign. This, and other events in the eastern United States, gave Abraham Lincoln, who supported continuing the war, an edge in the 1864 United States presidential election over George B. McClellan, who favored ending the war. Many Confederates thought that a McClellan electoral victory would lead to a peace that included Confederate independence. At this point, the Confederacy had very little chance of winning the war. As events east of the Mississippi River turned against the Confederates, General Edmund Kirby Smith, Confederate commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, was ordered to transfer the infantry under his command to the fighting further east, but this was not possible due to the Union Navy's control of the Mississippi River.
Despite having limited resources for an offensive, Smith decided that an attack designed to divert Union troops from the principal theaters of combat would have an equivalent effect to the proposed transfer of troops. Price and the Confederate Governor of Missouri, Thomas Caute Reynolds, suggested an invasion of Missouri; Smith approved the plan and appointed Price to command the offensive. Price expected that the offensive would achieve several objectives: create a popular uprising against Union control of Missouri; divert Union troops away from the principal theaters of combat; and aid McClellan's chance of defeating Lincoln in the election. On September 19, Price's column, named the Army of Missouri, entered the state.
## Prelude
Price's force entered Missouri from the south with about 13,000 cavalrymen, beginning Price's Missouri Expedition. Several thousand of these men were poorly armed, and all 14 of the army's cannons were small, limiting their range and effectiveness. Opposing Price was Major General William S. Rosecrans, who commanded the Union Department of Missouri with fewer than 10,000 men on hand, many of whom were militiamen without experience in major battles. In late September, the Confederates encountered a small Union force holding Fort Davidson near the town of Pilot Knob. Confederate attacks against the post on September 27 failed, but the Union garrison abandoned the fort that night. Price suffered hundreds of casualties in the battle. Parts of the Confederate army advanced as far as Franklin, but then turned westwards to Jefferson City via Union and Washington.
Price had abandoned intentions to attack St. Louis due to the defeat at Pilot Knob and was not making a serious attempt to capture the city in the advance to Franklin. St. Louis had also been reinforced by a Union infantry force led by Major General A. J. Smith. Price's army was accompanied by a sizable wagon train, which significantly slowed its movement. The train was used to carry the supplies and forage collected by the Confederates from the towns they went through. Union forces had time to reinforce Jefferson City, whose garrison was increased from 1,000 men to 7,000 between October 1 and 6. The reinforcements were a mixture of regular troops drawn from elsewhere in the state and militia, including some of the Enrolled Missouri Militia who were called up on short notice. Price determined that Jefferson City was too strong to attack, and continued moving westwards along the course of the Missouri River.
The vanguard of Price's army reached Boonville on October 9. Boonville was part of a pro-Confederate area known as Little Dixie, and many men, including Bloody Bill Anderson and his guerrillas, joined the Confederates. Price detached Anderson to operate north of the main body to harass the North Missouri Railroad and attempted to get William C. Quantrill's guerrillas to attack the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Union troops followed Price westwards; one body was to the east of Boonville at Rocheport, and another, under Brigadier General John B. Sanborn, was to the south at California. On the 11th, Sanborn moved north and skirmished with the Confederates, who abandoned Boonville the next day and continued west in the direction of Marshall.
The Confederates's recruiting in Little Dixie was successful. Although the new recruits added to the numerical strength of Price's army, many of them were unarmed. Late on October 12, Price learned of rumors that a substantial store of weapons was held by the Union garrison of Glasgow, across the Missouri River and 20 miles (32 km) north of Boonville. On October 14, Price authorized two raids for the purpose of capturing supplies. One, under Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson, commander of Shelby's Iron Brigade, was sent 26 miles (42 km) south of Price's camp to Sedalia, which it captured on October 15. The second, led by Brigadier General John B. Clark Jr., was directed towards Glasgow.
## Battle
Clark's 1,700 or 1,800-man column consisted of his own brigade (under the command of Colonel Colton Greene), 500 men from Colonel Sidney D. Jackman's brigade, and Harris's Missouri Battery. Clark and Jackman were selected for the operation because they were local residents. The column pushed north and then crossed the Missouri by ferry at Arrow Rock on the 14th. After hearing rumors that the garrison of Glasgow had a "tin-clad boat", Clark asked Price for more artillery. In reality, the Union vessel present, the steamer West Wind, was not tin-clad or even armed. Since the river at Glasgow was narrow enough for artillery to effectively fire across it, Price sent Brigadier General Joseph O. Shelby with 125 cavalrymen and part of Collins's Missouri Battery to a point on the western bank of the Missouri opposite Glasgow. Shelby's force was joined by some of Anderson's guerrillas, but Anderson and his men did not participate in the fighting. The Union garrison was initially a small force under the command of Captain John E. Mayo, but it had been reinforced on October 13 by part of the 43rd Missouri Infantry Regiment under the command of Colonel Chester Harding. The Missouri infantrymen had been temporarily stranded when the steamboats they were on ran aground. Once the ships were freed, they went downriver to Glasgow, where they unloaded the Missourians and supplies. One of the ships, Benton, returned to Jefferson City, while the other, West Wind, stayed at Glasgow, as its draft was expected to be too deep for the falling water levels on the river.
Harding, who was now in command of the garrison at Glasgow, had between 550 and 800 men available, including armed civilians. The Union force had no artillery available. Glasgow's location on a hilltop provided an advantage to the defenders. The interior Union line was anchored by two unfinished fortifications which held about 40 men each. The defenses between the fortifications were makeshift, although they had been extended to the east to a schoolhouse. Most of Harding's men were positioned outside the fortified line where the roads entered town. This interior line ran from near the river to the east edge of town, before curving to the north. Elements of the 43rd Missouri Infantry held east and west positions south of town on the external line, near where the roads crossed Greggs Creek. In between those two positions, a line of local militiamen was posted. The two road crossings were over 1 mile (1.6 km) apart. The line south of town ran roughly east to west. North of the town, a group of cavalry, largely members of the Missouri State Militia, held a position north of Bear Creek, crossed by a single road. A militia force was sent east to repair telegraphic connections with Jefferson City, but returned to Glasgow late on October 14 after running into a Confederate force. At around 05:00 on October 15, Collins's Battery opened fire, aiming primarily for West Wind, visible campfires, and exposed streets in the town. This fire was largely ineffective, as was fire from the cavalry accompanying the cannons, although a prominent pro-Confederate civilian, clergyman William Goff Caples, was killed by an artillery shot. Union sharpshooters drove some Confederates away from the riverbank.
Clark's force, delayed an hour while trying to cross the Missouri River, arrived later than Shelby expected. Clark was three miles away when Collins opened fire. By about 07:00, Clark's men finally arrived on the field. Jackman's men were aligned to the left, closer to the river, with most of the rest of the Confederate force to Jackman's right. The 3rd Missouri Cavalry Regiment held the extreme Confederate right. The 10th Missouri Cavalry Regiment was sent around the Union rear to attack Glasgow from the north. Greene had one of Harris's cannons brought to the front. Harding responded by reinforcing the Greggs Creek line with several companies of the 43rd Missouri. Clark sent a surrender offer to Harding, using civilians to deliver the message. The Union commander was confused by the nonstandard use of civilian messengers, and rejected the offer.
Clarks' main body south of town forced its way across Greggs Creek beginning around 08:00, although the Union defenders put up a hardy fight. In his after-battle report, Harding stated that his men had been outflanked on both ends of their line. The Union troops fell back into the prepared position in Glasgow proper. They came under fire from the Confederate artillery on the opposite side of the river, which was more effective this time. West Wind had been damaged by artillery fire. Shelby ordered men across the river in a small boat to West Wind, hoping to take West Wind to use it as a ferry across the river. The Confederates reached West Wind but found the steamboat's engines had been rendered nonfunctional, and they had to return to Shelby. Meanwhile, the 10th Missouri Cavalry's drive from the north had been stymied by the Missouri State Militia force north of town.
Confederate troops closed in on the Union line in Glasgow. Clark described the distance between the two sides as "short"; Harding estimated the distance at 30 yards (27 m) to 50 yards (46 m). House-to-house fighting ensued. Harding conducted a council of war, which resulted in the decision to surrender. Before surrendering, Union troops burned 50,000 rations in Glasgow's City Hall to prevent them from falling into Confederate hands. The fire spread to other buildings, causing \$130,000 in damage. Additional supplies were not burned because they were kept in positions near the river that were inaccessible. The surrender took place around 13:30, and its terms allowed captured Union officers to keep their horses and sidearms. Harding and his men were paroled and escorted to a Union position on the Lamine River. The escort was provided to protect them from guerrillas. A Confederate officer conducted a ceremony where the Union soldiers were sworn not to serve against the Confederates again, although this was not part of the agreed surrender terms.
## Aftermath
The Glasgow victory boosted the morale of Price's army, which had been dented after Pilot Knob. It resulted in the capture of 1,200 weapons, 1,000 Union uniform overcoats, and 150 horses. Quantrill and his men robbed a bank on October 16 and Anderson's men fatally beat a civilian on the night of October 21–22 in an attempt to get money, and then raped a former slave that he had freed. The Union garrison in Glasgow had previously prevented the guerrillas from raiding the place, but with Harding and his men gone, the town had become a guerrilla target. Some Confederate sources claimed as many as 1,000 Union soldiers were captured at Glasgow, and Union reports provide a figure of 550. The historian Mark A. Lause rejects the numbers reported by the Confederates and suggests the Union figure is too low due to not accurately counting militia strength, suggesting a more accurate figure would be about 650. Reports of Union wounded give a maximum number of 32 wounded and 8 to 11 killed, although Lause believes that this figure for wounded is improbably low, likely due to omitting militia losses, and states that about four dozen would be a better estimate. Clark's official report did not include casualty numbers, and several Confederate units did not report losses, although it is known that one regiment had 7 men killed and 46 wounded. Preservationist Frances E. Kennedy places the number of paroled Union soldiers as over 600, not counting battle losses.
In the town of Glasgow, 15 homes and a church were damaged. Confederate soldiers burned West Wind on October 16 or 17. In 1921, the remains of West Wind were deemed a hazard to navigation and were removed by a snagboat. An engine removed from the riverbed at Glasgow during a World War II scrap drive was rumored to have come from the vessel.
Clark rejoined the Confederate army on October 16, and the combined force continued moving west towards Kansas City, where men of the Kansas State Militia and the Union Army of the Border were forming. The Confederates continued to move west, fighting several small battles. On October 23, they were defeated at the Battle of Westport by Union Major General Samuel R. Curtis. Price's men began retreating, but suffered more defeats, including the disastrous Battle of Mine Creek where many men were captured. After one last action at the Second Battle of Newtonia on October 28, the Confederates retreated into Arkansas and then the Indian Territory; Union pursuit continued until the Arkansas River was reached on November 8. The Confederate retreat continued as far as Texas. The campaign cost Price more than two-thirds of his army.
Interpretive signage has been erected within Glasgow to commemorate the battle. Historical reenactments of the battle have been held, and a flag flown during the battle is displayed in the Lewis Library.
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Mars in fiction
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Depictions of the planet
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"Fiction about terrestrial planets",
"Fiction set on Mars"
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Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. Trends in the planet's portrayal have largely been influenced by advances in planetary science. It became the most popular celestial object in fiction in the late 1800s, when it became clear that there was no life on the Moon. The predominant genre depicting Mars at the time was utopian fiction. Around the same time, the mistaken belief that there are canals on Mars emerged and made its way into fiction, popularized by Percival Lowell's speculations of an ancient civilization having constructed them. The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells's novel about an alien invasion of Earth by sinister Martians, was published in 1897 and went on to have a major influence on the science fiction genre.
Life on Mars appeared frequently in fiction throughout the first half of the 1900s. Apart from enlightened as in the utopian works from the turn of the century, or evil as in the works inspired by Wells, intelligent and human-like Martians began to be depicted as decadent, a portrayal that was popularized by Edgar Rice Burroughs in the Barsoom series and adopted by Leigh Brackett among others. More exotic lifeforms appeared in stories like Stanley G. Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey".
The theme of colonizing Mars replaced stories about native inhabitants of the planet in the second half of the 1900s following emerging evidence of the planet being inhospitable to life, eventually confirmed by data from Mars exploration probes. A significant minority of works persisted in portraying Mars in a nostalgic way that was by then scientifically outdated, including Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles.
Terraforming Mars to enable human habitation has been another major theme, especially in the final quarter of the century, the most prominent example being Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. Stories of the first human mission to Mars appeared throughout the 1990s in response to the Space Exploration Initiative, and near-future exploration and settlement became increasingly common themes following the launches of other Mars exploration probes in the latter half of the decade. In the year 2000, science fiction scholar Gary Westfahl estimated the total number of works of fiction dealing with Mars up to that point to exceed five thousand, and the planet has continued to make frequent appearances across several genres and forms of media since. In contrast, the moons of Mars—Phobos and Deimos—have made only sporadic appearances in fiction.
## Early depictions
Before the 1800s, Mars did not get much attention in fiction writing as a primary setting, though it did appear in some stories visiting multiple locations in the Solar System. The first fictional tour of the planets, the 1656 work Itinerarium exstaticum by Athanasius Kircher, portrays Mars as a volcanic wasteland. It also appears briefly in the 1686 work Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds) by Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle but is largely dismissed as uninteresting due to its presumed similarity to Earth. Mars is home to spirits in several works of the mid-1700s. In the anonymously published 1755 work A Voyage to the World in the Centre of the Earth, it is a heavenly place where, among others, Alexander the Great enjoys a second life. In the 1758 work De Telluribus in Mundo Nostro Solari (Concerning the Earths in Our Solar System) by Emanuel Swedenborg, the planet is inhabited by beings characterized by honesty and moral virtue. In the 1765 novel Voyage de Milord Céton dans les sept planètes [fr] (The Voyages of Lord Seaton to the Seven Planets) by Marie-Anne de Roumier-Robert, reincarnated soldiers roam a war-torn landscape. It later appeared alongside the other planets throughout the 1800s. In the anonymously published 1839 novel A Fantastical Excursion into the Planets, it is divided between the Roman gods Mars and Vulcan. In the anonymously published 1873 novel A Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Paul Aermont among the Planets, it is culturally rather similar to Earth—unlike the other planets. In the 1883 novel Aleriel, or A Voyage to Other Worlds by W. S. Lach-Szyrma, a visitor from Venus relates the details of Martian society to Earthlings. The first work of science fiction set primarily on Mars was the 1880 novel Across the Zodiac by Percy Greg.
Mars became the most popular extraterrestrial location in fiction in the late 1800s as it became clear that the Moon was devoid of life. A recurring theme in this time period was that of reincarnation on Mars, reflecting an upswing in interest in the paranormal in general and in relation to Mars in particular. Humans are reborn on Mars in the 1889 novel Uranie by Camille Flammarion as a form of afterlife, the 1896 novel Daybreak: The Story of an Old World by James Cowan depicts Jesus reincarnated there, and the protagonist of the 1903 novel The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars by Louis Pope Gratacap [Wikidata] receives a message in Morse code from his deceased father on Mars. Other supernatural phenomena include telepathy in Greg's Across the Zodiac and precognition in the 1886 short story "The Blindman's World" by Edward Bellamy.
Several recurring tropes were introduced during this time. One of them is Mars having a different local name such as Glintan in the 1889 novel Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet by Hugh MacColl, Oron in the 1892 novel Messages from Mars, By Aid of the Telescope Plant by Robert D. Braine, and Barsoom in the 1912 novel A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This carried on in later works such as the 1938 novel Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis, which calls the planet Malacandra. Several stories also depict Martians speaking Earth languages and provide explanations of varying levels of preposterousness. In the 1899 novel Pharaoh's Broker by Ellsworth Douglass [Wikidata], Martians speak Hebrew as Mars goes through the same historical phases as Earth with a delay of a few thousand years, here corresponding to the captivity of the Israelites in Biblical Egypt. In the 1901 novel A Honeymoon in Space by George Griffith, they speak English because they acknowledge it as the "most convenient" language of all. In the 1920 novel A Trip to Mars by Marcianus Rossi, the Martians speak Latin as a result of having been taught the language by a Roman who was flung into space by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79. Martians were often portrayed as existing within a racial hierarchy: the 1894 novel Journey to Mars by Gustavus W. Pope features Martians with different skin colours (red, blue, and yellow) subject to strict anti-miscegenation laws, Rossi's A Trip to Mars sees one portion of the Martian population described as "our inferior race, the same as your terrestrian negroes", and Burroughs's Barsoom series has red, green, yellow, and black Martians, a white race—responsible for the previous advanced civilization on Mars—having become extinct.
### Means of travel
The question of how humans would get to Mars was addressed in several ways: when not travelling there via spaceship as in the 1911 novel To Mars via the Moon: An Astronomical Story by Mark Wicks, they might use a flying carpet as in the 1905 novel Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation by Edwin Lester Arnold, a balloon as in A Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Paul Aermont among the Planets, or an "aeroplane" as in the 1893 novel Unveiling a Parallel: A Romance by Alice Ilgenfritz Jones and Ella Robinson Merchant [ca] (writing jointly as "Two Women of the West"). They might also visit in a dream as in the 1899 play A Message from Mars by Richard Ganthony, teleport via astral projection as in Burroughs's A Princess of Mars, or use a long-range communication device while staying on Earth as in Braine's Messages from Mars, By Aid of the Telescope Plant and the 1895 novel W nieznane światy (To the Unknown Worlds) by Polish science fiction writer Władysław Umiński [pl]. Anti-gravity is employed in several works including Greg's Across the Zodiac, MacColl's Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet, and the 1890 novel A Plunge into Space by Robert Cromie. Occasionally, the method of transport is not addressed at all. Some stories take the opposite approach of having Martians come to Earth; examples include the 1891 novel The Man from Mars: His Morals, Politics and Religion by Thomas Blot (pseudonym of William Simpson) and the 1893 novel A Cityless and Countryless World by Henry Olerich.
### Canals
During the opposition of Mars in 1877, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli announced the discovery of linear structures he dubbed canali (literally channels, but widely translated as canals) on the Martian surface. These were generally interpreted—by those who accepted their disputed existence—as waterways, and they made their earliest appearance in fiction in the anonymously published 1883 novel Politics and Life in Mars, where the Martians live in the water. Schiaparelli's observations, and perhaps the translation of canali as "canals" rather than "channels", inspired Percival Lowell to speculate that these were artificial constructs and write a series of non-fiction books—Mars in 1895, Mars and Its Canals in 1906, and Mars as the Abode of Life in 1908—popularizing the idea. Lowell posited that Mars was home to an ancient and advanced but dying or already dead Martian civilization who had constructed these vast canals for irrigation to survive on an increasingly arid planet, and this became an enduring vision of Mars that influenced writers across several decades. Science fiction scholar Gary Westfahl, drawing from the catalogue of early science fiction works compiled by E. F. Bleiler and Richard Bleiler in the reference works Science-Fiction: The Early Years from 1990 and Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years from 1998, concludes that Lowell thus "effectively set the boundaries for subsequent narratives about an inhabited Mars".
Canals became a feature of romantic portrayals of Mars such as Burroughs's Barsoom series. Early works that did not depict any waterways on Mars typically explained the appearance of straight lines on the surface in some other way, such as simooms or large tracts of vegetation. Although they quickly fell out of favour as a serious scientific theory, largely as a result of higher-quality telescopic observations by astronomers such as E. M. Antoniadi failing to detect them, canals continued to make sporadic appearances in fiction for a while in works such as the 1936 novel Planet Plane by John Wyndham, the 1938 novel Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis, and the 1949 novel Red Planet by Robert A. Heinlein. Said Lewis in response to criticism from biologist J. B. S. Haldane, "The canals in Mars are there not because I believe in them but because they are part of the popular tradition." Eventually, the flyby of Mars by Mariner 4 in 1965 conclusively determined that the canals were mere optical illusions.
### Utopias
Because early versions of the nebular hypothesis of Solar System formation held that the planets were formed sequentially starting at the outermost planets, some authors envisioned Mars as an older and more mature world than the Earth, and it became the setting for many utopian works of fiction. This genre made up the majority of stories about Mars in the late 1800s and continued to be represented through the early 1900s. The earliest of these works was the 1880 novel Across the Zodiac by Percy Greg. The 1887 novel Bellona's Husband: A Romance by William James Roe portrays a Martian society where everyone ages backwards. The 1890 novel A Plunge into Space by Robert Cromie depicts a society that is so advanced that life there has become dull and, as a result, the humans who visit succumb to boredom and leave ahead of schedule—to the approval of the Martians, who have come to view them as a corrupting influence. The 1892 novel Messages from Mars, By Aid of the Telescope Plant by Robert D. Braine is unusual in portraying a completely rural Martian utopia without any cities. An early work of feminist science fiction, Jones's and Merchant's 1893 novel Unveiling a Parallel: A Romance, depicts a man from Earth visiting two egalitarian societies on Mars: one where women have adopted male vices and one where equality has brought out everyone's best qualities. The 1897 novel Auf zwei Planeten (Two Planets) by German science fiction pioneer Kurd Lasswitz contrasts a utopian society on Mars with that society's colonialist actions on Earth. The book was translated into several languages and was highly influential in Continental Europe, including inspiring rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, but did not receive a translation into English until the 1970s, which limited its impact in the Anglosphere. The 1910 novel The Man from Mars, Or Service for Service's Sake by Henry Wallace Dowding [Wikidata] portrays a civilization on Mars based on a variation on Christianity where woman was created first, in contrast to the conventional Genesis creation narrative. Hugo Gernsback depicted a science-based utopia on Mars in the 1915–1917 serial Baron Münchhausen's New Scientific Adventures, but by and large, World War I spelled the end for utopian Martian fiction.
In Russian science fiction, Mars became the setting for socialist utopias and revolutions. The 1908 novel Red Star (Красная звезда) by Alexander Bogdanov is the primary example of this, and inspired many others. Red Star portrays a socialist society on Mars from the perspective of a Russian Bolshevik invited there, where the struggle between classes has been replaced with a common struggle against the harshness of nature. The 1913 prequel Engineer Menni (Инженер Мэнни), also by Bogdanov, is set several centuries earlier and serves as an origin story for the Martian society by detailing the events of the revolution that brought it about. Another prominent example is the 1922 novel Aelita (Аэлита) by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy—along with its 1924 film adaptation, the earliest Soviet science fiction film—which adapts the story of the 1905 Russian Revolution to the Martian surface. Red Star and Aelita are in some ways opposites. Red Star, written between the failed revolution in 1905 and the successful 1917 Russian Revolution, sees Mars as a socialist utopia from which Earth can learn, whereas in Aelita the socialist revolution is instead exported from the early Soviet Russia to Mars. Red Star depicts a utopia on Mars, in contrast to the dystopia initially found on Mars in Aelita—though both are technocracies. Red Star is a sincere and idealistic work of traditional utopian fiction, whereas Aelita is a parody.
### The War of the Worlds
The 1897 novel The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, which depicts an alien invasion of Earth by Martians in search of resources, represented a turning point in Mars fiction. Rather than being portrayed as essentially human, Wells's Martians have a completely inhuman appearance and cannot be communicated with. Rather than being noble creatures to emulate, the Martians dispassionately kill and exploit the Earthlings like livestock—a critique of contemporary British colonialism in general and its devastating effects on the Aboriginal Tasmanians in particular. The novel set the tone for the majority of the science-fictional depictions of Mars in the decades that followed in portraying the Martians as malevolent and Mars as a dying world. Beyond Martian fiction, the novel had a large influence on the broader science fiction genre, and inspired rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard. According to science fiction essayist Bud Webster, "It's impossible to overstate the importance of The War of the Worlds and the influence it's had over the years."
An unauthorized sequel—Edison's Conquest of Mars by Garrett P. Serviss—was released in 1898, as was a parody by Charles L. Graves [Wikidata] and E. V. Lucas titled The War of the Wenuses. Wells's story gained further notoriety in 1938 when a radio adaptation by Orson Welles in the style of a news broadcast was mistaken for a real newscast by some listeners in the US, leading to panic; less famously, a 1949 broadcast in Quito, Ecuador, also resulted in a riot. Several sequels and adaptations by other authors have been written since, including 1950 Superman comic book story "Black Magic on Mars" by Alvin Schwartz and Wayne Boring where Orson Welles tries to warn Earth of an impending Martian invasion but is dismissed, the 1968 novel The Second Invasion from Mars (Второе нашествие марсиан) by Soviet science fiction writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky where the Martians forgo military conquest in favour of infiltration, the 1975 novel Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds by Manly Wade Wellman and Wade Wellman and the 1976 novel The Second War of the Worlds by George H. Smith which both combine Wells's story with Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes characters, the 1976 novel The Space Machine by Christopher Priest which combines the story of The War of the Worlds with that of Wells's 1895 novel The Time Machine, the 2002 short story "Ulla, Ulla" by Eric Brown which reframes the invasion as a desperate escape by a peaceful race from a dying world, and the 2005 novel The Martian War by Kevin J. Anderson where Wells himself goes to Mars and instigates a slave uprising. The authorised 2017 sequel novel The Massacre of Mankind by Stephen Baxter is set in 1920 in an alternate timeline where the events of the original novel caused World War I never to happen by making Britain war-weary and isolationist, and the Martians attack yet again after inoculating themselves against the microbes that were their downfall the first time.
## Life on Mars
The term Martians typically refers to inhabitants of Mars that are similar to humans in terms of having such things as language and civilization, though it is also occasionally used to refer to extraterrestrials in general. These inhabitants of Mars have variously been depicted as enlightened, evil, and decadent; in keeping with the conception of Mars as an older civilization than Earth, Westfahl refers to these as "good parents", "bad parents", and "dependent parents", respectively.
Martians have also been equated with humans in different ways. They are the descendants of humans from Earth in some works such as the 1889 novel Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet by Hugh MacColl, where a close approach between Mars and Earth in the past allowed some humans to get to Mars, and Tolstoy's Aelita where they are descended from inhabitants of the lost civilization of Atlantis. Conversely, humans are revealed to be the descendants of Martians in the 1954 short story "Survey Team" by Philip K. Dick. Human settlers take on the new identity of Martians in the 1946 short story "The Million Year Picnic" by Ray Bradbury (later included in the 1950 fix-up novel The Martian Chronicles), and this theme of "becoming Martians" came to be a recurring motif in Martian fiction toward the end of the century.
### Enlightened
The portrayal of Martians as superior to Earthlings appeared throughout the utopian fiction of the late 1800s. In-depth treatment of the nuances of the concept was pioneered by Kurd Lasswitz with the 1897 novel Auf zwei Planeten, wherein the Martians visit Earth to share their more advanced knowledge with humans and gradually end up acting as an occupying colonial power. Martians sharing wisdom or knowledge with humans is a recurring element in these stories, and some works such as the 1952 novel David Starr, Space Ranger by Isaac Asimov depict Martians sharing their advanced technology with the inhabitants of Earth. Several depictions of enlightened Martians have a religious dimension: in the 1938 novel Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis, Martians are depicted as Christian beings free from original sin, the Martian Klaatu who visits Earth in the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still is a Christ figure, and the 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein revolves around a human raised by Martians who brings a religion based on their ideals to Earth as a prophet. In comic books, the superhero Martian Manhunter first appeared in 1955. In the 1956 novel No Man Friday by Rex Gordon, an astronaut stranded on Mars encounters pacifist Martians and feels compelled to omit the human history of warfare lest they think of humans as savage creatures akin to cannibals. On television, the 1963–1966 sitcom My Favorite Martian—later adapted to children's animation in 1973 and to film in 1999—portrayed a Martian comedically; the contemporaneous science fiction anthology series The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits also occasionally featured Martian characters, such as in "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" where they find disappointment in human lack of altruism and "Controlled Experiment" where murder is a foreign concept to them.
### Evil
There is a long tradition of portraying Martians as warlike, perhaps inspired by the planet's association with the Roman god of war. The seminal depiction of Martians as evil creatures was the 1897 novel The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, wherein the Martians attack Earth. This characterization dominated the pulp era of science fiction, appearing in works such as the 1928 short story "The Menace of Mars" by Clare Winger Harris, the 1931 short story "Monsters of Mars" by Edmond Hamilton, and the 1935 short story "Mars Colonizes" by Miles J. Breuer. It quickly became regarded as a cliché and inspired a kind of countermovement that portrayed Martians as meek in works like the 1933 short story "The Forgotten Man of Space" by P. Schuyler Miller and the 1934 short story "Old Faithful" by Raymond Z. Gallun. The 1946 novel The Man from Mars by Polish science fiction writer Stanisław Lem likewise depicts a Martian mistreated by humans.
Outside of the pulps, the alien invasion theme pioneered by Wells appeared in Olaf Stapledon's 1930 novel Last and First Men—with the twist that the invading Martians are cloud-borne and microscopic, and neither aliens nor humans recognize the other as a sentient species. In film, this theme gained popularity in 1953 with the releases of The War of the Worlds and Invaders from Mars; later films about Martian invasions of Earth include the 1954 film Devil Girl from Mars, the 1962 film The Day Mars Invaded Earth, a 1986 remake of Invaders from Mars and three different adaptations of The War of the Worlds in 2005. Martians attacking humans who come to Mars appear in the 1948 short story "Mars Is Heaven!" by Ray Bradbury (later revised and included in The Martian Chronicles as "The Third Expedition"), where they use telepathic abilities to impersonate the humans' deceased loved ones before killing them. Comical portrayals of evil Martians appear in the 1954 novel Martians, Go Home by Fredric Brown, where they are little green men who wreak havoc by exposing secrets and lies; in the form of the cartoon character Marvin the Martian introduced in the 1948 short "Haredevil Hare", who seeks to destroy Earth to get a better view of Venus; and in the 1996 film Mars Attacks!, a pastiche of 1950s alien invasion films.
### Decadent
The conception of Martians as decadent was largely derived from Percival Lowell's vision of Mars. The first appearance of Martians characterized by decadence in a work of fiction was in the 1905 novel Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation by Edwin Lester Arnold, one of the earliest examples of the planetary romance subgenre. The idea was developed further and popularized by Edgar Rice Burroughs in the 1912–1943 Barsoom series starting with A Princess of Mars. Burroughs presents a Mars in need of human intervention to regain its vitality, a place where violence has replaced sexual desire. Science fiction critic Robert Crossley [Wikidata], in the 2011 non-fiction book Imagining Mars: A Literary History, identifies Burroughs's work as the archetypal example of what he dubs "masculinist fantasies", where "male travelers expect to find princesses on Mars and devote much of their time either to courting or to protecting them". This version of Mars also functions as a kind of stand-in for the bygone American frontier, where protagonist John Carter—a Confederate veteran of the American Civil War who is made superhumanly strong by the lower gravity of Mars—encounters indigenous Martians representing Native Americans.
Burroughs's vision of Mars would go on to have an influence approaching but not quite reaching Wells's, inspiring the works of many other authors—for instance, C. L. Moore's stories about Northwest Smith starting with the 1933 short story "Shambleau". Another author who followed Burroughs's lead in the decadent portrayal of Mars and its inhabitants—while updating the politics to reflect shifting attitudes toward colonialism and imperialism in the intervening years—was Leigh Brackett, the "Queen of the Planetary Romance". Brackett's works in this vein include the 1940 short story "Martian Quest" and the 1944 novel Shadow Over Mars, as well as the stories about Eric John Stark including the 1949 short story "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" and the 1951 short story "Black Amazon of Mars" (later expanded into the 1964 novels The Secret of Sinharat and People of the Talisman, respectively).
Decadent Martians appeared in many other stories as well. The 1933 novel Cat Country (貓城記) by Chinese science fiction writer Lao She portrays feline Martians overcome by vices such as opium addiction and corruption as a vehicle for satire of contemporary Chinese society. In the 1950 film Rocketship X-M, Martians are depicted as disfigured cavepeople inhabiting a barren wasteland, descendants of the few survivors of a nuclear holocaust; in the 1963 novel The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis a survivor of nuclear holocaust on Mars comes to Earth for refuge but finds it to be similarly corrupt and degenerate. Inverting the premise of Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, the 1963 short story "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" by Roger Zelazny sees decadent Martians visited by a preacher from Earth.
### Past and non-humanoid life
In some stories where Mars is not inhabited by humanoid lifeforms, it was in the past or is inhabited by other types of life. The ruins of extinct Martian civilizations are depicted in the 1943 short story "Lost Art" by George O. Smith where their perpetual motion machine is recreated and the 1957 short story "Omnilingual" by H. Beam Piper in which scientists attempt to decipher their fifty-thousand-year-old language; the 1933 novel The Outlaws of Mars by Otis Adelbert Kline and the 1949 novel The Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett employ time travel to set stories in the past when Mars was still alive.
The 1934 short story "A Martian Odyssey" by Stanley G. Weinbaum contains what Webster describes as "the first really alien aliens" in science fiction, in contrast to previous depictions of Martians as monsters or basically human. The story broke new ground in portraying an entire Martian ecosystem wholly unlike that of Earth—inhabited by species that are alien in anatomy and inscrutable in behaviour—and in depicting extraterrestrial life that is non-human and intelligent without being hostile. In particular, one Martian creature called Tweel is found to be intelligent but have thought processes that are utterly inhuman. This creates an impenetrable language barrier between the alien and the human it encounters, and they are limited to communicating through the universal language of mathematics. Asimov would later say that this story met the challenge science fiction editor John W. Campbell made to science fiction writers in the 1940s: to write a creature who thinks at least as well as humans, yet not like humans.
Three different species of intelligent lifeforms appear on Mars in C. S. Lewis's 1938 novel Out of the Silent Planet, only one of which is humanoid. In the 1943 short story "The Cave" by P. Schuyler Miller, lifeforms endure on Mars long after the civilization that used to exist there has driven itself to extinction through ecological collapse. The 1951 novel The Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke features some indigenous life in the form of oxygen-producing plants and Martian creatures resembling Earth marsupials, but otherwise depicts a mostly desolate environment—reflecting then-emerging data about the scarcity of life-sustaining resources on Mars. Other novels of the 1950s likewise limited themselves to rudimentary lifeforms such as lichens and tumbleweed that could conceivably exist in the absence of any appreciable atmosphere or quantities of water.
### Lifeless Mars
In light of the Mariner and Viking probes to Mars between 1965 and 1976 revealing the planet's inhospitable conditions, almost all fiction started to portray Mars as a lifeless world. The disappointment of finding Mars to be hostile to life is reflected in the 1970 novel Die Erde ist nah (The Earth Is Near) by Czech science fiction writer Luděk Pešek, which depicts the members of an astrobiological expedition on Mars driven to despair by the realization that their search for life there is futile. A handful of authors still found ways to place life on the red planet: microbial life exists on Mars in the 1977 novel The Martian Inca by Ian Watson, and intelligent life is found in hibernation there in the 1977 short story "In the Hall of the Martian Kings" by John Varley. By the turn of the millennium, the idea of microbial life on Mars gained popularity, appearing in the 1999 novel The Martian Race by Gregory Benford and the 2001 novel The Secret of Life by Paul J. McAuley.
## Human survival
As stories about an inhabited Mars fell out of favour in the mid-1900s amid mounting evidence of the planet's inhospitable nature, they were replaced by stories about enduring the harsh conditions of the planet. Themes in this tradition include colonization, terraforming, and pure survival stories.
### Colonization
The colonization of Mars became a major theme in science fiction in the 1950s. The central piece of Martian fiction in this era was Ray Bradbury's 1950 fix-up novel The Martian Chronicles, which contains a series of loosely connected stories depicting the first few decades of human efforts to colonize Mars. Unlike later works on this theme, The Martian Chronicles makes no attempt at realism (Mars has a breathable atmosphere, for instance, even though spectrographic analysis had at that time revealed no detectable amounts of oxygen); Bradbury said that "Mars is a mirror, not a crystal", writing in the tradition of using the planet for social commentary rather than attempting to predict the future. Contemporary issues touched upon in the book include McCarthyism in "Usher II", racial segregation and lynching in the United States in "Way in the Middle of the Air", and nuclear anxiety throughout. There are also several allusions to the European colonization of the Americas: the first few missions to Mars in the book encounter Martians, with direct references to both Hernán Cortés and the Trail of Tears, but the indigenous population soon goes extinct due to chickenpox in a parallel to the virgin soil epidemics that devastated Native American populations as a result of the Columbian exchange.
The majority of works about colonizing Mars endeavoured to portray the challenges of doing so realistically. The hostile environment of the planet is countered by the colonists bringing life-support systems in works like the 1951 novel The Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke and the 1966 short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick; the early colonists during the centuries-long terraforming process in the 1953 short story "Crucifixus Etiam" by Walter M. Miller Jr. are dependent on a machine that oxygenates their blood from the thin atmosphere, and the scarcity of oxygen even after generations of terraforming forces the colonists to live in a domed city in the 1953 novel Police Your Planet by Lester del Rey. In the 1955 fix-up novel Alien Dust by Edwin Charles Tubb, colonists are unable to return to a life on Earth because inhaling the Martian dust has given them pneumoconiosis and the lower gravity has atrophied their muscles. The 1952 novel Outpost Mars by Cyril Judd (joint pseudonym of Cyril M. Kornbluth and Judith Merril) revolves around an attempt at making a Mars colony economically sustainable by way of resource extraction.
Mars colonies seeking independence from or outright revolting against Earth is a recurring motif; in del Rey's Police Your Planet a revolution is precipitated by Earth using unrest against the colony's corrupt mayor as a pretext for bringing Mars under firmer Terran control, and in Tubb's Alien Dust the colonists threaten Earth with nuclear weapons unless their demands for necessary resources are met. In the 1952 short story "The Martian Way" by Isaac Asimov, Martian colonists extract water from the rings of Saturn so as not to depend on importing water from Earth. Besides direct conflicts with Earth, Mars colonies get other kinds of unfavourable treatment in several works. Mars is a dilapidated colony and neglected in favour of locations outside of the Solar System in the 1967 novel Born Under Mars by John Brunner, a place where political dissidents and criminals are exiled in Police Your Planet, and the site of an outright prison colony in the 1966 novel Farewell, Earth's Bliss by David G. Compton. The vision of Mars as a prison colony recurs in Japanese science fiction author Moto Hagio's 1978–1979 manga series Star Red (スター・レッド), a homage to Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. The independence theme was adopted by on-screen portrayals of Mars colonies in the 1990s in works like the 1990 film Total Recall (a loose adaptation of Dick's "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale") and the 1994–1998 television series Babylon 5, now both in terms of Earth-based governments and—likely inspired by the emergence of Reaganomics—especially corporations.
### Terraforming
Clarke's The Sands of Mars features one of the earliest depictions of terraforming Mars to make it more hospitable to human life; in the novel, the atmosphere of Mars is made breathable by plants that release oxygen from minerals in the Martian soil, and the climate is improved by creating an artificial sun. The theme appeared occasionally in other 1950s works like the aforementioned "Crucifixus Etiam" and Police Your Planet, but largely fell out of favour in the 1960s as the scale of the associated challenges became apparent. By the 1970s, Martian literature as a whole had mostly succumbed to the discouragement of finding the planet's conditions to be so hostile, and stories set on Mars became much less common than they had been in previous decades.
A resurgence of popularity of the terraforming theme began to emerge in the late 1970s in light of data from the Viking probes suggesting that there might be substantial quantities of non-liquid and sub-surface water on Mars; among the earliest such works are the 1977 novel The Martian Inca by Ian Watson and the 1978 novel A Double Shadow by Frederick Turner. Works depicting the terraforming of Mars continued to appear throughout the 1980s. The 1984 novel The Greening of Mars by James Lovelock and Michael Allaby, a study on how Mars might be settled and terraformed presented in the form of a fiction narrative, was influential on science and fiction alike. Kim Stanley Robinson was an early prolific writer on the subject with the 1982 short story "Exploring Fossil Canyon", the 1984 novel Icehenge, and the 1985 short story "Green Mars". Turner revisited the concept in 1988 with Genesis, a 10,000-line epic poem written in iambic pentameter, and Ian McDonald combined terraforming with magical realism in the 1988 novel Desolation Road.
By the 1990s, terraforming had become the predominant theme in Martian fiction. Several methods for accomplishing it were depicted, including ancient alien artefacts in the 1990 film Total Recall and the 1997 novel Mars Underground by William Kenneth Hartmann, utilizing indigenous animal lifeforms in the 1991 novel The Martian Rainbow by Robert L. Forward, and relocating the entire planet to a new solar system in the 1993 novel Moving Mars by Greg Bear. The 1993 novel Red Dust by Paul J. McAuley portrays Mars in the process of reverting to its natural state after an abandoned attempt at terraforming it. With a Mars settled primarily by China, Red Dust also belongs to a tradition of portraying a multicultural Mars that developed parallel to the rise to prominence of the terraforming theme. Other such works include the 1989 novel Crescent in the Sky by Donald Moffitt, where Arabs apply their experience with surviving in desert conditions to living in their new caliphate on a partially terraformed Mars, and the 1991 novel The Martian Viking by Tim Sullivan where Mars is terraformed by Geats led by Hygelac.
The most prominent work of fiction dealing with the subject of terraforming Mars is the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (consisting of the novels Red Mars from 1992, Green Mars from 1993, and Blue Mars from 1996), a hard science fiction story of a United Nations project wherein 100 carefully selected scientists are sent to Mars to start the first settlement there. The series explores in depth the practical and ideological considerations involved, the principal one being whether to turn Mars "Green" by terraforming or keep it in its pristine "Red" state. Other major topics include the social and economic organization of the emerging Martian society and its political relationship to Earth and the multinational economic interests that finance the mission, revisiting the earlier themes of Mars as a setting for utopia—albeit in this case one in the making rather than a pre-existing one—and Martian struggle for independence from Earth.
Alternatives to terraforming have also been explored. The opposite approach of modifying humans to adapt them to the existing environment, known as pantropy, appears in the 1976 novel Man Plus by Frederik Pohl but has otherwise been sparsely depicted. The conflict between pantropy and terraforming is explored in the 1994 novel Climbing Olympus by Kevin J. Anderson, as the humans that have been "areoformed" to survive on Mars do not wish the planet to be altered to accommodate unmodified humans at their expense. Other works where terraforming is eschewed in favour of alternatives include the 1996 novel River of Dust by Alexander Jablokov, where the settlers create a liveable environment by burrowing underground, and the 1999 novel White Mars, or, The Mind Set Free: A 21st-Century Utopia by Brian Aldiss and Roger Penrose where environmental preservation is prioritized and humans live in domed cities.
### Robinsonades
Martian robinsonades—stories of astronauts stranded on Mars—emerged in the 1950s with works such as the 1952 novel Marooned on Mars by Lester del Rey, the 1956 novel No Man Friday by Rex Gordon, and the 1959 short story "The Man Who Lost the Sea" by Theodore Sturgeon. Crossley writes that No Man Friday is in some respects an "anti-robinsonade", inasmuch as it rejects the underlying colonialist attitudes and portrays the Martians as more advanced than humans rather than less. Robinsonades remained popular throughout the 1960s; examples include the 1966 novel Welcome to Mars by James Blish and the 1964 film Robinson Crusoe on Mars, the latter being significantly if unofficially based on No Man Friday. The subgenre was later revisited with the 2011 novel The Martian by Andy Weir and its 2015 film adaptation, in which an astronaut accidentally left behind by the third mission to Mars uses the resources available to him to survive until such a time that he can be rescued.
## Nostalgic depictions
Although most stories by the middle of the 1900s acknowledged that advances in planetary science had rendered previous notions about the conditions of Mars obsolete and portrayed the planet accordingly, some continued to depict a romantic version of Mars rather than a realistic one. Besides the stories of Ray Bradbury's 1950 fix-up novel The Martian Chronicles, another early example of this was Robert A. Heinlein's 1949 novel Red Planet where Mars has a breathable (albeit thin) atmosphere, a diverse ecosystem including sentient Martians, and Lowellian canals. Martian canals remained a prominent symbol of this more traditional vision of Mars, appearing both in lighthearted works like the 1954 novel Martians, Go Home by Fredric Brown and more serious ones like the 1963 novel The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis and the 1964 novel Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick. Some works attempted to reconcile both visions of Mars, one example being the 1952 novel Marooned on Mars by Lester del Rey where the presumed canals turn out to be rows of vegetables and the only animal life is primitive.
As the Space Age commenced the divide between portraying Mars as it was and as it had previously been imagined deepened, and the discoveries made by Mariner 4 in 1965 solidified it. Some authors simply ignored the scientific findings, such as Lin Carter who included intelligent Martians in the 1973 novel The Man Who Loved Mars, and Leigh Brackett who declared in the foreword to The Coming of the Terrans (a 1967 collection of earlier short stories) that "in the affairs of men and Martians, mere fact runs a poor second to Truth, which is mighty and shall prevail". Others were cognizant of them and used workarounds: Frank Herbert invented the fictional extrasolar Mars-like planet Arrakis for the 1965 novel Dune rather than setting the story on Mars, Robert F. Young set the 1979 short story "The First Mars Mission" in 1957 so as not to have to take the findings of Mariner 4 into account, and Colin Greenland set the 1993 novel Harm's Way in the 1800s with corresponding scientific concepts like the luminiferous aether. The 1965 novel The Alternate Martians by A. Bertram Chandler is based on the premise that the depictions of Mars that appear in older stories are not incorrect but reflect alternative universes; the book is dedicated to "the Mars that used to be, but never was". The urge to recapture the romantic vision of Mars is reflected as part of the story in the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, where the people living on a desolate Mars enjoy reading old stories about the lifeful Mars that never was, as well as in the 1989 novel The Barsoom Project by Steven Barnes and Larry Niven, where the fantastical version of Mars is recreated as an amusement park.
Following the arrival of the Viking probes in 1976, the so-called "Face on Mars" superseded the Martian canals as the most central symbol of nostalgic depictions of Mars. The "Face" is a rock formation in the Cydonia region of Mars first photographed by the Viking 1 orbiter under conditions that made it resemble a human face; higher-quality photographs taken by subsequent probes under different lighting conditions revealed this to be a case of pareidolia. It was popularized by Richard C. Hoagland, who interpreted it as an artificial construction by intelligent extraterrestrials, and has appeared in works of fiction including the 1992 novel Labyrinth of Night by Allen Steele, the 1995 short story "The Great Martian Pyramid Hoax" by Jerry Oltion, and the 1998 novel Semper Mars by Ian Douglas. Outside of literature, it has made appearances in the 1993 episode "Space" of The X-Files, the 2000 film Mission to Mars, and the 2002 episode "Where the Buggalo Roam" of the animated television show Futurama.
Deliberately nostalgic homages to older works have continued to appear through the turn of the millennium. In the 1999 novel Rainbow Mars by Larry Niven, a time traveller goes to visit Mars's past but instead appears in the parallel universe of Mars's fictional past and encounters the creations of science fiction authors such as H. G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Stories collected in Peter Crowther's 2002 anthology Mars Probes pay tribute to the works of Stanley G. Weinbaum and Leigh Brackett, among others. The 2013 anthology Old Mars edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois consists of newly written stories in the planetary romance style of older stories whose visions of Mars are now outdated; Martin compared it to the common practice of setting Westerns in a romanticized version of the Old West rather than a more realistic one.
## First landings and near-future human presence
Stories about the first human mission to Mars became popular after US president George H. W. Bush announced the Space Exploration Initiative in 1989, which proposed to accomplish this feat by 2019, though the concept had earlier appeared indirectly in the 1977 film Capricorn One, wherein NASA fakes the Mars landing. Among these are the 1992 novel Beachhead by Jack Williamson and the 1992 novel Mars in Ben Bova's Grand Tour series, both of which emphasize the barrenness of the Martian landscape upon arrival and contrast it with a desire to find beauty there. The idea was spoofed in the 1990 novel Voyage to the Red Planet by Terry Bisson, which posits that a mission like that could only get funding by being turned into a movie. Stephen Baxter's 1996 novel Voyage depicts an alternate history where US president John F. Kennedy was not assassinated in 1963, ultimately leading to the first Mars landing happening in 1986. The 1999 novel The Martian Race by Gregory Benford adapts the Mars Direct proposal by aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin to fiction by depicting a private sector competition to conduct the first crewed Mars landing with a large monetary reward attached. Zubrin would later write a story of his own along the same lines: the 2001 novel First Landing. In a variation on the theme, Ian McDonald's 2002 short story "The Old Cosmonaut and the Construction Worker Dream of Mars" (included in the aforementioned anthology Mars Probes) portrays the lingering yearning for Mars in a future where the intended first Mars landing was cancelled and the era of space exploration has come to an end without the dream of a human mission to Mars ever being realized.
Beyond the events of the first crewed landing on Mars, this time period also saw an increase in portrayals of the early stages of exploration and settlement happening in the near future, especially following the 1996 launches of the Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor probes. In the 1991 novel Red Genesis by S. C. Sykes [Wikidata], settlement of Mars begins in 2015, though the bulk of the narrative is set decades later and focuses on the social—rather than technical—challenges of the project. The 1997 novel Mars Underground by William K. Hartmann also deals with the early efforts of establishing a permanent human presence on the red planet. The members of the third human mission to Mars are forced to trek across the planets surface in the 2000 novel Mars Crossing by Geoffrey A. Landis to reach a return vehicle from a previous mission after theirs is damaged beyond repair.
## In the new millennium
In the year 2000, Westfahl estimated the total number of works of fiction dealing with Mars up to that point to exceed five thousand. Depictions of Mars have remained common since then, though without a clear overarching trend—rather, says The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Mars fiction has "ramified in several directions". The year 2002 saw the publication of the book GURPS Mars by James Cambias, a guide to role-playing games in Martian settings using the GURPS system. In the 2003 novel Ilium by Dan Simmons and its 2005 sequel Olympos, the Trojan War is reenacted on Mars, and the 2011 animated film Mars Needs Moms revisits the older theme of evil Martians coming to Earth, though with more modest ambitions than launching an all-out invasion. The 2011–2021 novel series The Expanse by James S. A. Corey (joint pseudonym of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck), starting with Leviathan Wakes, is a space opera set in part on Mars that was originally based on a role-playing game and later adapted to a television series starting in 2015. Tom Chmielewski's 2014 novel Lunar Dust, Martian Sands is a piece of noir fiction set partially on Mars. The Martian—book and film—is hard science fiction; the film adaptation was described by the production team as being "as much science fact as science fiction". The 100th anniversary of Burroughs's A Princess of Mars in 2012 saw the release of both the film adaptation John Carter and an anthology of new Barsoom fiction: Under the Moons of Mars: New Adventures on Barsoom edited by John Joseph Adams. In Polish science fiction, Rafał Kosik's 2003 novel Mars [pl] depicts people migrating to Mars to escape an Earth ravaged by overpopulation, and an anthology of short stories titled Mars: Antologia polskiej fantastyki (Mars: An Anthology of Polish Fantasy) was published in 2021. Mars has also made frequent appearances in video games; examples include the 2001 game Red Faction which is set on Mars and the 2014 game Destiny where Mars is an unlockable setting. Mars also continues to make regular appearances in stories where it is not the main focus, such as Joe Haldeman's 2008 novel Marsbound. Says Crossley, "Where imagined Mars will go as the twenty-first century unfolds cannot be prophesied, because—undoubtedly—improbable, original, and masterful talents will work new variations on the matter of Mars."
## Moons
Mars has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, which were both discovered by Asaph Hall in 1877. The first appearance of the moons of Mars in fiction predates their discovery by a century and a half; the satirical 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift includes a mention that the advanced astronomers of Laputa have discovered two Martian moons. The 1752 work Micromégas by Voltaire likewise mentions two moons of Mars; astronomy historian William Sheehan [Wikidata] surmises that Voltaire was inspired by Swift. German astronomer Eberhard Christian Kindermann [de], mistakenly believing that he had discovered a Martian moon, described a fictional voyage to it in the 1744 story "Die Geschwinde Reise" ("The Speedy Journey").
The moons' small sizes have made them unpopular settings in science fiction, with some exceptions such as the 1955 novel Phobos, the Robot Planet by Paul Capon and the 2001 short story "Romance with Phobic Variations" by Tom Purdom in the case of Phobos, and the 1936 short story "Crystals of Madness" by D. L. James in the case of Deimos. Phobos is turned into a small star to provide heat and light to Mars in the 1951 novel The Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke. The moons are revealed to be alien spacecraft in the 1955 juvenile novel The Secret of the Martian Moons by Donald A. Wollheim and the sites of portals to hell in the 1993 video game Doom.
## See also
- Mars in culture
|
175,849 |
Quiriguá
| 1,169,879,871 |
Mayan archaeological site in south-eastern Guatemala
|
[
"Archaeological sites in Guatemala",
"Classic period in Mesoamerica",
"Former populated places in Guatemala",
"Izabal Department",
"Maya sites in Guatemala",
"Quiriguá",
"Rock art in North America",
"World Heritage Sites in Guatemala"
] |
Quiriguá () is an ancient Maya archaeological site in the department of Izabal in south-eastern Guatemala. It is a medium-sized site covering approximately 3 square kilometres (1.2 sq mi) along the lower Motagua River, with the ceremonial center about 1 km (0.6 mi) from the north bank. During the Maya Classic Period (AD 200–900), Quiriguá was situated at the juncture of several important trade routes. The site was occupied by 200, construction on the acropolis had begun by about 550, and an explosion of grander construction started in the 8th century. All construction had halted by about 850, except for a brief period of reoccupation in the Early Postclassic (c. 900 – c. 1200). Quiriguá shares its architectural and sculptural styles with the nearby Classic Period city of Copán, with whose history it is closely entwined.
Quiriguá's rapid expansion in the 8th century was tied to king K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat's military victory over Copán in 738. When the greatest king of Copán, Uaxaclajuun Ub'aah K'awiil or "18-Rabbit", was defeated, he was captured and then sacrificed in the Great Plaza at Quiriguá. Before this, Quiriguá had been a vassal state of Copán, but it maintained its independence afterwards. The ceremonial architecture at Quiriguá is quite modest, but the site's importance lies in its wealth of sculpture, including the tallest stone monumental sculpture ever erected in the New World. Because of its historical importance, the site of Quiriguá was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1981.
## Name and location
The archaeological site of Quiriguá is named after the nearby village of the same name, and is located a little over 200 km (120 mi) northeast of Guatemala City; it lies in the municipality of Los Amates in the department of Izabal and has an elevation of 75 m (246 ft) above mean sea level.
Positioned on the north bank of the lower reaches of the Motagua River, Quiriguá is situated at the point where the valley broadens into a flood plain, which has exposed the site to periodic flooding over the centuries. Although the river passed close to the site during the period of the city's occupation, it has since changed course and now flows 1 km (0.6 mi) south of the ceremonial centre. Quiriguá is 48 km (30 mi) north of Copán, and is located 15.7 km (9.8 mi) north-west of the international border with Honduras.
The local bedrock is a hard red sandstone, which the inhabitants used in the construction of monuments and architecture. This local sandstone is very strong and not prone to shearing or fracturing, allowing the sculptors at Quiriguá to erect the tallest freestanding stone monuments in the Americas. Quiriguá was built directly over the Motagua Fault and the city suffered damage in ancient times as a result of major earthquakes.
## Population
Although the Quiriguá elite were clearly Maya in ethnicity, the site lies on the southern periphery of the Mesoamerican area and the population was at least bi-ethnic, with ethnic Maya in a minority. The majority of the population belonged ethnically to the less complex Intermediate Area lying beyond the eastern border of Mesoamerica. The population density of the site has been estimated at 400 to 500 per square kilometer (1040 to 1300 per square mile) in the centre of the city during the Late Classic with an estimated peak population of 1200–1600; surveys have revealed an average of 130 structures per square kilometer (338 per square mile) at the site, compared with 1449 structures/km<sup>2</sup> (3767 per square mile) in central Copán. The low population density indicates that Quiriguá served as the focus for a dispersed rural population.
The population levels of the Quiriguá valley increased rapidly after the successful rebellion against Copán in 738, although it was never a heavily populated site. In the 9th century there was a severe decline in population, culminating in the abandonment of the city.
## Economy
The Motagua River flows down from the western Guatemalan highlands, and Quiriguá was ideally positioned to control the trade of uncut jade, the majority of which was found in the middle reaches of the Motagua Valley, as well as controlling the flow of other important commodities up and down the river such as cacao, which was produced as a local cash crop. Although cacao was produced for trade, maize remained the primary local crop due to its central role in the Maya diet. In addition, maize probably formed an important component in the site's tribute payments to its overlords at Copán, a city that was exhausting its own local resources. Although little jade has been recovered from the site, there is evidence for trade in obsidian originating from the Ixtepeque source situated near the upper reaches of the Motagua.
In the Classic Period, the location of the site would have placed Quiriguá on a crossroads between the trading route from the highlands to the Caribbean coast and the route from Copán to the major cities of the Petén Basin.
## Known rulers
As recorded on hieroglyphic inscriptions at Quiriguá, all dates are AD. Maya inscriptions for rulers sometimes include reference to a number ("hel-number" or count, named after its main glyph) that are believed to specify the position of that ruler in the sequence of dynastic succession to the rulership of the site. Thus a hel-number of five indicates the ruler was fifth in the line of dynastic succession.
## History
### Early history
There is evidence that Quiriguá was occupied as early as the Late Preclassic (400 BC – AD 200). Although no structures have been securely dated to this period, a number of Late Preclassic artifacts have been recovered, including 63 figurines and a chert blade. Early Classic ceramics from Quiriguá are similar to finds at both Copán and Chalchuapa in El Salvador, while jade hunchback figurines from the same period resemble those found in central Honduras and in the Guatemalan highlands. These early finds demonstrate the participation of Quiriguá in the wider southeastern Maya region from the Late Preclassic onwards.
A combination of hieroglyphic texts from Tikal, Copán and Quiriguá, together with architectural styles and chemical tests of the bones of the founder of the Copán dynasty all suggest that Quiriguá and Copán were founded by elite colonists from the great city of Tikal as a part of its expansion into the southeastern border area of the Maya region. The recorded history of Quiriguá starts in 426, in the Early Classic (c. 200 – c. 600); according to hieroglyphic inscriptions at other sites, on 5 September of that year K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo' was enthroned as king of Copán. Just three days later he installed "Tok Casper", the first known king of Quiriguá, upon the throne. From this it is evident that right from the beginning of its recorded history Quiriguá was subservient to its southern neighbour, and was founded to bring the lucrative trade route of the Motagua River under the control of Copán and, indirectly, of Tikal. During the next few centuries, about which little is known, the ceremonial architecture at Quiriguá was limited to the hilltop Group A and a broad earthen platform on the valley floor. It is recorded that a stela, as yet undiscovered, was erected in 455 by Tutuum Yohl K'inich, the second king of Quiriguá. An early monument records the supervision of a ritual in 480 by the then overlord from Copán, demonstrating Quiriguá's continued status as a vassal of that city. A hieroglyphic text dating to 493 mentions two further kings of Quiriguá, but interruptions in the text make the reading and decipherment of their names particularly difficult.
There are close parallels between the 5th-century architecture and monuments of Quiriguá and Uaxactun in the northern Petén, a site that fell under the domination of Tikal in the late 4th century. The similarities show that Quiriguá remained strongly aligned with the great Tikal alliance network.
### Hiatus and recovery
Quiriguá suffered a hiatus from the turn of the 6th century that lasted through to the middle of the 7th century. This may be linked to the Tikal hiatus of the Middle Classic caused by Tikal's defeat by Calakmul. There is evidence that Quiriguá suffered an attack by unknown enemies in this period, as demonstrated by the apparently deliberate defacement of Stela U and Monument 26, characteristic of damage inflicted by invading warriors. No monuments were erected during this hiatus, which lasted from 495 to 653.
In the 6th or early 7th century a natural disaster caused a devastating flood of the Motagua Valley and buried the surface of the site under a deep layer of silt, completely changing the landscape. Only those buildings that stood above the mud continued in use, including group A, saved by its hilltop location. The earthen platform on the valley floor also continued in use, at least those parts of it that stood above the silt, and it was one of the site's smaller complexes that grew to become the new centre of Quiriguá, as represented by the monuments visible to this day.
A revival can be identified by the dedication of the first new monument in a century and a half, raised by the otherwise unknown king, K'awiil Yopaat, in 653. Continued contact with Copán is evident, as well as longer distance contacts, possibly with Caracol in Belize. At about the same time major construction work was undertaken in the acropolis, including the building of the site's first ballcourt.
### Apogee
Quiriguá traditionally had been subordinate to its southern neighbour, Copán, and in 724 Uaxaclajuun Ub'aah K'awiil, king of Copán, installed K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat upon Quiriguá's throne as his vassal. As early as 734, however, K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat had shown that he was no longer an obedient subordinate of Copán when he started to refer to himself as k'ul ahaw, holy lord, instead of using the lesser term ahaw, subordinate lord; at the same time he began to use his own Quiriguá emblem glyph. These early assertions of independence can only have been made if Quiriguá had managed to form an external alliance.
Indeed, this local act of rebellion appears to have been part of the larger struggle between the two Maya "superpowers", the great cities of Tikal and Calakmul. In 736, only two years later, K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat received a visit from Wamaw K'awiil, the high king of distant Calakmul, while Copán was one of Tikal's oldest allies. The timing of this visit by the king of Calakmul is highly significant, falling between the accession of K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat to the throne of Quiriguá as a vassal of Copán and the outright rebellion that was to follow. This strongly suggests that Calakmul sponsored Quiriguá's rebellion in order to weaken Tikal and to gain access to the rich trade route of the Motagua Valley. It is likely that contact with Calakmul had been initiated soon after K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat acceded to the throne, since Quiriguá experienced rapid growth soon after, suggesting that Quiriguá already was receiving external support.
In 738 the interlinked fortunes of Quiriguá and Copán took a stunning change of direction when K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat, reigning lord of Quiriguá, captured the powerful, but elderly 13th king of Copán, Uaxaclajuun Ub'aah K'awiil, who had installed him on his throne in 725. This coup does not seem to have affected either Copán or Quiriguá physically, there is no evidence that either city was attacked at this time and the victor seems not to have received any detectable tribute. Quiriguá seems rather to have gained its independence and the control of important trade routes. An inscription at Quiriguá, although difficult to interpret, suggests that the capture took place on 27 April 738, when Quiriguá seized and burned the wooden images of Copán's patron deities. All of this seems to imply that K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat managed to somehow ambush Uaxaclajuun Ub'aah K'awiil, rather than to have defeated him in outright battle. In the Classic Period the statues of Maya deities often were carried into battle on palanquins, facilitating their capture in the event of defeat. It has been suggested that the king of Copán was attempting to attack another site in order to secure captives for sacrifice, and was ambushed by K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat and his Quiriguá warriors.
The captured lord was taken back to Quiriguá and on 3 May 738 he was decapitated in a public ritual. The sacrificial offering of the blood of such a powerful overlord greatly enhanced the standing of Quiriguá and its royal family throughout the region and it proclaimed Quiriguá as the new capital of the south-eastern Maya region. After this, Quiriguá engaged in a major monument-building programme, closely mimicking the sculptural style of Copán, possibly using captured Copán sculptors to carry out the work. The population of Quiriguá and of other sites in the valley rapidly increased after the events of 738, although Quiriguá was always a small centre and its total population probably never exceeded 2,000.
In the Late Classic (c. 600 – c. 900), alliance with Calakmul frequently was associated with the promise of military support. The fact that Copán, a much more powerful city than Quiriguá, failed to retaliate against its former vassal implies that it feared the military intervention of Calakmul. Calakmul itself was far enough away from Quiriguá that K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat was not afraid of falling directly under its power as a full vassal state, even though it is likely that Calakmul sent warriors to help in the defeat of Copán. The alliance instead seems to have been one of mutual advantage, Calakmul managed to weaken a powerful ally of Tikal while Quiriguá gained its independence.
In 718, the city of Xkuy – an as yet undiscovered site – was attacked and burned by Copán under the leadership of king Uaxaclajuun Ub'aah K'awiil. After the king of Copán was sacrificed in 738, Xkuy seems to have become a loyal vassal of Quiriguá and in 762 K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat supervised the accession of "Sunraiser Jaguar" to the subservient city's throne.
K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat, who had so dramatically changed the destiny of his city, died on 27 July 785. Zoomorph G is his memorial stone and it describes how he was buried 10 days later in the 13 Kawak House, a building that has not been identified. The great king was succeeded by "Sky Xul", a king whose name has not been properly identified. "Sky Xul" became the reigning lord of Quiriguá 78 days after the death of K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat, who is thought to have been his father. His reign lasted from 10 to 15 years and was a period of continued activity. In most of the Maya region cities already were suffering terminal decline, engulfed by the Classic Maya collapse, but in Quiriguá "Sky Xul" dedicated three great zoomorph sculptures and two altars, considered marvels of Maya stoneworking. "Sky Xul" died some time between 795 and 800.
### Decline and collapse
Little is known of "Jade Sky", who succeeded "Sky Xul" and was the last recorded ruler of Quiriguá. The city's power already was waning, as evidenced by the two stunted stelae erected during his reign, which indicate that the kingdom no longer had access to the kind of resources needed to produce monuments of a similar quality to those of his predecessors. "Jade Sky" did build two of the largest structures in the acropolis, however.
Quiriguá apparently retained its independence from Copán and continued to flourish until the beginning of the 9th century. Relations between the two cities had improved somewhat by 810, when king Yax Pasaj Chan Yopaat of Copán visited Quiriguá in order to carry out a k'atun-ending ritual. However, 810 was also the year when the last hieroglyphic texts were raised at Quiriguá, although a reduced level of construction continued in the city centre. After this, Quiriguá falls into silence, engulfed by the greater phenomenon of the Classic Maya collapse – it had lost its reason for existence when trade no longer flowed along the Motagua; within a few years Quiriguá was all but deserted and sites throughout the Motagua Valley suffered severe decline or abandonment.
### Postclassic
In the early Postclassic Period (c. 900 – c. 1200), Quiriguá was occupied by peoples closely linked to the Caribbean coastal areas of the Yucatán Peninsula and Belize, perhaps due to Chontal Maya control of a trade network that included the Yucatán coast and the Motagua Valley. During their brief reoccupation of the site they made substantial additions to the acropolis complex. Finds associated with their occupation include a reclining chacmool sculpture and ceramics from the east coast of Yucatán, artifacts that demonstrate a close link with the distant city of Chichen Itza. Some copper bells and ornaments were recovered from Quiriguá, they are among the earliest finds of metal artifacts in the Maya area. They have been dated to either the Terminal Classic (c. 800 – c. 950) or the Early Postclassic.
### Modern history
The first European visitor to publish an account of Quiriguá was English architect and artist Frederick Catherwood, who reached the ruins in 1840. The previous landowner, by the surname of Payés, had related the existence of the ruins to his sons and to Carlos Meiney, a Jamaican Englishman resident in Guatemala. The elder Payés had recently died and passed the land to his sons and, since neither Meiney nor Payés' sons had visited the land containing the ruins, they invited John Lloyd Stephens and Catherwood to join them on their first trip to the site. Stephens had other duties to attend to, but Catherwood was able to accompany the Payés brothers to Quiriguá. Due to adverse conditions he was only able to stay a short time at the ruins, but made drawings of two of the stelae, which were published with a short account of Catherwood's visit in John Lloyd Stephens's book Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan in 1841. Quiriguá was the first site that Stephens and Catherwood could claim to have discovered themselves. A longer account of the ruins was made in 1854 by Karl Scherzer.
Explorer and archaeologist Alfred Maudslay visited Quiriguá for three days in 1881; they were the first pre-Columbian ruins that he saw and they were sufficiently impressive to inspire him to take up a permanent interest in Central American archaeology. He was able to return on three further occasions, the last being in 1894, and he made the first efforts to clear the monuments before recording them. He carried out a very thorough examination and made a photographic record of all visible monuments, carried out some minor excavations, made paper and plaster molds of the hieroglyphic inscriptions and surveyed the principal sculptures; these molds were then shipped to the Victoria and Albert Museum, with casts being transferred to the British Museum.
In 1910, the United Fruit Company bought Quiriguá and all the land for a great distance around the site for banana production; they set aside 75 acres (30 ha) around the ceremonial centre as an archaeological park, leaving an island of jungle among the plantations. More archaeological work was carried out from 1910 to 1914 by Edgar Lee Hewett and Sylvanus Morley for the School of American Archaeology in Santa Fe. Duplicates of the stelae of Quiriguá made from Hewett's plaster casts of the originals were exhibited at the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego, California, in 1915. The casts are still on display at the San Diego Museum of Man in their "Maya: Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth" exhibition. The Carnegie Institution conducted several intermittent projects at Quiriguá from 1915 through 1934. Aldous Huxley, writing after visiting the site in the early 1930s, noted that Quiriguá's stelae commemorated "man's triumph over time and matter and the triumph of time and matter over man." Quiriguá was among the first Maya archaeological sites to be studied intensively, although little restoration was carried out and the ruins once again became overgrown with jungle.
Quiriguá was declared a National Monument in 1970 under Ministerial Accord 1210, this was followed on 19 June 1974 by its declaration as an Archaeological Park under Governmental Accord 35-74.
From 1974 through 1979, an extensive archaeological project was conducted at Quiriguá sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, the National Geographic Society, and the Guatemalan Instituto de Antropología e Historia. Directed by Robert Sharer and William R. Coe, the project excavated the acropolis, cleaned the monuments, and studied outlying groups. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981, and in 1999 UNESCO approved one-off funding of US\$27,248 for "emergency assistance for the rehabilitation of the archaeological site of Quiriguá". One of the site's stelae is depicted on the Guatemalan 10 centavo coin.
The 34-hectare (84-acre) area included within the Archaeological Park of Quiriguá has been developed for tourism with the construction of a car park, site museum, and sanitation facilities and is open to the public on a daily basis.
## The site
### Architecture
After Quiriguá's pivotal victory over Copán in 738, K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat rebuilt the main group in the image of Copán itself. Thus, the acropolis, palace, and ballcourt all lie at the southern end of the Great Plaza. The ceremonial centre is laid out around three plazas, the northernmost is the Great Plaza. This plaza measures 325 m (1,066 ft) from north to south and is the largest plaza in the whole Maya region. At the southern end of the Great Plaza is the Ballcourt Plaza, surrounded on three sides by structures associated with the acropolis. The Acropolis Plaza is a fully enclosed plaza within the acropolis itself. The area to the west of the Ballcourt Plaza was probably the riverside docking area and there is evidence that the southern part of the Great Plaza was a marketplace. A number of ceramic-lined wells have been excavated close to the site core, these were all built in the 8th century and although some continued in use into the 9th century, none are known to have been built that late.
- 1A-1 is an enormous platform forming the northern part of the Great Plaza. It measures 100 by 85 metres (328 by 279 ft) and rises 0.5 metres (20 in) above the level of the southern part of the plaza. It forms the northern portion of the Great Plaza, being built by K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat when he extended the plaza northward. The platform was built from river cobbles and was paved with stone slabs. Platform 1A-1 supported the stelae A, C, D, E and F and Zoomorph B. The platform was built in two phases over about 20 years.
- 1A-3 is a large mound marking the northern edge of the Great Plaza. It originally measured 82.5 by 20 metres (271 by 66 ft) and was 7 metres (23 ft) high. A 63-metre (207 ft) wide stairway climbed the southern face of the structure from the plaza. The structure was later extended to the north but this second phase of construction was never finished.
- The acropolis is the largest architectural complex at Quiriguá, it lies at the southern limit of the ceremonial centre of the city. It is a complex construction, with new buildings and features being added over time. Construction of the acropolis began in 550 and continued through to 810 when the site was abandoned. The acropolis was a palace complex used primarily as an elite residence and for administrative purposes. The acropolis complex includes structures 1B-1, 1B-2, 1B-3, 1B-4, 1B-5 and 1B-6. Excavations of the acropolis encountered the fallen remains of corbel arches, but none are still standing.
- 1B-sub.1 is also known as the K'inich Ahau Wall. It was a free-standing wall over 23 metres (75 ft) long and 1.5 metres (5 ft) thick, it stood on top of the western platform of the acropolis. The western side of the wall overlooked the river and bore five alternating mosaic masks representing solar deities and serpents with human arms. These masks were supported by a frieze consisting of two concentric ovals flanked by serpent heads. The wall was completed around 750, during the reign of K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat.
- 1B-sub.4 Excavations at the acropolis discovered a completely buried ballcourt under the structures on the western side of the Acropolis Plaza, a rare example of a ballcourt having been built over by subsequent construction, in this case by K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat. This was the first ballcourt at the site and dates to the middle of the 7th century. It was built with blocks of rhyolite. This ballcourt is a close copy of the ballcourts at Copán, being built in the same style, to the same dimensions, and with the same orientation. The ballcourt was buried when K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat built the massive western platform to restrict access to the acropolis.
- 1B-1 is a structure which forms the southern limit of the Acropolis Plaza, a broad stairway leads down to the plaza from the northern side of the building. The lower walls of the structure are still standing and it has three entrances, each of which opens onto a small chamber. Each of the three chambers has a hieroglyphic step on the back wall leading to another small chamber. Originally the building had an external band of hieroglyphs. Both the exterior and internal glyphs bear the last known date recorded at Quiriguá, falling in June 810. This building was built during the reign of "Jade Sky".
- 1B-2 also lies south of the Acropolis Plaza, in the southwest corner. It is smaller than structure 1B-1, which it adjoins, and its lower walls also are still standing. It was a small residential building that was elaborately decorated with sculptured stonework. This structure was probably the residence of K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat.
- 1B-3 and 1B-4 are structures on the west side of the Acropolis Plaza, only the lower walls remain. Between these two structures is an older free-standing wall. This wall has a westward facing mosaic frieze that bears damaged and now headless depictions of Kinich Ahau, the sun god.
- 1B-5 lies to the north of the Acropolis Plaza, at the south-eastern corner of the Ballcourt Plaza. This structure was accessed via a broad stairway from the Acropolis Plaza to the south, which rises to a single entrance opening onto seven interconnected chambers. This is the largest building at Quiriguá and its walls are still standing. It was built during the reign of "Jade Sky".
- 1B-6 lies to the east of the Acropolis Plaza and contained an ancestral shrine, reflecting a long established tradition first seen at Tikal. Located under the building was a tomb lined with slabs of schist, which contained an elite burial. The remains probably belonged to a male, the teeth were inlaid with jade, and a bead of the same material had been placed in the mouth. Associated ceramic offerings date this tomb to the Early Classic.
- 1B-7 is a ballcourt, built by K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat to replace the ballcourt buried under his expansion of the acropolis. The ballcourt lies in the Ballcourt Plaza, to which it gives its name, to the northwest of the acropolis. The ballcourt has an east–west orientation that is unusual in the Maya region, where ballcourts traditionally are aligned north–south.
- 3C-1 is a broad earthen platform on the valley floor, it dates to the middle of the Classic Period and is one of the earlier constructions at the site, parts of it continuing in use after a catastrophic flood.
- 3C-7 is a group dating to the Early Classic. It is on the floodplain some distance to the north of the acropolis.
- 3C-8 is another Early Classic group located to the north of the acropolis.
- Locus 011 and Locus 057 may have been watchposts, they were situated at the points where the Quiriguá and the Jubuco rivers entered the Motagua Valley and may have been used to control passing traffic on these routes. Locus 057 was situated on one of the most probable routes to Copán and may have been a watchpost to look out for enemy warriors after the defeat of Copán by K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat.
- Locus 122 and Locus 123 are groups located on the floodplain south of the river. Locus 122, although unexcavated, is a compound consisting of a pyramidal mound and a NE–SW oriented plaza, similar to some Preclassic complexes in the highlands, for which reason it is presumed to date from that period.
Groups A, B and C lie at a distance of 1.5–5 kilometres (1–3 mi) from the site core.
- Group A is a hilltop complex roughly dating to the early Classic Period. A stela found in this group dates to 493.
- Group B, also known as Group 7A-1, is to the north of the site core. It is the location of the badly eroded Stela S, which was moved here from the Great Plaza in ancient times.
- Group C has an unsculptured stela.
### Monuments
The monuments at Quiriguá include unusually large stelae elaborately carved from single blocks of red sandstone, brought from quarries 5 kilometres (3 mi) away. The characteristics of this hard rock allowed the local sculptors to produce low-relief sculptures enhanced by three-dimensional faces, in contrast with the contemporary two-dimensional sculpture of the Petén region. After the defeat and execution of the king of Copán in 738, the sculptural style of Quiriguá closely resembled that of its former overlord. The enormous stelae at Quirigá originally would have been visible from the Motagua River, which once flowed past the west side of the Great Plaza, announcing the new-found power of the city to passing traders. The monuments include long panels of glyphic text that are considered among the most complex and beautiful of all Maya stone inscriptions. A characteristic of these texts is the use of full-figure glyphs in which the normal bar and dot number glyphs of Maya script are replaced with exquisitely carved representations of the deities. However, by the latter part of the 8th century Quiriguá had developed an original style with the production of boulders elaborately sculpted into the forms of composite mythological animals bearing elements of toads, jaguars, crocodiles, and birds of prey; these sculptures are referred to as zoomorphs and were completed by two later kings after the death of K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat in 785.
There also are various altars and sculptures used as decoration in the facades of buildings; most Quiriguá monuments have a grand formal monumentality that is rather stiff compared to the naturalistic grace of the art of some other Maya sites. Traces of red pigment have been found on some of the monuments and most of the monuments were likely to have been painted red, the colour of birth, sacrifice, and renewal.
- Stela A was erected in 775 by K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat. Stela A and Stela C form a pair and were both dedicated on 29 December 775.
- Zoomorph B was dedicated in 780 by K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat, it is a multi-ton boulder sculptured into a half-crocodile half-mountain beast. The hieroglyphic text on this monument consists entirely of full-figure glyphs. Traces of red pigment have been found on this zoomorph, which is 4 metres (13 ft) long. A dedication cache was found buried in a pit under Zoomorph B, it included seven flint blades between 14 and 46 cm (5.5 and 18.1 in) in length.
- Stela C was erected in 775 by K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat. The hieroglyphic text contains references to 455 and Tutuum Yohl K'inich, an early king. The stela also bears a reference to the date 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahaw 8 Kumk'u (13 August 3114 BC). This date is recorded throughout the entire Maya area as the beginning of the current creation, when the deities were placed in order. Stela C forms a pair with Stela A and was dedicated on the same date.
- Stela D dates to 766, during the reign of K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat. It is distinguished by the relatively rare, extravagant, full-figure anthropomorphic versions of Maya hieroglyphics on the upper parts of its sides, which are particularly well preserved. Stela D is roughly 6 metres (20 ft) in height.
- Stela E stands in the northern half of the Great Plaza. This stela was dedicated on 24 January 771 by K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat. Its total shaft measures 10.6 metres (35 ft) in height, including the buried portion holding it in place, which measures just under 3 metres (10 ft). This enormous monolith is the largest stone ever quarried by the ancient Maya and weighs approximately 65 tons, it may even be the largest free-standing worked monolith in the New World. In 1917 this stela, already tilting away from vertical, finally fell over completely after heavy rains, although it remained unbroken. In 1934 an attempt was made to raise the stela using a winch and steel cables, during which the cables snapped and the monolith fell and was broken into two pieces, which have since been joined back together using concrete. This stela bears portraits of K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat on its front and back.
- Stela F is an enormous 7.3-metre (24 ft) high monolith carved from sandstone. It bears representations of K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat on its north and south sides and hieroglyphic inscriptions on its east and west sides. It dates to 761 and when it was raised it was the tallest monument ever erected by the Maya; it was only surpassed when Stela E was erected 10 years later.
- Zoomorph G is the memorial monument to K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat, dedicated during the reign of "Sky Xul". It shows the face of the dead king emerging from the maw of an enormous jaguar. The text of this monument describes the death and burial of Quiriguá's greatest king.
- Stela H dates to 751, during the reign of K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat. Its glyphs are arranged in a rare mat pattern, copied from Copán. The stela is executed in the wrap-around style. A flint blade was found buried under the stela butt, buried as an offering when the stela was dedicated. The hieroglyphic inscriptions on Stela H are badly damaged.
- Stela J was erected by K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat in 756 and is carved in the wrap-around style. It stands 5 metres (16 ft) high and is located in the southern part of the Great Plaza. The dedicatory cache consisted of a house-shaped clay box with unknown contents.
- Altar L is fairly crudely worked and dates to 653. The text bears the name of king K'awiil Yopaat and also mentions "Smoke Imix", the 12th king of Copán. The altar is a rhyolite disk 1 metre (39 in) in diameter and 0.25 metres (10 in) thick. The sculptural style of this altar is unique, and shows affinities with the distant site of Caracol in Belize.
- Altar M this modest monument is the earliest known monument dedicated by K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat. The importance of this monument lies in its text, in which this preeminent king of Quiriguá claimed the title of k'uhul ajaw, holy lord, and began his bid for independence from Copán. This rhyolite sculpture was dedicated on 15 September 734 and has the form of a monstrous head, possibly that of a crocodilian.
- Altar N is another small rhyolite sculpture stylistically similar to Altar M. This sculpture has the form of a turtle shell with a skeletal head with a mirror on its forehead emerging sideways from one end and an elderly figure from the other. This is a representation of the bicephalic deity Pawatun (God N), a prominent underworld deity.
- Zoomorph O is a crocodile-mountain hybrid monster, dedicated in 790 by king "Sky Xul". It is accompanied by an altar depicting a lightning god. It is located in the Ballcourt Plaza, just south of the ballcourt itself.
- Zoomorph P (which explorer Maudslay nicknamed The Great Turtle) was dedicated in 795 by "Sky Xul" and is a masterpiece of Mesoamerican art. It weighs around 20 tons. On one side it depicts a larger-than-life portrait of "Sky Xul" himself seated cross-legged in the open jaws of an enormous crocodile-mountain hybrid monster. The design of this zoomorph is incredibly intricate and the whole monument is covered with skilfully executed sculpture. It is located in the Ballcourt Plaza, just south of the ballcourt. Zoomorph P is accompanied by an altar depicting an unidentified deity leaping from a split in the earth. A hieroglyphic text on the zoomorph describes the founding of Quiriguá under the supervision of the king of Copán. Traces of red pigment have been found on this monument, suggesting that it was originally painted red.
- Altar Q and Altar R are two small rhyolite disks that probably served as ballcourt markers for the earliest ballcourt, the buried Structure 1B-sub.4. Together with a third stone they would have marked the central axis of the ballcourt. They both bear seated cross-legged figures carved in shallow relief.
- Stela S is the earliest surviving monument of K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat, it dates to 746. It was originally located in the northern half of the Great Plaza but was moved to an outlying group in ancient times. It is heavily eroded, some of the damage may have been inflicted by the process of moving it. It was fashioned from sandstone and bears the figure of K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat on the front, the other three sides being covered by hieroglyphic text. Unfortunately, due to the heavy erosion most of the text is illegible. Stela S is 2.8 metres (9 ft) high (not including the part of the stela buried in the ground) and the dimensions of the base are 1.6 metres (5.2 ft) by 1.2 metres (3.9 ft), making it the earliest of the huge stelae that were to characterise Quiriguá, although it is significantly smaller than those that were to follow.
- Stela T was dedicated in 692 by an unknown ruler. It is a badly eroded schist sculpture bearing mostly unreadable glyphs accompanying a poorly preserved figure. The stela is conservative in style, being similar to the much older Stela U.
- Stela U comes from Group A and bears a heavily eroded portrait of a king in wrap-around style (extending over three sides of the stela). This style originated in Tikal and indicates contact with the central Petén region. This stela has an identifiable date, corresponding to 18 April 480, and a reference to a ritual taking place that was supervised by the king of Copán. This stela is carved from schist and is broken in two pieces, being snapped off at the knees – apparently deliberately during an attack by unknown enemies. It was originally 2.7 metres (9 ft) in height.
- Monument 25 is a plain round column carved from schist. It is about 2.5 metres (8 ft) long and 0.6 metres (2 ft) in diameter. It was found in Locus 011.
- Monument 26 is a stela in wrap-around style found close to structure 3C-1. A date corresponding to 493 is contained in the hieroglyphic text on its back, this text mentions the third and fourth rulers of Quiriguá but their names are currently unreadable. It is carved from schist and was originally 2 metres (6.6 ft) high but the stela was broken in ancient times, apparently deliberately. It was broken off at the knees and the left eye of the ruler's portrait was scratched away, damage characteristic of that inflicted by invading warriors. Only two pieces have been recovered, an upper section measuring 1 metre (3.3 ft) and a lower section measuring 0.6 metres (2 ft).
- Monument 29 and Monument 30 are heavily eroded columnar sculptures fashioned from schist, each measuring a little over 1 m in length. They were found together in a modern drainage ditch to the north and northwest of the ceremonial centre of Quiriguá. They apparently were sculptures of anthropomorphs or monkeys standing on pedestals with their hands clasped on their chests. It is thought on stylistic grounds that these two monuments date to the Late Preclassic.
## See also
- El Puente
- List of megalithic sites
- Manche Ch'ol
- Yopaat
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Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia
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Youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II
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[
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Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (Russian: Анастасия Николаевна Романова, romanized: Anastasiya Nikolaevna Romanova; – 17 July 1918) was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna.
Anastasia was the younger sister of Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, and Maria, and was the elder sister of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia. She was killed with her family by a group of Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg on 17 July 1918.
Persistent rumors of her possible escape circulated after her death, fueled by the fact that the location of her burial was unknown during the decades of Communist rule. The abandoned mine serving as a mass grave near Yekaterinburg which held the acidified remains of the Tsar, his wife, and three of their daughters was revealed in 1991. These remains were put to rest at Peter and Paul Fortress in 1998. The bodies of Alexei and the remaining daughter—either Anastasia or her older sister Maria—were discovered in 2007. Her purported survival has been conclusively disproven. Scientific analysis including DNA testing confirmed that the remains are those of the imperial family, showing that all four grand duchesses were killed in 1918.
Several women falsely claimed to have been Anastasia; the best known impostor was Anna Anderson. Anderson's body was cremated upon her death in 1984; DNA testing in 1994 on pieces of Anderson's tissue and hair showed no relation to the Romanov family.
## Biography
### Early years
Anastasia was born on 18 June 1901. She was the fourth daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra. When she was born, her parents and extended family were disappointed that she was a girl. They had hoped for a son who would have become heir apparent to the throne. Her father went for a long walk to compose himself before going to visit his wife and their newborn child for the first time. Her paternal aunt Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia said, "My God! What a disappointment!... a fourth girl!" Her first cousin twice removed Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich wrote, "Forgive us, Lord, if we all felt disappointment instead of joy. We were so hoping for a boy, and it's a daughter." The travel writer Burton Holmes wrote, "Nicholas would part with half his Empire in exchange for one Imperial boy."
Anastasia was named for the fourth-century martyr St. Anastasia. "Anastasia" is a Greek name (Αναστασία), meaning "of the resurrection", a fact often alluded to later in stories about her rumored survival. Anastasia's title is most precisely translated as "Grand Princess". "Grand Duchess" became the most widely used translation of the title into English from Russian.
The Tsar's children were raised as simply as possible. They slept on hard camp cots without pillows, except when they were ill, took cold baths in the morning, and were expected to tidy their rooms and do needlework to be sold at various charity events when they were not otherwise occupied. Most in the household, including the servants, generally called the Grand Duchess by her first name and patronym, "Anastasia Nikolaevna", and did not use her title or style. She was occasionally called by the French version of her name, "Anastasie", or by the Russian nicknames "Nastya", "Nastas", or "Nastenka". Other family nicknames for Anastasia were "Malenkaya", meaning "little (one)" in Russian, or "Shvybzik", meaning "merry little one" or "little mischief" in German.
Anastasia and her older sister Maria were known within the family as "The Little Pair". The two girls shared a room, often wore variations of the same dress, and spent much of their time together. Their older sisters Olga and Tatiana also shared a room and were known as "The Big Pair". The four girls sometimes signed letters using the nickname OTMA, which derived from the first letters of their first names.
DNA testing on the remains of the royal family proved conclusively in 2009 that Anastasia’s younger brother, Alexei, suffered from Hemophilia B, a rare form of the disease. His mother and one sister, identified alternatively as Maria or Anastasia, were carriers. Symptomatic carriers of the gene, while not hemophiliacs themselves, can have symptoms of hemophilia including a lower than normal blood-clotting factor that can lead to heavy bleeding. If Anastasia lived to have children of her own, it’s genetically probable that they would have been afflicted by the disease.
### Appearance and personality
Anastasia was short and inclined to be chubby, and she had blue eyes and blonde hair. Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden, her mother's lady-in-waiting, reflected that "her features were regular and finely cut. She had fair hair, fine eyes, with impish laughter in their depths, and dark eyebrows that nearly met." Buxhoeveden believed that Anastasia resembled her mother, saying that she "was more like her mother's than her father's family."
Anastasia was a vivacious and energetic child. Margaretta Eagar, a governess to the four grand duchesses, said one person commented that the toddler Anastasia had the greatest personal charm of any child she had ever seen.
While often described as gifted and bright, she was never interested in the restrictions of the school room, according to her tutors Pierre Gilliard and Sydney Gibbes. Gibbes, Gilliard, and ladies-in-waiting Lili Dehn and Anna Vyrubova described Anastasia as lively, mischievous, and a gifted actress. Her sharp, witty remarks sometimes hit sensitive spots.
Anastasia's daring occasionally exceeded the limits of acceptable behavior. "She undoubtedly held the record for punishable deeds in her family, for in naughtiness she was a true genius", said Gleb Botkin, son of the court physician Yevgeny Botkin, who later died with the family at Yekaterinburg. Anastasia sometimes tripped the servants and played pranks on her tutors. As a child, she would climb trees and refuse to come down. Once, during a snowball fight at the family's Polish estate, Anastasia rolled a rock into a snowball and threw it at her older sister Tatiana, knocking her to the ground. A distant cousin, Princess Nina Georgievna, recalled that "Anastasia was nasty to the point of being evil", and would cheat, kick and scratch her playmates during games; she was affronted because the younger Nina was taller than she was. She was less concerned about her appearance than her sisters. Hallie Erminie Rives, a best-selling American author and wife of an American diplomat, described how 10-year-old Anastasia ate chocolates without bothering to remove her long, white opera gloves at the St. Petersburg opera house.
Despite her energy, Anastasia's physical health was sometimes poor. The Grand Duchess suffered from painful bunions, which affected both of her big toes. Anastasia had a weak muscle in her back and was prescribed twice-weekly massage. She hid under the bed or in a cupboard to put off the massage. Anastasia's older sister, Maria, reportedly hemorrhaged in December 1914 during an operation to remove her tonsils, according to her paternal aunt Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, who was interviewed later in her life. The doctor performing the operation was so unnerved that he had to be ordered to continue by Maria's mother. Olga Alexandrovna said she believed all four of her nieces bled more than was normal and believed they were carriers of the hemophilia gene, like their mother.
### Association with Grigori Rasputin
Her mother relied on the counsel of Grigori Rasputin, a Russian peasant and wandering starets or "holy man," and credited his prayers with saving the ailing Tsarevich on numerous occasions. Anastasia and her siblings were taught to view Rasputin as "Our Friend" and to share confidences with him. In the autumn of 1907, Anastasia's aunt Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia was escorted to the nursery by the Tsar to meet Rasputin. Anastasia, her sisters and brother Alexei were all wearing their long white nightgowns. "All the children seemed to like him," Olga Alexandrovna recalled. "They were completely at ease with him." Rasputin's friendship with the imperial children was evident in some of the messages he sent to them. In February 1909, Rasputin sent the imperial children a telegram, advising them to "Love the whole of God's nature, the whole of His creation in particular this earth. The Mother of God was always occupied with flowers and needlework."
However, one of the girls' governesses, Sofia Ivanovna Tyutcheva, was horrified in 1910 that Rasputin was permitted access to the nursery when the four girls were in their nightgowns and wanted him barred. Nicholas asked Rasputin to avoid going to the nurseries in the future. The children were aware of the tension and feared that their mother would be angered by Tyutcheva's actions. "I am so afr(aid) that S.I. (governess Sofia Ivanovna Tyutcheva) can speak ... about our friend something bad," Anastasia's twelve-year-old sister Tatiana wrote to their mother on 8 March 1910. "I hope our nurse will be nice to our friend now."
Tyutcheva was eventually fired. She took her story to other members of the family. While Rasputin's visits to the children were, by all accounts, completely innocent in nature, the family was scandalized. Tyutcheva told Nicholas's sister, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia, that Rasputin visited the girls, talked with them while they were getting ready for bed, and hugged and patted them. Tyutcheva said the children had been taught not to discuss Rasputin with her and were careful to hide his visits from the nursery staff. Xenia wrote on 15 March 1910, that she couldn't understand "...the attitude of Alix and the children to that sinister Grigory (whom they consider to be almost a saint, when in fact he's only a khlyst!)"
In the spring of 1910, Maria Ivanovna Vishnyakova, a royal governess, claimed that Rasputin had raped her. Vishnyakova said the empress refused to believe her account of the assault, and insisted that "everything Rasputin does is holy." Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was told that Vishnyakova's claim had been immediately investigated, but instead "they caught the young woman in bed with a Cossack of the Imperial Guard." Vishnyakova was kept from seeing Rasputin after she made her accusation and was eventually dismissed from her post in 1913.
However, rumors persisted and it was later whispered in society that Rasputin had seduced not only the Tsarina but also the four grand duchesses. This was followed by circulation of pornographic cartoons, which depicted Rasputin having relations with the Empress, her four daughters and Anna Vyrubova. After the scandal, Nicholas ordered Rasputin to leave St. Petersburg for a time, much to Alexandra's displeasure, and Rasputin went on a pilgrimage to Palestine. Despite the rumors, the imperial family's association with Rasputin continued until his murder on 17 December 1916. "Our Friend is so contented with our girlies, says they have gone through heavy 'courses' for their age and their souls have much developed", Alexandra wrote to Nicholas on 6 December 1916.
In his memoirs, A. A. Mordvinov reported that the four grand duchesses appeared "cold and visibly terribly upset" by Rasputin's death, and sat "huddled up closely together" on a sofa in one of their bedrooms on the night they received the news. Mordvinov recalled that the young women were in a gloomy mood and seemed to sense the political upheaval that was about to be unleashed. Rasputin was buried with an icon signed on its reverse by Anastasia, her mother and her sisters. She attended his funeral on 21 December 1916, and her family planned to build a church over the site of Rasputin's grave. After they were killed by the Bolsheviks, it was discovered Anastasia and her sisters were all wearing amulets bearing Rasputin's picture and a prayer.
### Captivity during World War I and Russian Revolution
During World War I, Anastasia, along with her sister Maria, visited wounded soldiers at a private hospital in the grounds at Tsarskoye Selo. The two teenagers, too young to become Red Cross nurses like their mother and elder sisters, played games of checkers and billiards with the soldiers and tried to lift their spirits. Felix Dassel, who was treated at the hospital and knew Anastasia, recalled that the grand duchess had a "laugh like a squirrel", and walked rapidly "as though she tripped along."
In February 1917, Anastasia and her family were placed under house arrest at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo during the Russian Revolution. Nicholas II abdicated on . As the Bolsheviks approached, Alexander Kerensky of the Provisional Government had them moved to Tobolsk, Siberia. After the Bolsheviks seized majority control of Russia, Anastasia and her family were moved to the Ipatiev House, or House of Special Purpose, at Yekaterinburg.
The stress and uncertainty of captivity took their toll on Anastasia as well as her family. "Goodby [sic]", she wrote to a friend in the winter of 1917. "Don't forget us." At Tobolsk, she wrote a melancholy theme for her English tutor, filled with spelling mistakes, about "Evelyn Hope", a poem by Robert Browning about a girl:
> "When she died she was only sixteen years old ... Ther(e) was a man who loved her without having seen her but (k)new her very well. And she he(a)rd of him also. He never could tell her that he loved her, and now she was dead. But still he thought that when he and she will live [their] next life whenever it will be that ...", she wrote.
Upon arriving in Yekaterinburg, Pierre Gilliard recalled his last sight of the children:
> "The sailor Nagorny, who attended to Alexei Nikolaevitch, passed my window carrying the sick boy in his arms, behind him came the Grand Duchesses loaded with valises and small personal belongings. I tried to get out, but was roughly pushed back into the carriage by the sentry. I came back to the window. Tatiana Nikolayevna came last carrying her little dog and struggling to drag a heavy brown valise. It was raining and I saw her feet sink into the mud at every step. Nagorny tried to come to her assistance; he was roughly pushed back by one of the commisars ..."
Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden told of her sad last glimpse of Anastasia:
> "Once, standing on some steps at the door of a house close by, I saw a hand and a pink-sleeved arm opening the topmost pane. According to the blouse the hand must have belonged either to the Grand Duchess Marie or Anastasia. They could not see me through their windows, and this was to be the last glimpse that I was to have of any of them!"
However, even in the last months of her life, she found ways to enjoy herself. She and other members of the household performed plays for the enjoyment of their parents and others in the spring of 1918. Anastasia's performance made everyone howl with laughter, according to her tutor Sydney Gibbes.
On 7 May 1918, in a letter from Tobolsk to her sister Maria in Yekaterinburg, Anastasia described a moment of joy despite her sadness and loneliness and worry for the sick Alexei:
> "We played on the swing, that was when I roared with laughter, the fall was so wonderful! Indeed! I told the sisters about it so many times yesterday that they got quite fed up, but I could go on telling it masses of times ... What weather we've had! One could simply shout with joy."
In his memoirs, one of the guards at the Ipatiev House, Alexander Strekotin, remembered Anastasia as "very friendly and full of fun", while another guard said Anastasia was "a very charming devil! She was mischievous and, I think, rarely tired. She was lively, and was fond of performing comic mimes with the dogs, as though they were performing in a circus." Yet another of the guards, however, called the youngest grand duchess "offensive and a terrorist" and complained that her occasionally provocative comments sometimes caused tension in the ranks. Anastasia and her sisters helped their maid darn stockings and assisted the cook in making bread and other kitchen chores while they were in captivity at the Ipatiev House.
In the summer, the privations of the captivity, including their closer confinement at the Ipatiev House negatively affected the family. On 14 July 1918, local priests at Yekaterinburg conducted a private church service for the family. They reported that Anastasia and her family, contrary to custom, fell on their knees during the prayer for the dead, and that the girls had become despondent and hopeless, and no longer sang the replies in the service. Noticing this dramatic change in their demeanor since his last visit, one priest told the other, "Something has happened to them in there." But the next day, on 15 July 1918, Anastasia and her sisters appeared in good spirits as they joked and helped move the beds in their shared bedroom so that cleaning women could clean the floors. They helped the women scrub the floors and whispered to them when the guards were not watching. Anastasia stuck her tongue out at Yakov Yurovsky, the head of the detachment, when he momentarily turned his back and left the room.
### Death
After the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917, Russia quickly disintegrated into civil war. Negotiations for the release of the Romanovs between their Bolshevik (commonly referred to as 'Reds') captors and their extended family, many of whom were prominent members of the royal houses of Europe, stalled. As the Whites (anti-Bolshevik forces, although not necessarily supportive of the Tsar) advanced toward Yekaterinburg, the Reds were in a precarious situation. The Reds knew Yekaterinburg would fall to the better manned and equipped White Army. When the Whites reached Yekaterinburg, the imperial family had simply disappeared. The most widely accepted account was that the family had been murdered. This was due to an investigation by White Army investigator Nicholas Sokolov, who came to the conclusion based on items that had belonged to the family being found thrown down a mine shaft at Ganina Yama.
The "Yurovsky Note", an account of the event filed by Yurovsky to his Bolshevik superiors following the killings, was found in 1989 and detailed in Edvard Radzinsky's 1992 book, The Last Tsar. According to the note, on the night of the deaths, the family was awakened and told to dress. They were told they were being moved to a new location to ensure their safety in anticipation of the violence that might ensue when the White Army reached Yekaterinburg. Once dressed, the family and the small circle of servants who had remained with them were herded into a small room in the house's sub-basement and told to wait. Alexandra and Alexei sat in chairs provided by guards at the Empress's request.
After several minutes, the guards entered the room, led by Yurovsky, who quickly informed the Tsar and his family that they were to be executed. The Tsar had time to say only "What?" and turn to his family before he was killed by several bullets to the chest (not, as is commonly stated, to the head; his skull, recovered in 1991, bears no bullet wounds). The Tsarina and her daughter Olga tried to make the sign of the cross but were killed in the initial volley of bullets fired by the executioners. The rest of the Imperial retinue were shot in short order, with the exception of Anna Demidova, Alexandra's maid. Demidova survived the initial onslaught but was quickly stabbed to death against the back wall of the basement while trying to defend herself with a small pillow she had carried into the sub-basement that was filled with precious gems and jewels.
The "Yurovsky Note" further reported that once the thick smoke that had filled the room from so many weapons being fired in such close proximity cleared, it was discovered that the executioners' bullets had ricocheted off the corsets of two or three of the Grand Duchesses. The executioners later came to find out that this was because the family's crown jewels and diamonds had been sewn inside the linings of the corsets to hide them from their captors. The corsets thus served as a form of "armor" against the bullets. Anastasia and Maria were said to have crouched up against a wall, covering their heads in terror, until they were shot down by bullets, recalled Yurovsky. However, another guard, Peter Ermakov, told his wife that Anastasia had been finished off with bayonets. As the bodies were carried out, one or more of the girls cried out, and were clubbed on the back of the head, wrote Yurovsky.
## False reports of survival
Anastasia's supposed escape and possible survival was one of the most popular historical mysteries of the 20th century, provoking many books and films. At least ten women claimed to be her, offering varying stories as to how she had survived. Anna Anderson, the best known Anastasia impostor, first surfaced publicly between 1920 and 1922. She contended that she had feigned death among the bodies of her family and servants, and was able to make her escape with the help of a compassionate guard who noticed she was still breathing and took sympathy upon her. Her legal battle for recognition from 1938 to 1970 continued a lifelong controversy and was the longest running case ever heard by the German courts, where it was officially filed. The final decision of the court was that Anderson had not provided sufficient proof to claim the identity of the grand duchess.
Anderson died in 1984 and her body was cremated. DNA tests were conducted in 1994 on a tissue sample from Anderson located in a hospital and the blood of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, a great-nephew of Empress Alexandra. According to Dr Gill who conducted the tests, "If you accept that these samples came from Anna Anderson, then Anna Anderson could not be related to Tsar Nicholas or Tsarina Alexandra." Anderson's mitochondrial DNA was a match with a great-nephew of Franziska Schanzkowska, a missing Polish factory worker. Some supporters of Anderson's claim acknowledged that the DNA tests proving she could not have been the Grand Duchess had "won the day".
Other lesser known claimants were Nadezhda Ivanovna Vasilyeva and Eugenia Smith. Two young women claiming to be Anastasia and her sister Maria were taken in by a priest in the Ural Mountains in 1919 where they lived as nuns until their deaths in 1964. They were buried under the names Anastasia and Maria Nikolaevna.
Rumors of Anastasia's survival were embellished with various contemporary reports of trains and houses being searched for "Anastasia Romanov" by Bolshevik soldiers and secret police. When she was briefly imprisoned at Perm in 1918, Princess Helena Petrovna, the wife of Anastasia's distant cousin, Prince John Constantinovich of Russia, reported that a guard brought a girl who called herself Anastasia Romanova to her cell and asked if the girl was the daughter of the Tsar. Helena Petrovna said she did not recognize the girl and the guard took her away. Although other witnesses in Perm later reported that they saw Anastasia, her mother and sisters in Perm after the murders, this story is now widely discredited. Rumors that they were alive were fueled by deliberate misinformation designed to hide the fact that the family was dead. A few days after they had been murdered, the German government sent several telegrams to Russia demanding "the safety of the princesses of German blood". Russia had recently signed a peace treaty with the Germans, and did not want to upset them by letting them know the women were dead, so they told them they had been moved to a safer location.
In another incident, eight witnesses reported the recapture of a young woman after an apparent escape attempt in September 1918 at a railway station at Siding 37, northwest of Perm. These witnesses were Maxim Grigoyev, Tatiana Sitnikova (and her son Fyodor Sitnikov), Ivan Kuklin and Matrina Kuklina, Vassily Ryabov, Ustinya Varankina, and Dr Pavel Utkin, a physician who treated the girl after the incident. Some of the witnesses identified the girl as Anastasia when they were shown photographs of the grand duchess by White Russian Army investigators. Utkin also told the White Russian Army investigators that the injured girl, whom he treated at Cheka headquarters in Perm, told him, "I am the daughter of the ruler, Anastasia." Utkin obtained a prescription from a pharmacy for a patient named "N" at the orders of the secret police. White Army investigators later independently located records for the prescription. During the same time period in mid-1918, there were several reports of young people in Russia passing themselves off as Romanov escapees. Boris Soloviev, the husband of Rasputin's daughter Maria, defrauded prominent Russian families by asking for money for a Romanov impostor to escape to China. Soloviev also found young women willing to masquerade as one of the grand duchesses to assist in deceiving the families he had defrauded.
Some biographers' accounts speculated that the opportunity for one or more of the guards to rescue a survivor existed. Yakov Yurovsky demanded that the guards come to his office and turn over items they had stolen following the murder. There was reportedly a span of time when the bodies of the victims were left largely unattended in the truck, in the basement and in the corridor of the house. Some guards who had not participated in the murders and had been sympathetic to the grand duchesses were reportedly left in the basement with the bodies.
## Romanov graves and DNA proof
In 1991, the presumed burial site of the imperial family and their servants was excavated in the woods outside Yekaterinburg. The grave had been found nearly a decade earlier, but was kept hidden by its discoverers from the Communists who were still ruling Russia at the time. The grave only held nine of the expected eleven sets of remains. DNA and skeletal analysis matched these remains to Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and three of the four grand duchesses (Olga, Tatiana and presumably Maria). The other remains, with unrelated DNA, correspond to the family's doctor (Yevgeny Botkin), their valet (Alexei Trupp), their cook (Ivan Kharitonov), and Alexandra's maid (Anna Demidova). Forensic expert William R. Maples found that the Tsarevitch Alexei and Anastasia's bodies were missing from the family's grave. Russian scientists contested this conclusion, however, claiming it was the body of Maria that was missing. The Russians identified the body as that of Anastasia by using a computer program to compare photos of the youngest grand duchess with the skulls of the victims from the mass grave. They estimated the height and width of the skulls where pieces of bone were missing. American scientists found this method inexact.
American scientists thought the missing body to be Anastasia because none of the female skeletons showed the evidence of immaturity, such as an immature collarbone, undescended wisdom teeth, or immature vertebrae in the back, that they would have expected to find in a seventeen-year-old. In 1998, when the remains of the imperial family were finally interred, a body measuring approximately 5'7" was buried under the name of Anastasia. Photographs taken of her standing beside her three sisters up until six months before the murders demonstrate that Anastasia was several inches shorter than all of them. Her mother commented on sixteen-year-old Anastasia's short stature in a 15 December 1917 letter, written seven months before the murders. "Anastasia, to her despair, is now very fat, as Maria was, round and fat to the waist, with short legs. I do hope she will grow." Scientists considered it unlikely that the teenager could have grown so much in the last months of her life. Her actual height was approximately 5'2".
The account of the "Yurovsky Note" indicated that two of the bodies were removed from the main grave and cremated at an undisclosed area in order to further disguise the burials of the Tsar and his retinue, if the remains were discovered by the Whites, since the body count would not be correct. Searches of the area in subsequent years failed to turn up a cremation site or the remains of the two missing Romanov children.
However, on 23 August 2007, a Russian archaeologist announced the discovery of two burned, partial skeletons at a bonfire site near Yekaterinburg that appeared to match the site described in Yurovsky's memoirs. The archaeologists said the bones were from a boy who was roughly between the ages of twelve and fifteen years at the time of his death and of a young woman who was roughly between the ages of fifteen and nineteen years old. Anastasia was seventeen years and one month old at the time of the assassination, while her sister Maria was nineteen years, one month old and her brother Alexei was two weeks shy of his fourteenth birthday. Anastasia's elder sisters Olga and Tatiana were twenty-two and twenty-one years old respectively at the time of the assassination. Along with the remains of the two bodies, archaeologists found "shards of a container of sulfuric acid, nails, metal strips from a wooden box, and bullets of various caliber". The site was initially found with metal detectors and by using metal rods as probes.
DNA testing by multiple international laboratories including the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory and Innsbruck Medical University confirmed that the remains belong to the Tsarevich Alexei and to one of his sisters, proving conclusively that all family members, including Anastasia, died in 1918. The parents and all five children are now accounted for, and each has his or her own unique DNA profile. While the tests have confirmed that all the Romanov bodies have been found, one of the studies was still unsure which body from the two graves was Maria's and which was Anastasia's:
> [...] a well publicized debate over which daughter, Maria (according to Russian experts) or Anastasia (according to US experts), has been recovered from the second grave cannot be settled based upon the DNA results reported here. In the absence of a DNA reference from each sister, we can only conclusively identify Alexei – the only son of Nicholas and Alexandra.
## Sainthood
In 2000, Anastasia and her family were canonized as passion bearers by the Russian Orthodox Church. The family had previously been canonized in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad as holy martyrs. The bodies of Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and three of their daughters were finally interred in the St. Catherine Chapel at Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, St Petersburg on 17 July 1998, eighty years after they were murdered. As of 2018 the bones of Alexei and Maria (or possibly Anastasia) were still being held by the Orthodox Church.
## Depictions in art, media, and literature
The purported survival of Anastasia has been the subject of cinema (such as the 1997 animated film and the 1956 film that inspired it starring Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brynner), made-for-television films, and a Broadway musical. The earliest, made in 1928, was called Clothes Make the Woman. The story followed a woman who turns up to play the part of a rescued Anastasia for a Hollywood film, and ends up being recognized by the Russian soldier who originally rescued her from her would-be assassins.
## Ancestry
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22,378,121 |
George S. Patton slapping incidents
| 1,164,413,999 |
1943 incidents during the WW2 Allied invasion of Sicily
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"1943 controversies",
"1943 in Italy",
"1943 in military history",
"Allied invasion of Sicily",
"August 1943 events",
"George S. Patton",
"Post-traumatic stress disorder",
"Province of Enna",
"United States Army in World War II",
"United States military scandals"
] |
In early August 1943, Lieutenant General George S. Patton slapped two United States Army soldiers under his command during the Sicily Campaign of World War II. Patton's hard-driving personality and lack of belief in the medical condition of combat stress reaction, then known as "battle fatigue" or "shell shock", led to the soldiers' becoming the subject of his ire in incidents on August 3 and 10, when Patton struck and berated them after discovering they were patients at evacuation hospitals away from the front lines without apparent physical injuries.
Word of the incidents spread, eventually reaching Patton's superior, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who ordered him to apologize to the men. Patton's actions were initially suppressed in the news until journalist Drew Pearson publicized them in the United States. While the reactions of the U.S. Congress and the general public were divided between support and disdain for Patton's actions, Eisenhower and Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall opted not to fire Patton as a commander.
Seizing the opportunity the predicament presented, Eisenhower used Patton as a decoy in Operation Fortitude, sending faulty intelligence to German agents that Patton was leading the Invasion of Europe. While Patton eventually returned to combat command in the European Theater in mid-1944, the slapping incidents were seen by Eisenhower, Marshall, and other leaders to be examples of Patton's brashness and impulsivity.
## Background
The Allied invasion of Sicily began on July 10, 1943, with Lieutenant General George S. Patton leading 90,000 men of the Seventh United States Army in a landing near Gela, Scoglitti, and Licata to support Bernard Montgomery's British 8th Army landings to the north. Initially ordered to protect the British forces' flank, Patton took Palermo after Montgomery's forces were slowed by heavy resistance from troops of Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy. Patton then set his sights on Messina. He sought an amphibious assault, but it was delayed by lack of landing craft and his troops did not land in Santo Stefano until August 8, by which time the Germans and Italians had already evacuated the bulk of their troops to mainland Italy. Throughout the campaign, Patton's troops were heavily engaged by German and Italian forces as they pushed across the island.
Patton had already developed a reputation in the U.S. Army as an effective, successful, and hard-driving commander, punishing subordinates for the slightest infractions but also rewarding them when they performed well. As a way to promote an image that inspired his troops, Patton created a larger-than-life personality. He became known for his flashy dress, highly polished helmet and boots, and no-nonsense demeanor. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the commander of the Sicily operation and Patton's friend and commanding officer, had long known of Patton's colorful leadership style, and also knew that Patton was prone to impulsiveness and a lack of self-restraint.
### Battle fatigue
Prior to World War I, the U.S. Army considered the symptoms of battle fatigue to be cowardice or attempts to avoid combat duty. Soldiers who reported these symptoms received harsh treatment. "Shell shock" had been diagnosed as a medical condition during World War I. But even before the conflict ended, what constituted shell shock was changing. This included the idea that it was caused by the shock of exploding shells. By World War II soldiers were usually diagnosed with "psychoneurosis" or "combat fatigue." Despite this, "shell shock" remained in the popular vocabulary. But the symptoms of what constituted combat fatigue were broader than what had constituted shell shock in World War I. By the time of the invasion of Sicily, the U.S. Army was initially classifying all psychological casualties as "exhaustion" which many still called shell shock. While the causes, symptoms, and effects of the condition were familiar to physicians by the time of the two incidents, it was generally less understood in military circles.
An important lesson from the Tunisia Campaign was that neuropsychiatric casualties had to be treated as soon as possible and not evacuated from the combat zone. This was not done in the early stages of the Sicilian Campaign, and large numbers of neuropsychiatric casualties were evacuated to North Africa, with the result that treatment became complicated and only 15 percent of them were returned to duty. As the campaign wore on, the system became better organized and nearly 50 percent were restored to combat duty.
Some time before what would become known as the "slapping incident," Patton spoke with Major General Clarence R. Huebner, the newly appointed commander of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division, in which both men served. Patton had asked Huebner for a status report; Huebner replied: "The front lines seem to be thinning out. There seems to be a very large number of 'malingerers' at the hospitals, feigning illness in order to avoid combat duty." For his part, Patton did not believe the condition was real. In a directive issued to commanders on August 5, he forbade "battle fatigue" in the Seventh Army:
> It has come to my attention that a very small number of soldiers are going to the hospital on the pretext that they are nervously incapable of combat. Such men are cowards and bring discredit on the army and disgrace to their comrades, whom they heartlessly leave to endure the dangers of battle while they, themselves, use the hospital as a means of escape. You will take measures to see that such cases are not sent to the hospital but dealt with in their units. Those who are not willing to fight will be tried by court-martial for cowardice in the face of the enemy.
## Incidents
### August 3
Private Charles H. Kuhl, 27, of L Company, U.S. 26th Infantry Regiment, reported to an aid station of C Company, 1st Medical Battalion, on August 2, 1943. Kuhl, who had been in the U.S. Army for eight months, had been attached to the 1st Infantry Division since June 2, 1943. He was diagnosed with "exhaustion," a diagnosis he had been given three times since the start of the campaign. From the aid station, he was evacuated to a medical company and given sodium amytal. Notes in his medical chart indicated "psychoneurosis anxiety state, moderately severe (soldier has been twice before in hospital within ten days. He can't take it at the front, evidently. He is repeatedly returned.)" Kuhl was transferred from the aid station to the 15th Evacuation Hospital near Nicosia for further evaluation.
Patton arrived at the hospital the same day, accompanied by a number of medical officers, as part of his tour of the U.S. II Corps troops. He spoke to some patients in the hospital, commending the physically wounded. He then approached Kuhl, who did not appear to be physically injured. Kuhl was sitting slouched on a stool midway through a tent ward filled with injured soldiers. When Patton asked Kuhl where he was hurt, Kuhl reportedly shrugged and replied that he was "nervous" rather than wounded, adding, "I guess I can't take it." Patton "immediately flared up," slapped Kuhl across the chin with his gloves, then grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the tent entrance. He shoved him out of the tent with a kick to his backside. Yelling "Don't admit this son of a bitch," Patton demanded that Kuhl be sent back to the front, adding, "You hear me, you gutless bastard? You're going back to the front."
Corpsmen picked up Kuhl and brought him to a ward tent, where it was discovered he had a temperature of 102.2 °F (39.0 °C); and was later diagnosed with malarial parasites. Speaking later of the incident, Kuhl noted "at the time it happened, [Patton] was pretty well worn out ... I think he was suffering a little battle fatigue himself." Kuhl wrote to his parents about the incident, but asked them to "just forget about it." That night, Patton recorded the incident in his diary: "[I met] the only errant coward I have ever seen in this Army. Companies should deal with such men, and if they shirk their duty, they should be tried for cowardice and shot."
Patton was accompanied in this visit by Major General John P. Lucas, who saw nothing remarkable about the incident. After the war he wrote:
> There are always a certain number of such weaklings in any Army, and I suppose the modern doctor is correct in classifying them as ill and treating them as such. However, the man with malaria doesn't pass his condition on to his comrades as rapidly as does the man with cold feet nor does malaria have the lethal effect that the latter has.
Patton was further heard by war correspondent Noel Monks angrily claiming that shell shock is "an invention of the Jews."
### August 10
Private Paul G. Bennett, 21, of C Battery, U.S. 17th Field Artillery Regiment, was a four-year veteran of the U.S. Army, and had served in the division since March 1943. Records show he had no medical history until August 6, 1943, when a friend was wounded in combat. According to a report, he "could not sleep and was nervous." Bennett was brought to the 93rd Evacuation Hospital. In addition to having a fever, he exhibited symptoms of dehydration, including fatigue, confusion, and listlessness. His request to return to his unit was turned down by medical officers. A medical officer describing Bennett's condition
> The shells going over him bothered him. The next day he was worried about his buddy and became more nervous. He was sent down to the rear echelon by a battery aid man and there the medical aid man gave him some tranquilizers that made him sleep, but still he was nervous and disturbed. On the next day the medical officer ordered him to be evacuated, although the boy begged not to be evacuated because he did not want to leave his unit.
On August 10, Patton entered the receiving tent of the hospital, speaking to the injured there. Patton approached Bennett, who was huddled and shivering, and asked what the trouble was. "It's my nerves," Bennett responded. "I can't stand the shelling anymore." Patton reportedly became enraged at him, slapping him across the face. He began yelling: "Your nerves, hell, you are just a goddamned coward. Shut up that goddamned crying. I won't have these brave men who have been shot at seeing this yellow bastard sitting here crying." Patton then reportedly slapped Bennett again, knocking his helmet liner off, and ordered the receiving officer, Major Charles B. Etter, not to admit him. Patton then threatened Bennett, "You're going back to the front lines and you may get shot and killed, but you're going to fight. If you don't, I'll stand you up against a wall and have a firing squad kill you on purpose. In fact, I ought to shoot you myself, you goddamned whimpering coward." Upon saying this, Patton pulled out his pistol threateningly, prompting the hospital's commander, Colonel Donald E. Currier, to physically separate the two. Patton left the tent, yelling to medical officers to send Bennett back to the front lines.
As he toured the remainder of the hospital, Patton continued discussing Bennett's condition with Currier. Patton stated, "I can't help it, it makes my blood boil to think of a yellow bastard being babied," and "I won't have those cowardly bastards hanging around our hospitals. We'll probably have to shoot them some time anyway, or we'll raise a breed of morons."
## Aftermath
### Private reprimand and apologies
The August 10 incident—particularly the sight of Patton threatening a subordinate with a pistol—upset many of the medical staff present. The II Corps surgeon, Colonel Richard T. Arnest, submitted a report on the incident to Brigadier General William B. Kean, chief of staff of II Corps, who submitted it to Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, commander of II Corps. Bradley, out of loyalty to Patton, did nothing more than lock the report in his safe. Arnest also sent the report through medical channels to Brigadier General Frederick A. Blesse, General Surgeon of Allied Force Headquarters, who then submitted it to Eisenhower, who received it on August 16. Eisenhower ordered Blesse to proceed immediately to Patton's command to ascertain the truth of the allegations. Eisenhower also formulated a delegation to investigate the incidents from the soldiers' points of view, including Major General John P. Lucas, two colonels from the Inspector General's office, and a theater medical consultant, Lieutenant Colonel Perrin H. Long, to investigate the incident and interview those involved. Long interviewed medical personnel who witnessed each incident, then filed a report entitled "Mistreatment of Patients in Receiving Tents of the 15th and 93rd Evacuation Hospitals" which extensively detailed Patton's actions at both hospitals.
By August 18, Eisenhower had ordered that Patton's Seventh Army be broken up, with a few of its units remaining garrisoned in Sicily. The majority of its combat forces would be transferred to the Fifth United States Army under Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark. This had already been planned by Eisenhower, who had previously told Patton that his Seventh Army would not be part of the upcoming Allied invasion of Italy, scheduled for September. On August 20, Patton received a cable from Eisenhower regarding the arrival of Lucas at Palermo. Eisenhower told Patton it was "highly important" that he personally meet with Lucas as soon as possible, as Lucas would be carrying an important message. Before Lucas arrived, Blesse arrived from Algiers to look into the health of the troops in Sicily. He was also ordered by Eisenhower to deliver a secret letter to Patton and investigate its allegations. In the letter, Eisenhower told Patton he had been informed of the slapping incidents. He said he would not be opening a formal investigation into the matter, but his criticism of Patton was sharp.
Eisenhower's letter to Patton, dated August 17, 1943:
> I clearly understand that firm and drastic measures are at times necessary in order to secure the desired objectives. But this does not excuse brutality, abuse of the sick, nor exhibition of uncontrollable temper in front of subordinates. ... I feel that the personal services you have rendered the United States and the Allied cause during the past weeks are of incalculable value; but nevertheless if there is a very considerable element of truth in the allegations accompanying this letter, I must so seriously question your good judgment and your self-discipline as to raise serious doubts in my mind as to your future usefulness.
Eisenhower noted that no formal record of the incidents would be retained at Allied Headquarters, save in his own secret files. Still, he strongly suggested Patton apologize to all involved. On August 21, Patton brought Bennett into his office; he apologized and the men shook hands. On August 22, he met with Currier as well as the medical staff who had witnessed the events in each unit and expressed regret for his "impulsive actions." Patton related to the medical staff a story of a friend from World War I who had committed suicide after "skulking"; he stated he sought to prevent any recurrence of such an event. On August 23, he brought Kuhl into his office, apologized, and shook hands with him as well. After the apology, Kuhl said he thought Patton was "a great general," and that "at the time, he didn't know how sick I was." Currier later said Patton's remarks sounded like "no apology at all [but rather like] an attempt to justify what he had done." Patton wrote in his diary that he loathed making the apologies, particularly when he was told by Bennett's brigade commander, Brigadier General John A. Crane, that Bennett had gone absent without leave (AWOL) and arrived at the hospital by "falsely representing his condition." Patton wrote, "It is rather a commentary on justice when an Army commander has to soft-soap a skulker to placate the timidity of those above." As word of the actions had spread informally among troops of the Seventh Army, Patton drove to each division under his command between August 24 and 30 and gave a 15-minute speech in which he praised their behavior and apologized for any instances where he had been too harsh on soldiers, making only vague reference to the two slapping incidents. In his final apology speech to the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, Patton was overcome with emotion when the soldiers supportively began to chant "No, general, no, no," to prevent him from having to apologize.
In a letter to General George Marshall on August 24, Eisenhower praised Patton's exploits as commander of the Seventh Army and his conduct of the Sicily campaign, particularly his ability to take initiative as a commander. Still, Eisenhower noted Patton continued "to exhibit some of those unfortunate traits of which you and I have always known." He informed Marshall of the two incidents and his requirement that Patton apologize. Eisenhower stated he believed Patton would cease his behavior "because fundamentally, he is so avid for recognition as a great military commander that he will ruthlessly suppress any habit of his that will tend to jeopardize it." When Eisenhower arrived in Sicily to award Montgomery the Legion of Merit on August 29, Patton gave Eisenhower a letter expressing his remorse about the incidents.
### Media attention
Word of the slapping incidents spread informally among soldiers before eventually circulating to war correspondents. One of the nurses who witnessed the August 10 incident apparently told her boyfriend, a captain in the Seventh Army public affairs detachment. Through him, a group of four journalists covering the Sicily operation heard of the incident: Demaree Bess of the Saturday Evening Post, Merrill Mueller of NBC News, Al Newman of Newsweek, and John Charles Daly of CBS News. The four journalists interviewed Etter and other witnesses, but decided to bring the matter to Eisenhower instead of filing the story with their editors. Bess, Mueller, and Quentin Reynolds of Collier's Magazine flew from Sicily to Algiers, and on August 19, Bess gave a summary on the slapping incidents to Eisenhower's chief of staff, Major General Walter Bedell Smith. The reporters asked Eisenhower directly about the incident, and Eisenhower requested that the story be suppressed because the war effort could not afford to lose Patton. Bess and other journalists initially complied. However, the news reporters then demanded Eisenhower fire Patton in exchange for them not reporting the story, a demand which Eisenhower refused.
The story of Kuhl's slapping broke in the U.S. when newspaper columnist Drew Pearson revealed it on his November 21 radio program. Pearson received details of the Kuhl incident and other material on Patton from his friend Ernest Cuneo, an official with the Office of Strategic Services, who obtained the information from War Department files and correspondence. Pearson's version not only conflated details of both slapping incidents but falsely reported that the private in question was visibly "out of his head," telling Patton to "duck down or the shells would hit him" and that in response "Patton struck the soldier, knocking him down." Pearson punctuated his broadcast by twice stating that Patton would never again be used in combat, despite the fact that Pearson had no factual basis for this prediction. In response, Allied Headquarters denied that Patton had received an official reprimand, but confirmed that Patton had slapped at least one soldier.
Patton's wife, Beatrice Patton, spoke to the media to defend him. She appeared in True Confessions, a women's confession magazine, where she characterized Patton as "the toughest, most hard boiled General in the U.S. Army ... but he's quite sweet, really." She was featured in a Washington Post article on November 26. While she did not attempt to justify Patton's action, she characterized him as a "tough perfectionist," stating that he cared deeply about the men under his command and would not ask them to do something he would not do himself:
> He had been known to weep at men's graves—as well as tear their hides off. The deed is done and the mistake made, and I'm sure Georgie is sorrier and has punished himself more than anyone could possibly realize. I've known George Patton for 31 years and I've never known him to be deliberately unfair. He's made mistakes—and he's paid for them. This was a big mistake, and he's paying a big price for it.
### Public response
Demands for Patton to be relieved of duty and sent home were made in Congress and in newspapers across the country. U.S. Representative Jed Johnson of Oklahoma's 6th district described Patton's actions as a "despicable incident" and was "amazed and chagrined" Patton was still in command. He called for the general's immediate dismissal on the grounds that his actions rendered him no longer useful to the war effort. Representative Charles B. Hoeven of Iowa's 9th district said on the House floor that parents of soldiers need no longer worry of their children being abused by "hard boiled officers." He wondered whether the Army had "too much blood and guts." Eisenhower submitted a report to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, who presented it to Senator Robert R. Reynolds, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs. The report laid out Eisenhower's response to the incident and gave details of Patton's decades of military service. Eisenhower concluded that Patton was invaluable to the war effort and that he was confident the corrective actions taken would be adequate. Investigators Eisenhower sent to Patton's command found the general remained overwhelmingly popular with his troops.
By mid-December, the government had received around 1,500 letters related to Patton, with many calling for his dismissal and others defending him or calling for his promotion. Kuhl's father, Herman F. Kuhl, wrote to his own congressman, stating that he forgave Patton for the incident and requesting that he not be disciplined. Retired generals also weighed in on the matter. Former Army Chief of Staff Charles P. Summerall wrote to Patton that he was "indignant about the publicity given a trifling incident," adding that "whatever [Patton] did" he was sure it was "justified by the provocation. Such cowards used to be shot, now they are only encouraged." Major General Kenyon A. Joyce, another combat commander and one of Patton's friends, attacked Pearson as a "sensation mongerer," stating that "niceties" should be left for "softer times of peace." In one notable dissension, Patton's friend, former mentor and General of the Armies John J. Pershing publicly condemned his actions, an act that left Patton "deeply hurt" and caused him to never speak to Pershing again.
After consulting with Marshall, Stimson, and Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, Eisenhower retained Patton in the European theater, though his Seventh Army saw no further combat. Patton remained in Sicily for the rest of the year. Marshall and Stimson not only supported Eisenhower's decision, but defended it. In a letter to the U.S. Senate, Stimson stated that Patton must be retained because of the need for his "aggressive, winning leadership in the bitter battles which are to come before final victory." Stimson acknowledged retaining Patton was a poor move for public relations but remained confident it was the right decision militarily.
## Effect on plans for invasion of Europe
Contrary to his statements to Patton, Eisenhower never seriously considered removing the general from duty in the European Theater. Writing of the incident before the media attention, he said, "If this thing ever gets out, they'll be howling for Patton's scalp, and that will be the end of Georgie's service in this war. I simply cannot let that happen. Patton is indispensable to the war effort – one of the guarantors of our victory." Still, following the capture of Messina in August 1943, Patton did not command a force in combat for 11 months.
Patton was passed over to lead the invasion in northern Europe. In September, Bradley—Patton's junior in both rank and experience—was selected to command the First United States Army that was forming in England to prepare for Operation Overlord. According to Eisenhower, this decision had been made months before the slapping incidents became public knowledge, but Patton felt they were the reason he was denied the command. Eisenhower had already decided on Bradley because he felt the invasion of Europe was too important to risk any uncertainty. While Eisenhower and Marshall both considered Patton to be a superb corps-level combat commander, Bradley possessed two of the traits that a theater-level strategic command required, and that Patton conspicuously lacked: a calm, reasoned demeanor, and a meticulously consistent nature. The slapping incidents had only further confirmed to Eisenhower that Patton lacked the ability to exercise discipline and self-control at such a command level. Still, Eisenhower re-emphasized his confidence in Patton's skill as a ground combat commander by recommending him for promotion to four-star general in a private letter to Marshall on September 8, noting his previous combat exploits and admitting that he had a "driving power" that Bradley lacked.
By mid-December, Eisenhower had been appointed Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and moved to England. As media attention surrounding the incident began to subside, McCloy told Patton he would indeed be eventually returning to combat command. Patton was briefly considered to lead the Seventh Army in Operation Dragoon, but Eisenhower felt his experience would be more useful in the Normandy campaign. Eisenhower and Marshall privately agreed that Patton would command a follow-on field army after Bradley's army conducted the initial invasion of Normandy; Bradley would then command the resulting army group. Patton was told on January 1, 1944 only that he would be relieved of command of the Seventh Army and moved to Europe. In his diary, he wrote that he would resign if he was not given command of a field army. On January 26, 1944, formally given command of a newly arrived unit, the Third United States Army, he went to the United Kingdom to prepare the unit's inexperienced soldiers for combat. This duty occupied Patton throughout early 1944.
Exploiting Patton's situation, Eisenhower sent him on several high-profile trips throughout the Mediterranean in late 1943. He traveled to Algiers, Tunis, Corsica, Cairo, Jerusalem, and Malta in an effort to confuse German commanders as to where the Allied forces might next attack. By the next year, the German High Command still had more respect for Patton than for any other Allied commander and considered him central to any plan to invade Europe from the north. Because of this, Patton was made a central figure in Operation Fortitude in early 1944. The Allies fed the German intelligence organizations, through double agents, a steady stream of false intelligence that Patton had been named commander of the First United States Army Group (FUSAG) and was preparing for an invasion of Pas de Calais. The FUSAG command was actually an intricately constructed "phantom" army of decoys, props and radio signals based around southeast England to mislead German aircraft and to make Axis leaders believe a large force was massing there. Patton was ordered to keep a low profile to deceive the Germans into thinking he was in Dover throughout early 1944, when he was actually training the Third Army. As a result of Operation Fortitude, the German 15th Army remained at Pas de Calais to defend against the expected attack. The formation remained there even after the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944.
It was during the following month of July 1944 that Patton and the Third Army finally did travel to Europe, and entered into combat on August 1.
|
33,483,749 |
HMS Levant (1758)
| 1,111,737,171 |
Coventry-class Royal Navy frigate
|
[
"1758 ships",
"Frigates of the Royal Navy",
"Ships built on the Beaulieu River"
] |
HMS Levant was a 28-gun sixth-rate frigate of the Coventry class, which saw Royal Navy service against France in the Seven Years' War, and against France, Spain and the American colonies during the American Revolutionary War. Principally a hunter of privateers, she was also designed to be a match for small French frigates, but with a broader hull and sturdier build at the expense of some speed and manoeuvrability. Launched in 1758, Levant was assigned to the Royal Navy's Jamaica station from 1759 and proved her worth by defeating nine French vessels during her first three years at sea. She was also part of the British expedition against Martinique in 1762 but played no role in the landings or subsequent defeat of French forces at Fort Royal.
The frigate was decommissioned following Britain's declaration of peace with France in 1763, but returned to service in 1766 for patrol duties in the Caribbean. Decommissioned for a second time in 1770, she was reinstated at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War and sent to the Mediterranean as part of a small British squadron based at Gibraltar. Over the next three years she captured or sank a total of fourteen enemy craft including an 18-gun American privateer. In 1779 she brought home news of an impending Spanish assault on Gibraltar, ahead of Spain's declaration of war on Great Britain.
The ageing frigate was finally removed from Navy service later that year, and her crew discharged to other vessels. She was broken up at Deptford Dockyard in 1780, having secured a total of 31 victories over 21 years at sea.
## Construction
Levant was an oak-built 28-gun sixth rate, one of 19 vessels forming part of the Coventry class of frigates. As with others in her class she was loosely modelled on the design and dimensions of HMS Tartar, launched in 1756 and responsible for capturing five French privateers in her first twelve months at sea. Orders from Admiralty to build the Coventry-class vessels were made after the outbreak of what was later called the Seven Years' War, at a time when the Royal Dockyards were fully engaged in constructing or fitting-out the Navy's ships of the line. Consequently, and despite some Navy Board misgivings, contracts for most Coventry-class vessels were issued to private shipyards, with an emphasis on rapid completion.
The contract for Levant's construction were issued on 20 May 1757 to shipwright Henry Adams of Buckler's Hard in Hampshire. It was stipulated that work should be completed within ten months for the 28-gun vessel measuring approximately 586 tons burthen. Subject to satisfactory completion, Adams would receive a comparatively modest fee of £9.5s per ton to be paid through periodic imprests drawn against the Navy Board. As private shipyards were not subject to rigorous naval oversight, the Admiralty also granted authority for "such alterations withinboard as shall be judged necessary" in order to cater to the preferences or ability of individual shipwrights.
After consultation with Admiralty, Adams took advantage of this freedom to make four substantive changes to the Tartar design. The ship's wheel was moved from behind the mizzen mast to before it to improve the helmsman's line of sight. The tiller was relocated, from an exposed position on the quarterdeck to a safer location belowdecks and near the stern. The vessel's hawseholes were relocated from the lower to the upper deck to allow additional storage space inside the hull. Finally, in recognition of the vessel's likely role in chasing small enemy craft, the leading pair of gunports were moved from the sides of the vessel to the bow in order to form a battery of chase guns.
Levant's keel was laid down in June 1757 but work proceeded slowly and the vessel was not ready for launch until July 1758. As built, Levant was 118 ft 5 in (36.1 m) long with a 97 ft 4 in (29.7 m) keel, a beam of 33 ft 11 in (10.34 m), and a hold depth of 10 ft 6 in (3.2 m). After Adams' modifications, she was of 595 34⁄94 tons burthen, nearly ten tons more than the figure specified in the contract. Her armament comprised 24 nine-pounder cannon located along her gun deck, supported by four three-pounder cannon on the quarterdeck and twelve 1⁄2-pounder swivel guns ranged along her sides. The Admiralty-designated complement was 200, comprising two commissioned officers – a captain and a lieutenant – overseeing 40 warrant and petty officers, 91 naval ratings, 38 Marines and 29 servants and other ranks. Among these other ranks were four positions reserved for widow's men – fictitious crew members whose pay was intended to be reallocated to the families of sailors who died at sea.
The vessel was named after the Levant, an area of the eastern Mediterranean. This continued a Board of Admiralty tradition, dating to 1644, of naming ships for geographic features. Overall, ten of the nineteen Coventry-class vessels, including Levant, were named after well-known regions, rivers or towns. With few exceptions the remainder of the class were named after figures from classical antiquity, following a more modern trend initiated in 1748 by John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, in his capacity as First Lord of the Admiralty. In sailing qualities Levant was comparable with French frigates of equivalent size, but with a shorter and sturdier hull and greater weight in her broadside guns. She was also comparatively broad-beamed which, when coupled with Adams' modifications, provided ample space for provisions, the ship's mess and a large magazine for powder and round shot. Taken together these characteristics enabled Levant to remain at sea for long periods without resupply. She was built with broad and heavy masts which balanced the weight of her hull, improved stability in rough weather and made her capable of carrying more sail. The disadvantages of this heavy design were seen in reduced manoeuvrability and slower speed in light winds.
## Seven Years' War
### 1758–1760
Levant was launched on 6 July 1758 and sailed to Portsmouth Dockyard for fitting-out and to take on armament and crew. She was formally commissioned in October, entering Royal Navy service during the early stages of the Seven Years' War against France. Command was assigned to Captain William Tucker, a nephew of London philanthropist Ralph Allen, and previously the commander of the sixth-rate HMS Sphinx. There were delays in mustering sufficient crew, and the frigate was not finally ready to put to sea until June 1759. On 14 June Captain Tucker received orders to take position off Guadeloupe and the Leeward Islands, there to join a squadron commanded by Commodore John Moore. Levant set sail for this assignment on 23 July.
The British squadron, of which Levant was part, was tasked with disrupting French trade through the Caribbean and hunting privateers. However the frigate saw little action in her first six months in the region; French trade had virtually ceased since the outbreak of war with Britain, while a smallpox outbreak killed some among Levant's crew. In November 1759, Levant and the Antigua-based privateer Bristol captured two French vessels loaded with coffee and sugar heading to trade at the neutral Dutch island of Sint Eustatius. It was not until early 1760 that Levant defeated her first armed opponent, a 14-gun French privateer which was sunk with the loss of 120 of her crew. Thereafter combat was more frequent. Two small privateers were captured in early 1760 – the 8-gun Poissan Volante and the 12-gun St Pierre – and these vessels and their crews were delivered into British custody on the Leeward Islands. In June Pickering, a British merchantman previously captured by the French, was retaken and sailed to Antigua as Levant's prize. A further victory followed on 29 June with the capture of French privateer Le Scipio, after which Levant was put into harbour in Antigua for resupply. One contemporary source at this time records her as carrying only 20 of her 28 guns. She returned to sea before the end of the year, capturing the privateer L'Union on 18 December.
### 1761–1762
British military successes in European waters in 1760 offered freedom for the Navy to support offensive operations in the Caribbean in the following year. In January Major General Robert Monckton set sail from North America to the Caribbean with 2,000 men and four ships of the line, for a planned invasion of French Dominica. Levant saw little action in advance of Monckton's arrival and captured only one vessel, the privateer La Catherine, on 15 February. Monckton arrived in Antigua shortly after this capture; Captain Tucker was then deputised to carry the general aboard Levant for a visit to the various Leeward Island settlements while the invasion force assembled at Guadeloupe. Monckton departed the Leeward Islands in April and Levant resumed her hunt for privateers, capturing La Dulcinée on 13 July and L'Aventurier six days later. Another French privateer, Conquerant, was captured on 19 November while Levant was in company with her fellow Royal Navy frigate, the 26-gun Emerald. At least four other vessels were also taken in this period; Superbe, Polly, Petit-Creolle and Elizabeth.
Dominica having fallen to Monckton's forces in June, the British then set their sights on the French stronghold of Martinique. Britain's Secretary of State for the Southern Department, Sir William Pitt, concluded that Martinique's capture would be the decisive battle for control of the Caribbean, and instructed that all available resources be committed to its invasion. An army of 13,000 troops was assembled, supported by a fleet under Admiral George Rodney. Levant was added to Rodney's sizeable command in late 1761 and sailed as part of the expedition in January 1762. She was present when the British landings commenced but is not recorded as having engaged with enemy forces either there or in the subsequent French defeat at Fort Royal between 25 January and 3 February.
Levant then returned to her station off the Leeward Islands, arriving there on 10 February. Captain Tucker had fallen ill with gout, and on 20 February he was replaced by Captain John Laforey, previously of the sixth-rate HMS Echo. Levant made one capture under Laforey's command, and her last victory in that war, when she defeated French privateer La Fier on 13 May 1762.
## Peacetime service
The 1763 Treaty of Paris brought an end to the war between Britain and France, and Levant was subsequently declared surplus to the Navy's needs. She was in poor condition; Captain Laforey reported to Admiralty that rats had eaten through the hull and substantial work would be required to keep the ship afloat. Repairs were commenced, but by April 1763 Laforey had departed the vessel and command was transferred to Captain Molyneux Shuldham for the voyage back to England. Restored to seaworthiness, Levant reached Portsmouth Dockyard in August, where she was decommissioned and her crew discharged or reassigned.
There were rumours that Levant would swiftly return to active service, but these proved unfounded and she remained tied up at Portsmouth. Her hull and fittings were surveyed in late 1763 to determine maintenance requirements, but no repairs were made. In September 1763 a member of her skeleton crew was robbed and murdered at Liphook, a village some distance from Portsmouth.
Levant returned to Navy service in 1766 under the command of Captain Basil Keith, and was assigned to patrol and convoy duties on the Navy's Jamaica Station. In August she docked at Deptford to take on crew and supplies, setting sail for the Caribbean on 28 November. Levant held her Jamaica post for three years, but this extensive service in tropical waters left her in poor condition. In 1770 she returned to Deptford Dockyard where she was decommissioned and hauled out of the water for rebuilding. The work was granted to shipwright John Dudman and took six months from November 1770 to April 1771. Repair and rebuilding expenses were £5,869 with an additional £3,059 for fitting-out, considerably more than the vessel's original construction cost of £5,423.
The rebuilt frigate was recommissioned in August 1771 under Captain Samuel Thompson. After four months in home waters she was assigned to the Navy's Mediterranean squadron and took up position off Gibraltar in January 1772. Levant remained at this station for three years, her uneventful service broken only by a 1773 transfer of command from Captain Thompson to Captain George Murray, the son of former Jacobite commander Lord Murray.
## American Revolutionary War
### 1775–1777
Levant returned to Portsmouth in early 1775, but put to sea again on 22 June amid the early stages of the American Revolutionary War. Captain Murray's orders were to join a Mediterranean squadron under the overall command of Captain Robert Mann, which was given the task of intercepting merchant vessels suspected of supplying American rebels. While at sea Murray also took the opportunity to train his crew in seamanship and battle techniques, in preparation for future enemy engagement. In March 1776 she anchored in the Bay of Algiers where the Dey, or local ruler, received her warmly and provided the crew with supplies of bread, vegetables, and three live sheep.
Mediterranean trade was busy, and Levant took part in halting and examining vessels with crews of various nationalities including Dutch, Genoese, Spanish, and the British Caribbean. Neutral shipping was permitted to continue on its way. However Levant detained a South Carolina merchantman named Dolphin in October 1776, on suspicion of being a supply vessel for the rebels, and sent her into Gibraltar along with her cargo of rice. In November 1776 Levant secured a substantial prize with the capture of another South Carolina vessel, Argo, carrying rice and indigo worth £37,200. Argo was to have exchanged her cargo in Bordeaux for clothing and medicine to supply the American rebellion.
Further success followed in early 1777 with the capture of the 18-gun American privateer General Montgomery. News had reached England that this vessel was off the island of Madeira in March, having sailed from the Port of Philadelphia in February with a crew of 100 men. Levant was sent in pursuit, with her crew sighting the General Montgomery at midday on 8 March. Captain Murray ordered Levant to fly false colours, hoisting a Dutch flag to avoid alerting the privateer's crew. General Montgomery had also disguised herself by flying a British flag. For several hours the Americans allowed Levant to draw near, finally turning to flee when Murray fired a warning shot. A seven-hour chase ensued, extending into the night with the two ships often within musket shot but unable to bring their broadside cannon to bear. At around 1:00 am the wind strengthened and Levant was able to overhaul her prey, forcing the out-gunned Americans to surrender. Nine of General Montgomery's crew enlisted aboard Levant; the remainder were conveyed to Portsmouth where they remained imprisoned in poor conditions until the end of the war.
### 1778–1780
Levant continued her Mediterranean patrols in 1778 and was rewarded on 24 March with the recapture of a British merchantman which had been bound for Newfoundland when seized by an American privateer off Gibraltar. On the same day as this capture, Levant fell into company with the 28-gun frigate HMS Enterprise. Her captain, Sir Thomas Rich, advised that he was pursuing USS Revenge, a 22-gun American privateer with three captured merchant ships in tow. On 21 March the privateer had surprised and destroyed Enterprise's tender before escaping into the night. Rich had given chase for the next three days; Murray now added Levant to the hunt and the two British frigates set courses to windward and leeward of the Americans' likely path. Both sailed through the night without sighting their prey. In the morning of 25 March they encountered one of Revenge's prizes, the 16-gun British merchantman Hope, which promptly surrendered and was returned to Gibraltar. Revenge herself eluded capture and was later reported as having escaped to the neutral Spanish port of Cádiz.
France entered the war against Britain after signing a formal Treaty with the United States in March 1778. There was a subsequent reorganization of Royal Navy forces in the Mediterranean, with Levant joining a squadron of four other vessels based in Gibraltar under the overall direction of Admiral Robert Duff. Of this squadron, Levant was the second largest, behind only Duff's 60-gun flagship HMS Panther. In July Levant encountered and captured Robert, an American merchant vessel that had been bound for Boston with a cargo of salt. In August she took her first French prize of the War – a merchantman with a cargo of tobacco – and recaptured the British schooner Lively, which had previously been seized by an American privateer off Scotland's Western Islands. Two more French prizes followed: Victorieux seized en route to Marseilles, and Duchess of Grumont, which surrendered off Toulon. The captured vessels were sent under guard to Gibraltar.
These ongoing victories belied the changing conditions applicable to Levant's hunt for enemy vessels off Gibraltar. American vessels had become scarce, especially since Spain had closed her ports to them in the winter of 1777 in retaliation for privateer attacks on Spanish ships. French trading vessels remained at sea but were occasionally accompanied by naval escorts large enough to prevent their capture by Gibraltar's small Royal Navy squadron. Levant was careened on a beach at Gibraltar over Christmas 1778 and then returned to sea, but her next capture was not until 14 March 1779 when in company with Captain Rich's Enterprise she seized a French vessel, Thésée. A further victory followed on 1 April when Levant, still in company with Enterprise, took Eclair, a French xebec carrying wine and brandy from Marseilles.
On 12 April 1779 Spain signed the Treaty of Aranjuez with France, setting terms for a joint military alliance against Britain. Despite the Treaty Spain delayed the formal declaration of war until June, to give time for better co-ordination of its battle fleet. In the interim Levant engaged and defeated a Spanish privateer whose crew were caught in the act of boarding a British merchant ship. A brief exchange of cannon fire holed the Spanish vessel below the waterline, sinking her; Levant rescued the majority of her crew and transported them to prison in Gibraltar.
Captain Murray then took Levant on a cruise to hunt for French or American vessels off Cadiz. While pursuing this task in June 1779 he ran across the Spanish battle fleet, comprising 32 ships of the line and two frigates, heading south towards an unknown destination. Spain was still nominally a neutral power and after a brief exchange of pleasantries the Spanish fleet left Levant unmolested and continued on its way. Murray immediately set sail for England to report that the Spanish were at sea, pausing off Land's End on 17 July to capture the French privateer La Revanche. Levant finally reached Portsmouth in late July but by this time Murray's news of the Spanish fleet was out of date; Spain had already declared war on Britain and her fleet had reached Gibraltar to commence an extended siege.
## Final voyages
Murray was ordered to take Levant back to sea immediately, departing Portsmouth on 27 July as escort to a convoy of merchant vessels bound for the Yorkshire port of Kingston upon Hull. The ageing frigate then briefly joined a small Navy squadron on patrol off Brighton before setting sail for the Spanish coast. On 5 August she took part in the recapture of a British merchant vessel, Nine Colliers. She was off Cadiz in October 1779 when she won her final victory of the war, capturing the 20-gun Spanish privateer Velenza de Alcantara along with 200 of her crew.
But by month's end Levant was back in Portsmouth, where she was decommissioned and her crew discharged to other vessels. She had been at sea for 21 years, outlasting all but four of her sister ships in the Coventry class. Her captain, George Murray, was reassigned to command the 30-gun fifth rate frigate HMS Cleopatra; he was promoted to admiral in 1794, and died in 1797.
Despite Levant's age there was still some consideration of restoring her to active service. As late as 1 August 1780 there were newspaper reports that she was "repairing and will soon be fit for sea", but no repairs were made. On 16 August, Admiralty issued orders that she be sailed to Deptford Dockyard where, on 27 September, she was broken up. Her passing was mourned by her crew, with their sentiments recorded by Levant's former first lieutenant, Erasmus Gower, that "having captured so considerable a number of prizes ... few vessels, perhaps, have ever quitted a station with more éclat respecting herself, and more regret from the officers and other persons concerned, who derived advantage from her good fortune and the activity of her people."
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251,815 |
Once More, with Feeling (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
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[
"2001 American television episodes",
"Articles containing video clips",
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 6) episodes",
"Musical television episodes",
"Television episodes directed by Joss Whedon",
"Television episodes written by Joss Whedon"
] |
"Once More, with Feeling" is the seventh episode of the sixth season of the supernatural drama television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) and the only one in the series performed as a musical. It was written and directed by series creator Joss Whedon and originally aired on UPN in the United States on November 6, 2001.
"Once More, with Feeling" explores changes in the relationships of the main characters, using the plot device that a demon—credited as "Sweet" but unnamed in the episode—compels the people of Sunnydale to break into song at random moments to express hidden truths. The title of the episode comes from a line sung by Sweet; once the characters have revealed their truths and face the consequences of hearing each other's secrets, he challenges them to "say you're happy now, once more, with feeling".
All of the regular cast performed their own vocals, although two actors were given minimal singing at their request. "Once More, with Feeling" is the most technically complex episode in the series, as extra voice and dance training for the cast was interspersed with the production of four other Buffy episodes. It was Whedon's first attempt at writing music, and different styles—from 1950s sitcom theme music to rock opera—express the characters' secrets in specific ways. The episode was critically well–received upon airing, specifically for containing the humor and wit to which fans had become accustomed. The musical format allowed characters to stay true to their natures while they struggled to overcome deceit and miscommunication, fitting with the sixth season's themes of growing up and facing adult responsibilities. It is considered one of the most effective and popular episodes of the series, and—prior to a financial dispute in 2007—was shown in theaters with the audience invited to sing along.
## Background
Throughout the series Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), in her role as the Vampire Slayer, is assisted by her close friends, who refer to themselves as the "Scooby Gang". These include Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon), a young man without particular strengths or talents, but devoted to Buffy and her calling, and Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan), a young woman who has grown from a shy but gifted student into a strong woman and powerful user of magic. They are mentored by Buffy's "Watcher", Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), a paternal figure since the first season, when Buffy moved to Sunnydale after her parents' divorce. Xander is engaged to Anya Jenkins (Emma Caulfield), a former vengeance demon who has become human. They have struggled with disclosing their engagement to the rest of the group and individually doubt their impending marriage.
Buffy died at the end of the fifth season ("The Gift"), sacrificing herself in place of her younger sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) in order to save the world. In the first episode of the sixth season, Willow, believing Buffy to be in Hell, used magic to bring her back from the grave. Buffy was in fact at peace, in what she thinks was heaven, but she has kept this a secret from her friends. Since her resurrection, Buffy has been lost and without inspiration to perform her duties as a Slayer. Willow is romantically involved with Tara Maclay (Amber Benson), a powerful but ethical witch. Tara has previously expressed concern at Willow's use of her emergent magical powers for trivial or personal matters. In the preceding episode ("All the Way"), Willow cast a spell to make Tara forget an argument about her abuse of magic. In the same episode, Dawn, who has been stealing from stores, including Anya's magic shop, lies to Buffy and goes on a clandestine and almost deadly date. Left to take care of Dawn after the death of their mother Joyce Summers (Kristine Sutherland) in the fifth season ("The Body"), Buffy has come to depend more heavily on Giles. Following Dawn's date, Buffy asks Giles to shoulder responsibility for disciplining her, much to his discomfort.
Buffy's former nemesis is Spike (James Marsters), a vampire. In the fourth season The Initiative, a secret military organization whose mission is to evaluate and eliminate demonic beings, rendered Spike harmless by implanting a microchip in his head that causes him intense pain when he attacks humans. However, the chip does not affect him when he harms demons and he now often fights on Buffy's side, after at first fighting just for the pleasure of brawling. His motivations changed when, in the fifth season, Spike realized he had fallen in love with Buffy. She initially rejected him, but just before her death they had begun to form a friendship of sorts. She has been confiding in him; prior to this episode, he is the only one to whom Buffy has revealed that she was in heaven.
Throughout Buffy the Vampire Slayer, music serves as a narrative tool, integral to character development and action. The mood is set by music, characters discuss it, and writers use it to emphasize differences between generations. In an essay on the use of music in the series, Jacqueline Bach writes that in conjunction with the sixth season themes of growing up, "Once More, with Feeling" gives music a central role instead of keeping it in the background.
## Plot
When Buffy is on patrol, she laments in song about how uninspired her life has become ("Going Through the Motions"). The next morning at the Magic Box, the gang reveal that they also sang that evening. Led by Giles, the gang theorizes about the cause of the singing; they sense no immediate danger but agree that by working together they can overcome anything ("I've Got a Theory"/"Bunnies"/"If We're Together"). Buffy learns that the whole town is affected when she looks outside the shop to see a large group (led by series writer and producer David Fury) singing and dancing about how a dry-cleaning service got their stains out ("The Mustard").
Tara and Willow leave to "research" at home, but dally along the way while Tara muses about how much Willow has improved her life ("Under Your Spell"). The next morning, Xander and Anya perform a duet about their secret annoyances with each other and their respective doubts about their impending marriage ("I'll Never Tell"). They realize that the songs are bringing out hidden secrets, and later insist to Giles that something evil is to blame. As they argue, they walk past a woman (series writer and producer Marti Noxon) protesting a parking ticket ("The Parking Ticket"). That evening, Buffy visits Spike, who angrily tells Buffy to leave him alone if she will not love him ("Rest in Peace").
Dawn tells Tara she is glad that Tara and Willow have made up after their argument. Since Tara has no recollection of an argument, she suspects that Willow has used magic to alter her memory. She goes to the Magic Box to consult a book, leaving Dawn alone. Dawn, contemplating a collection of objects that she has stolen, including the charm that summoned Sweet, starts to bemoan that no one seems to notice her ("Dawn's Lament"), but is soon seized by a group of minions. They take Dawn to The Bronze, where her attempt to escape transforms into an interpretive dance with them ("Dawn's Ballet") before she meets Sweet (Hinton Battle), a zoot suit-wearing, tap-dancing, singing demon. He tells Dawn that he has come to Sunnydale in response to her "invocation", and he will take her to his dimension to make her his bride when his visit is complete but when Dawn reveals that her sister is the Slayer, he sends his minions to challenge her to rescue Dawn ("What You Feel").
At the Magic Box, Giles recognizes that he must stand aside if Buffy is to face her responsibilities in caring for Dawn instead of relying on him ("Standing") and Tara finds a picture of the Lethe’s bramble flower Willow used to cast a spell on her in a book of magic. Giles and Tara separately resolve to leave the people they love, respectively Buffy and Willow — Giles wants to leave Buffy for her own good, while Tara wants to leave Willow because she has become horrified by Willow's magical manipulation of their relationship ("Under Your Spell"/"Standing" (reprise)). When one of Sweet's minions tells Buffy about Sweet holding Dawn at The Bronze, Giles forbids the gang to assist her, so she goes alone, despite having no will to do so; eventually Giles and the Scoobies change their minds and leave to catch up. Although Spike initially thinks that things would be better for him if Buffy was dead, he also changes his mind and decides to help Buffy; Sweet opines that Buffy is drawn to danger ("Walk Through the Fire").
Meeting Sweet at The Bronze, Buffy offers a deal to Sweet: she will take her sister's place if she cannot kill him. When asked by Sweet what she thinks about life, Buffy gives her pessimistic take on its meaning ("Something to Sing About"). When the others arrive, she divulges that Willow took her from heaven, and Willow reacts with horror at realizing what she has done. Upon divulging this truth, Buffy gives up on singing and dances so frenetically that she begins to smoke — on the verge of combusting as Sweet's other victims have been shown to do — until Spike stops her, telling her that the only way to go forward is to just keep living her life. Xander then reveals that he, not Dawn, invoked Sweet, hoping for a musical "happy ending" for his marriage plans and unaware of the demon's deadly nature. Sweet, after releasing Xander from the obligation to be Sweet's "bride", tells the group how much fun they have been ("What You Feel" (reprise)) and disappears. The Scoobies realize that their relationships have been changed irreversibly by the secrets revealed in their songs ("Where Do We Go from Here?"). Spike leaves The Bronze, but Buffy follows him out, and they kiss ("Coda").
## Production and writing
Joss Whedon had wanted to make a musical episode since the start of the series. This was heightened during the fifth season when he hosted a Shakespeare reading at his house, to which the cast was invited. They began drinking and singing, demonstrating to Whedon that certain cast members had musical talents. Whedon knew he would have to write an entire score, which would take weeks or months. During the first three seasons of Buffy, he was unable to take more than two weeks off at a time, and the constraints of writing and directing the show precluded him from putting forth the effort of preparing a musical. Whedon spoke to the show's producer, Gareth Davies, about his idea; they agreed that a musical episode would be written.
Whedon spent six months writing the music for "Once More, with Feeling". When he returned after the end of the fifth season, he presented Davies with a script and CD, complete with notated and orchestrated music, which Davies found "mind-boggling". The actors were initially bewildered; in 2012, James Marsters commented that "it's obvious now that they were good songs but the thing was Joss and his wife Kai, they don't sing very well. And they don't play piano very well. The songs sounded really cheesy and horrible... We were saying, 'Joss, you're ruining our careers.'"
Preparing for the episode was physically difficult for some of the cast members, most of whom had little experience singing and dancing. They spent three months in voice training. Two choreographers worked with Whedon and the cast on dance sequences. Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn), who is trained in ballet, requested a dance sequence in lieu of a significant singing part, and Alyson Hannigan (Willow), according to Whedon, begged him not to give her many lines. Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy) told the BBC that "It took something like 19 hours of singing and 17 hours of dancing in between shooting four other episodes" and she was so anxious about singing that she "hated every moment of it". When Whedon suggested using a voice double for her, however, she said, "I basically started to cry and said, 'You mean someone else is going to do my big emotional turning point for the season?' In the end, it was an incredible experience and I'm glad I did it. And I never want to do it again." Davies was so impressed with Hinton Battle's performance on Broadway in The Wiz that he asked Battle to play the demon Sweet. Battle, a three-time Tony-winner, wore prosthetic make-up for the first time to give him a demonic red face. Sweet was portrayed as "slick", smooth and stylish; in contrast, most demons on the series were designed to be crude and ugly. The set for The Bronze was used frequently throughout the series, but stairs were built from the stage to maximize floor space for Buffy's dance.
Running eight minutes longer than any in the series, the episode was also the most technical and complex. Whedon, who has stated this is one of his favorite Buffy episodes, used a widescreen letterboxed format for filming (the only episode in the series to get this treatment), different lighting to bring out the sets more vibrantly, and long takes for shooting—including a complicated shot with a full conversation, a song, and two choreographed dances that took 21 attempts to get right. These were designed to give viewers all the clues they needed to establish all the nuances of the relationships between characters. Davies commented that the intricacies of filming this episode were "infinitely more complicated than a regular Buffy" episode, and Whedon stated in the DVD commentary that he was ambitious to prove what television is capable of, saying "it just depends how much you care". UPN, the television network that aired Buffy's last two seasons, promoted the episode by displaying Gellar's face on billboards with music notes over her eyes, and held a special premiere event. Network president Dean Valentine remarked he thought it was "one of the best episodes of television I ever saw in my life".
Critics hailed the episode as successful in telling a complex story about all the characters in a unique way, while retaining the series' effective elements of writing and character development. Throughout the show—as in the rest of the series—the characters self-consciously address their own dialogue and actions. Anya describes her own duet "I'll Never Tell" as "a retro pastiche that's never gonna be a breakaway pop hit". With a characteristic dry demeanor, Giles explains that he overheard the information about Sunnydale residents spontaneously combusting as he was eavesdropping upon the police taking "witness arias". In her opening number, "Going Through the Motions", Buffy sings that she feels as though she is playing a part: "nothing here is real, nothing here is right". The song introduces the character's emotional state but also removes the barrier between the actor and the audience, as Gellar the actor portrays Buffy, who feels she is merely playing the part of the Slayer. This hints to the audience that the episode's musical format is strange to the actors and characters. According to Buffy essayist Richard Albright, the lack of polish among cast members' singing voices added to the authenticity of their breaking out into song for the first time in the series. Whedon included self-conscious dialogue and references about the characters being in a musical and showed their reluctance toward song and dance, so that the audience would feel more comfortable with the improbability of such a thing happening on the show.
## Themes
The dynamic nature of the characters was a unique element of writing in the series at the time. Once they were established in the twelve episodes of the first season, characters began to change and relationships were developed in the second. This continued through the series to the point of unpredictability that sometimes became unsettling to fans. Buffy essayist Marguerite Krause asserts that the monsters and demons faced by the Scoobies are thin symbolism for the show's true focus: relationships and how to maintain or ruin them. Common among most of these relationships—romantic, platonic, and familial—is, according to Krause, a "failure to communicate, lack of trust, [and the] inability to envision or create a viable future". Miscommunication is worsened or sustained through multiple episodes and seasons, leading to overwhelming misunderstanding and critical turning points for the characters, some of whom do not recover.
"Once More, with Feeling" propelled the story arc for season six by allowing characters to confess previously taboo issues to themselves and each other. Whedon commented that he was "obsessive about progressing a plot in a song, about saying things we haven't said", comparing the musical theater format to the fourth-season episode "Hush", in which characters begin communicating when they stop talking. According to Buffy essayist Zoe-Jane Playdon, earlier episodes' "false saccharine behaviour" impedes the characters so crucially that it summons a demon to force them to be honest. The consequences in the episode of concealing truth, spontaneous combustion, is an allusion to Bleak House by Charles Dickens—of whom Whedon is a fan—where characters also face immolation for being deceitful. For Buffy, however, truth is slow in coming, as she continues to lie to the Scoobies, claiming to forget what she sang about in the graveyard during "Going Through the Motions". Buffy continues her charade in the chorus number "If We're Together", beginning the song by persuading others to join in one by one, as if each is convinced that she is still invested and in charge, and their strength as a group is infallible. Although she asks in verse "Apocalypse / We've all been there / The same old trips / Why should we care?", all the Scoobies join her, including Giles despite his suspicions that Buffy is no longer interested in her life.
Secrets reveal themselves steadily throughout the episode. Xander fears that his future marriage will turn him into an argumentative drunk like his father. He attempts to avoid his fears through the song "I'll Never Tell", singing "'coz there's nothing to tell", after summoning Sweet to Sunnydale to show him that he and Anya will be happy. Amid the various annoyances Xander and Anya express through this song, some verses are clear-sighted observations of behavior, such as Anya's accusation that Xander—once in love with Buffy—uses Buffy as a mother figure to hide behind. Anya also avoids the truth by burying herself in wedding plans without thinking critically about what being married will entail; instead she considers Xander an accessory to her desired lifestyle. Of all the characters, Anya is the most preoccupied with the style of singing and songs, demanding to know if Spike sang "a breakaway pop hit, or a book number", and asking Dawn if the pterodactyl she facetiously says she gave birth to also broke into song. Anya and Xander's duet is the only song in the episode to address the audience directly. During the long single-shot scene when she and Xander talk over each other insisting to Giles that evil must be at play, Anya refers to the audience, saying "It was like we were being watched ... Like there was a wall missing ... in our apartment ... Like there were only three walls and not a fourth wall." Albright asserts that Anya's constant preoccupation with her and others' performances indicates that she has serious doubts about her future supporting role as Xander's wife.
Giles' truth, according to Whedon, is that he realizes he must not "fight my kid's battles or my kid will never grow up", which he sings in "Standing" while he throws knives at Buffy as part of her training. Whedon remarked that this touch "is the kind of complete turnaround that is a staple of the Buffy universe". Tara's heartfelt love song also has an ironic subtext; although she appears to mean that she is fulfilled by her relationship with Willow, the lyrics include multiple allusions to Willow working her manipulative will over Tara, overlaid with Tara's euphoric singing about her pleasure in their union. In Sex and the Slayer, Lorna Jowett calls the song between Willow and Tara the transformational event in their relationship, from Tara's subservient bearing towards Willow, into a relationship of equals. Two Buffy essayists note that Willow and Giles sing together at the start of the episode, but later Tara and Giles share a duet to express the diminished part each plays in their respective relationships.
Although "Once More, with Feeling" allows all the characters to confess truthfully, with the exception of Willow, it does not resolve the behavior that demanded confession in the first place. At the end of the episode, Buffy kisses Spike, initiating a romance that she hides from her friends. Their relationship lasts until the end of the series, marked for a time by Buffy's loathing of him because he has no soul. Her relationship with Spike, however, allows her to feel lust and attraction, which she yearns for after being pulled back from a heavenly dimension. In The Psychology of Joss Whedon, Mikhail Lubyansky writes that, although Buffy's first step toward re-engaging with her life is telling the Scoobies the truth in the song "Something to Sing About", she does not find meaning again until the end of the season. In his essay "A Kantian Analysis of Moral Judgment in Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Scott Stroud explains that Buffy, as the central character throughout the series, is torn between her desires and her duty, in a Kantian illustration of free will vs. predeterminism, symbolized by her responsibility as a Slayer and her adolescent impulses. In earlier seasons, this takes the form of simpler pleasures such as dating and socializing, interspersed with defeating evil forces. It reaches a climax in the ultimate sacrifice when Buffy offers to die to save the world. However, "Once More, with Feeling", according to Stroud, is the turning point at which she begins to face her responsibility to the community, her friends and her family. Not only does she continue her Slaying despite a lack of inspiration, but for the rest of the season she works at a humiliating job to provide for her sister and friends.
## Music and style
"Once More, with Feeling" was Joss Whedon's first attempt at writing music, which he had always wanted to do. He learned how to play guitar to write several songs. Christophe Beck, a regular composer for the series, filled in the overture and coda and composed "Dawn's Ballet". Whedon is a fan of Stephen Sondheim, and used him as the inspiration for much of the music, particularly with the episode's ambiguous ending. Cast member James Marsters (Spike) said, "Some of Joss' music is surprisingly complicated. Maybe it's a Beatles thing. He doesn't know enough to know what he can't do and he's smashing rules."
The episode's musical style varies significantly. Buffy's opening number, "Going Through the Motions", was influenced heavily by the Disney song "Part of Your World" sung by Ariel in The Little Mermaid. Whedon wanted to use a similar opening in which the heroine explains her yearning. While singing her song, Buffy fights three vampires and a demon who themselves break into a choreographed dance; Whedon wanted this to be fun but not distracting. The song ends with chord influences from Stephen Schwartz's Pippin and a visual tribute to Disney: as Buffy stakes a vampire, it turns to dust that swirls around her face.
Whedon chose the most complicated scene, with the most dancers and choreography in the classic style of musical theater, to accompany an 18-second song ("The Mustard") "to get it out of the way" for more personal numbers later in the episode. Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com considers this "brilliant because it frees even people who hate musicals to settle into the story without getting hung up on the genre's conventions". The musical styles span from a jaunty 1950s sitcom arrangement of the Buffy theme in the opening credits—the only episode in the series to begin without the normal version of the theme song and full cast roll, signifying a genre shift—to Anya's hard-rock version of "Bunnies". Whedon assigned Emma Caulfield the rock-opera format because Caulfield often sang in such a way to him on the set. Spike's "Rest in Peace" is also a rock song, which Whedon wrote after completing the episode's first song, Tara's "Under Your Spell", a contemporary pop song with radio-play potential. Xander and Anya's duet—the most fun to shoot but difficult to write, according to Whedon—is inspired by Fred Astaire–Ginger Rogers comedies as evidenced by the silken pajama costumes and art deco apartment setting. Musically, the song uses influences from Ira Gershwin, a Charleston rhythm, and jazz-like chord slides. Giles' "Standing" is a ballad to Buffy that she does not hear, unlike the songs revealing truths elsewhere in the episode. Whedon shot the scene so that Giles moves in real time while Buffy works out in slow motion, to accentuate Giles' distance from her. Buffy's not hearing his song was intentional; Whedon explained, "You can sing to someone in musicals and they can never know how you feel or how much you love them, even if they're standing right in front of you".
"Under Your Spell" received attention from Buffy studies writers because it presents a frank and unflinching expression of lesbian romance. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the first show in U.S. television history to portray a long-term lesbian relationship among the core cast of characters. Previous televised depictions of lesbian relations were primarily limited to single "coming out" or "lesbian kiss" episodes, showing lesbian-identified characters as affectionate but not erotic. Tara and Willow demonstrate throughout the series, and specifically in "Once More, with Feeling", that they are "intensely sexual", according to Buffy essayist Justine Larbalestier. Near the end of Tara's song, she sings, "Lost in ecstasy / Spread beneath my Willow tree / You make me / Com — plete", as Tara levitates off the bed while Willow tacitly performs cunnilingus on her. Lorna Jowett called the song "the most erotic scene" of the series. Whedon admitted on the DVD commentary for the episode that the song is "pornography" and "probably the dirtiest lyric I've ever written, but also very, very beautiful".
Buffy essayist Ian Shuttleworth writes that Amber Benson (Tara) has "the sweetest singing voice of all the lead players", referring to "Under Your Spell" as "heavenly and salacious"; author Nikki Stafford concurs, writing that Benson "has the most stunning voice, showing a surprising range". Whedon acknowledged that the "lyrical, heavenly quality" of Benson's voice led him to assign her the episode's love song. Alyson Hannigan (Willow) was unwilling to sing much and her performance is "apprehensive", according to Shuttleworth. He considers this an example of Tara's quieter strength coming out in front of Willow's showy demonstrations of powerful magic. Buffy studies scholar Rhonda Wilcox interprets Willow's diminished role representing the show's silence about Willow's descent into addiction and darkness through the rest of the season. Benson remarked that Tara's story arc is significant within the episode, starting out with ecstasy but soon recognizing the illusory circumstances surrounding her bliss and that "life can't be perfect all the time".
The most complicated song, "Walk Through the Fire", leads all the characters to the climax from different locations for different reasons, reminiscent of the "Tonight Quintet" from West Side Story. When they all sing the chorus at once to the line "We will walk through the fire / And let it — burn", two fire trucks race behind the Scoobies as they proceed to the Bronze. Whedon called the shot the "single greatest thing we ever did". Each of the singers in this song, which "marries soft rock to the function of a dirge", connects musically to earlier songs while foreshadowing Buffy's next number and the final chorus, providing an ominous anxiety.
Buffy's numbers are the most complex, changing key and tempo when she begins to reveal the secrets she swore she never would. This appears specifically in "Something to Sing About", which starts with uptempo platitudes: "We'll sing a happy song / And you can sing along: / Where there's life, there's hope / Every day's a gift / Wishes can come true / Whistle while you work ..." While singing, she kills Sweet's minions with a pool cue. Whedon attempted to make the song tuneful yet chaotic to express the main point of the episode. It transitions suddenly into her desire to be like normal girls, then changes again, slowing the tempo as she challenges Sweet not to give her a song, but "something to sing about". Musicologist Amy Bauer categorizes the tempo shifts as "rock ballad to punk polka to hymn" that indicates Buffy's turmoil. The key and tempo slow again, as Buffy finally reveals "I live in hell / 'Cause I've been expelled from heaven / I think I was in heaven" with the chord changing from B minor to B diminished, each time she repeats "heaven". When replying to her, Spike has the same shift from minor to diminished each time he repeats the word "living."
The episode nears the end with "Where Do We Go from Here?", as the Scoobies stand dazed and disoriented, facing different directions. As they sing "Understand we'll go hand in hand / But we'll walk alone in fear", they line up, hold hands, then fling each other's hands away in a piece of what Whedon calls "literal choreography". Each of the eight characters in this line wears a color in the visible spectrum, a conscious decision by the costume designer. The couples in the group wear opposite colors (Giles in green and Buffy in red, Anya in blue and Xander in orange, Tara in yellow and Willow in purple), and Rhonda Wilcox interprets the color-coding and choreography to represent the "tension between the individual and the group". The characters as a chorus sing "The curtains close on a kiss, God knows / We can tell the end is near", moments before Buffy runs out to kiss Spike and the show closes with actual curtains. As Spike and Buffy kiss, a swell of music accompanies them, similar to the ending of Gone with the Wind. Lyrics sung moments before, however, forecast the uncertainty of the relationship between Spike and Buffy, as well as their contrasting reasons for initiating any romance; Spike wants to feel love from Buffy, while she simply wants to feel.
## Reception
When the episode was originally broadcast in the United States on UPN on November 6, 2001, it received a Nielsen rating of 3.4 and a share of 5. This placed the episode in sixth place in its timeslot, and 88th among broadcast television for the week of November 5–11, 2001. It was the most watched program on UPN that night, and the third most watched program that week, trailing episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise and WWF SmackDown. This was a decrease from the 3.7 rating received by the previous episode a week prior.
"Once More, with Feeling" received widespread critical acclaim from media and critics when it aired, during overseas syndication, and in reminiscences of the best episodes of Buffy after the series ended. Although Salon.com writer Stephanie Zacharek states "(t)he songs were only half-memorable at best, and the singing ability of the show's regular cast ranged only from the fairly good to the not so great", she also asserts that it works "beautifully", paces itself gracefully, and is "clever and affecting". Zacharek's unenthusiastic assessments of the music and cast's singing abilities were not shared by other writers. Debi Enker in Australia's The Age writes, "Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) and Tara (Amber Benson) are terrific, Xander (Nicholas Brendon) and Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) struggle valiantly, and Willow (Alyson Hannigan) barely sings a note". Tony Johnston in The Sunday Herald Sun writes that Gellar "struggles on some of her higher notes, but her dance routines are superb, Michelle Trachtenberg's Dawn reveals sensual dance moves way beyond her tender years, and James Marsters' Spike evokes a sort of Billy Idol yell to disguise his lack of vocal proficiency [...] The rest of the cast mix and match like ready-made Broadway troupers." Johnston counts "I'll Never Tell" as one of the episode's "standout moments". Connie Ogle in the Miami Herald calls the songs "better and far more clever than most of the ones you'll hear on Broadway these days".
Writers agree that the episode was risky and could have failed spectacularly. Jonathan Bernstein in the British newspaper The Observer writes "What could have been, at best, an eccentric diversion and, at worst, a shuddering embarrassment, succeeded on every level [...] It provided a startling demonstration that creator Joss Whedon has a facility with lyrics and melody equal to the one he's demonstrated for the past six seasons with dialogue, character and plot twists. Rather than adopt the 'Hey, wouldn't it be wacky if we suddenly burst into song?' approach practised by Ally McBeal, the Buffy musical was entirely organic to the series' labyrinthine progression." Johnston in the Sunday Herald Sun says, "There is just so much to this marvellously cheeky episode that suggests the show can take any route it pleases and pull it off", while Debi Enker in The Age comments, "Whedon demonstrates yet again what Buffy aficionados have known and appreciated for years: that his wit, playfulness and readiness to take a risk make his television efforts rise way above the pack." Steve Murray in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution characterizes the episode as "scary in a brand-new way", saying "Once More, with Feeling" is "as impressive as Whedon's milestone episodes 'Hush' and 'The Body'"; the episode is "often hilarious", according to Murray, and acts as "(b)oth spoof and homage, [parodying] the hokiness of musicals while also capturing the guilty pleasure and surges of feeling the genre inspires".
Writing in the Toronto Star, Vinay Menon calls "Once More, with Feeling" "dazzling" and writes of "Joss Whedon's inimitable genius"; he goes on to say "(f)or a show that already violates conventions and morphs between genres, its allegorical narrative zigging and zagging seamlessly across chatty comedy, drama and over-the-top horror, 'Once More, with Feeling' is a towering achievement [...] The show may be anchored by existential weightiness, it may be painted with broad, supernatural brushstrokes, but in the end, this coming-of-age story, filled with angst and alienation, is more real than any other so-called teen drama [...] So let's add another line of gushing praise: 'Once More, with Feeling' is rhapsodic, original, deeply affecting, and ultimately, transcendental. Quite simply, television at its best."
The episode was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Musical Direction, but the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) neglected to include the title on the ballots for Emmy nominations in 2002. NATAS attempted to remedy this by mailing a postcard informing its voters that it should be included, but the episode did not win. NATAS' oversight, according to The Washington Post, was "another example of the lack of industry respect afforded one of television's most consistently clever shows". Ogle in the Miami Herald vigorously protests this omission, writing, "[T]he most astonishing, entertaining hour (hour plus, actually) of TV in the past year slips by virtually unnoticed. Nothing here is real; nothing here is right. Buffy the Vampire Slayer'''s musical episode, 'Once More, with Feeling', registers a paltry outstanding music direction nomination. Nice for the musical directors. A stake through the aspirations of writer/director Joss Whedon, the beating creative heart of Buffy, the only TV writer brave and clever enough to use horror as one great big wonderful metaphor for growing up [...] 'Once More, with Feeling' is TV of a different sort, something that comes along once in a lifetime and should not be buried but celebrated and rewarded." The episode was also nominated for a Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Award and a Best Script Nebula Award, both given for excellence in science fiction and fantasy writing. In 2009 TV Guide ranked the episode \#14 on its list of "TV's Top 100 Episodes of All Time". For its 65th anniversary, TV Guide picked it as the fifth best episode of the 21st century.
### Soundtrack
An album including all 14 songs in the episode, with Christophe Beck's scores for three other Buffy episodes, was released by Rounder Records in September 2002 as season seven premiered. John Virant, president and chief executive of Rounder Records, told the Los Angeles Times, "I remember watching the episode when it aired last October, and after it was over, I said to my wife, 'That's the best hour of TV I've ever seen. Someone should put that [soundtrack] out.' I inquired at Fox, just following up, and they said, 'Well, we tried, it didn't happen. If you want to take a run at it, feel free.'" AllMusic gives the album five out of five stars, stating that the music is "every bit as fun as the episode itself", praising the voices of Benson, Marsters and Head. Reviewer Melinda Hill states it is "a must-have for Buffy fans, but it wouldn't be out of place in anyone's collection".
### DVD releases
In addition to featuring on the sixth season box set, "Once More, with Feeling" was individually released on DVD in Region 2 format on April 14, 2003, the only episode to be individually released. In Region 1, the episode was released on the sixth season box set on May 25, 2004, over a year later than the Region 2 release.
### Influence
Since the musical episode of Buffy aired, several other series have worked musical format into episodes, including Scrubs, ("My Musical") in 2007, Grey's Anatomy ("Song Beneath the Song") in 2011, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, ("Mayhem of the Music Meister!") in 2009, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ("Subspace Rhapsody") in 2023. The musical television episode was declared a genre, a gimmick, according to Mary Williams at Salon.com, for series that had run out of interesting story lines and characters. Both Williams and Margaret Lyons at New York magazine, however, declared "Once More, with Feeling" the "gold standard" for musical episodes. Despite this, Joss Whedon recognized the influence "Once More, with Feeling" has had on other shows, but denied that it was primarily responsible for the rise in musical television episodes or series such as Glee, citing the popularity of High School Musical instead. Director John McPhail cited "Once More, with Feeling" as an influence on his film Anna and the Apocalypse (2018).
## Public showings
Buffy the Vampire Slayer developed an enthusiastic fan following while it aired. Following its series finale, fans continued their appreciation in theater showings of "Once More, with Feeling" where attendees are encouraged to dress like the show's characters, sing along to the musical numbers, and otherwise interact in the style of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Clinton McClung, a New York-based film programmer, got the idea for a sing-along from audience-participation showings of The Sound of Music in 2003. The next year, he began putting on sing-alongs to "Once More, with Feeling" in Boston's Coolidge Corner Theater, which became so popular that it went on the road. Audience members received props to use during key scenes, as well as directions (for example, to yell "Shut up, Dawn!" at Buffy's younger sister), and a live cast performed the episode alongside the screen.
Buffy sing-alongs received growing media attention as they spread. At the 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival, a special screening and sing-along was held that featured both Marti Noxon and Joss Whedon giving brief speeches to the audience. In October 2007, after a dispute with the Screen Actors Guild over unpaid residuals, 20th Century Fox pulled the licensing for public screenings of "Once More, with Feeling", effectively ending official Buffy sing-alongs. Whedon called the cancellation "hugely depressing" and attempted to influence the studio to allow future showings.
## See also
- Adam Shankman, choreographer for the episode
- "The Bitter Suite", the 1998 musical episode of Xena: Warrior Princess
- Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, 2008 miniseries
- Mayhem of the Music Meister!, a 2009 episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold with a similar premise
- "Dream On", 2010 Glee'' episode directed by Joss Whedon
## Explanatory notes
## General and cited references
|
21,745,871 |
Vernon Sturdee
| 1,136,876,879 |
Former Australian Chief of the General Staff
|
[
"1890 births",
"1966 deaths",
"20th-century Australian engineers",
"Australian Army personnel of World War II",
"Australian Companions of the Distinguished Service Order",
"Australian Companions of the Order of the Bath",
"Australian Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire",
"Australian generals",
"Australian military personnel of World War I",
"Australian people of English descent",
"Chiefs of Army (Australia)",
"Graduates of the Royal College of Defence Studies",
"Graduates of the Staff College, Quetta",
"Military personnel from Melbourne",
"People educated at Melbourne Grammar School",
"People from Frankston, Victoria"
] |
Lieutenant General Sir Vernon Ashton Hobart Sturdee, KBE, CB, DSO (16 April 1890 – 25 May 1966) was an Australian Army commander who served two terms as Chief of the General Staff. A regular officer of the Royal Australian Engineers who joined the Militia in 1908, he was one of the original Anzacs during the First World War, participating in the landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. In the campaign that followed, he commanded the 5th Field Company, before going on to lead the 8th Field Company and the 4th Pioneer Battalion on the Western Front. In 1918 he was seconded to General Headquarters (GHQ) British Expeditionary Force as a staff officer.
Promotion was stagnant between the wars, and Sturdee remained at his wartime rank of lieutenant colonel until 1935. He served in a series of staff posts, and attended the Staff College at Quetta in British India and the Imperial Defence College in Britain. Like other regular officers, he had little faith in the government's "Singapore strategy", and warned that the Army would have to face an effective and well-equipped Japanese opponent.
Ranked colonel at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Sturdee was raised to lieutenant general in 1940 and became Chief of the General Staff. He proceeded to conduct a doomed defence of the islands to the north of Australia against the advancing Japanese forces. In 1942, he successfully advised the government to divert the Second Australian Imperial Force troops returning from the Middle East to Australia. He then became head of the Australian Military Mission to Washington, D.C., where he represented Australia before the Combined Chiefs of Staff. As commander of the First Army in New Guinea in 1944–45, Sturdee directed the fighting at Aitape, and on New Britain and Bougainville. He was charged with destroying the enemy when opportunity presented itself, but had to do so with limited resources, and without committing his troops to battles that were beyond their strength.
When the war ended, Sturdee took the surrender of Japanese forces in the Rabaul area. As one of the Army's most senior officers, he succeeded General Sir Thomas Blamey as Commander in Chief of the Australian Military Forces in December 1945. He became the Chief of the General Staff a second time in 1946, serving in the post until his retirement in 1950. During this term, he had to demobilise the wartime Army while fielding and supporting the Australian contingent of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan. He developed a structure for the post-war Army that included regular combat formations. As a result, the Australian Regular Army was formed, laying the foundations for the service as it exists today.
## Education and early life
Vernon Ashton Hobart Sturdee was born in Frankston, Victoria, on 16 April 1890, the son of Alfred Hobart Sturdee and his wife Laura Isabell, née Merrett. Alfred Sturdee, a medical practitioner from England, came from a prominent naval family and was the brother of Doveton Sturdee, who later became an admiral of the fleet. Alfred emigrated to Australia in the 1880s, travelling as a ship's doctor. He served in the Boer War, where he was mentioned in despatches after he rode under fire to a donga near the enemy's position to aid wounded men. Re-enlisting in the Australian Army Medical Corps as a captain in January 1905, he was promoted to major in August 1908 and lieutenant colonel in December 1912. He later commanded the 2nd Field Ambulance at Gallipoli and, with the rank of colonel, was Assistant Director of Medical Services of the 1st Division on the Western Front. He received three more mentions in despatches and was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George. His Australian-born wife Laura, known as Lil, was the sister of Charles Merrett, a prominent businessman and Militia officer. Her half-brother, Colonel Harry Perrin, was another Militia officer.
Vernon Sturdee was educated at Melbourne Grammar School, before being apprenticed to an engineer at Jaques Brothers, Richmond, Victoria. Commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, the Militia's engineer component, on 19 October 1908, he was promoted to lieutenant in the Royal Australian Engineers, as the permanent component was then known, on 1 February 1911. He married Edith Georgina Robins on 4 February 1913 at St Luke's Church of England, North Fitzroy, Melbourne.
## First World War
### Gallipoli
Sturdee joined the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 25 August 1914 with the rank of lieutenant. He was promoted to captain on 18 October, and appointed adjutant of the 1st Division Engineers. He embarked from Melbourne for Egypt on the former P&O ocean liner RMS Orvieto on 21 October 1914. He participated in the landing at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915, disembarking from the transport SS Minnewaska before 9:00. His duties included supervising the engineer stores park on the beach at Anzac Cove, as well as the construction of jam tin grenades. He was evacuated twice for hospital treatment for enteric fever and for serious damage to his stomach lining from internal burns as a result of too much "Condy's crystals" disinfectant being put into drinking water. As a result, he was to suffer stomach problems for the rest of his life. In July, Sturdee contracted influenza and was evacuated from Anzac Cove.
Sturdee was promoted to major on 28 August 1915, and in September assumed command of the 5th Field Company, a unit raised in Egypt to support the newly formed 2nd Division. From then until the end of the campaign, he was responsible for all engineering and mining work at Steele's, Quinn's and Courtney's Posts, three of the northernmost and most dangerous and exposed parts of the line. He departed Anzac Cove for the last time on 17 December 1915, two days before the final evacuation.
### Western Front
On returning to Egypt after the evacuation of Anzac, Sturdee assumed responsibility for the provision of hutting at the AIF reinforcement camp at Tel el Kebir. There was already another 5th Field Company in Egypt, which had been raised in Australia. Accordingly, Sturdee's 5th Field Company was renumbered 8th, and assigned to the 5th Division when it was formed in February 1916. This move gave the new division an experienced field company, but at the expense of items of the company's mail going to France for a time and arriving back in Egypt marked "Not Fifth, try Eighth."
The 5th Division moved to France in June 1916, where it participated in the disastrous Battle of Fromelles in July. During the action, Sturdee's 8th Field Company supported the 8th Infantry Brigade. A trench dug by the former facilitated the latter's withdrawal across no man's land. For his service at Gallipoli and Fromelles, he was mentioned in despatches, and awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Heavy losses in the fighting at Fromelles prevented the 5th Division from participating in the Battle of the Somme. To free up another division to participate, II ANZAC Corps organised "Franks Force" to take over a divisional frontage in the Houplines sector, and Sturdee became its Commander Royal Engineers (CRE). When the 5th Division finally moved to the Somme sector in November, he became CRE in charge of the road from Albert to Montauban.
On 13 February 1917, Sturdee was appointed to command the 4th Pioneer Battalion, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Pioneer battalions were organised as infantry but contained a high percentage of tradesmen and were employed on construction tasks under engineer supervision. Over the next nine months the 4th Pioneer Battalion maintained roads, built camps, laid cables and dug trenches and dugouts. By 1917, the Australian government was pushing strongly for British Army officers holding Australian commands and staff posts to be replaced by Australians. As part of this "Australianisation" of the Australian Corps, Sturdee became CRE of the 5th Division on 25 November 1917, replacing a British Army officer. On 27 March 1918, Sturdee was seconded to General Headquarters (GHQ) British Expeditionary Force as a staff officer, remaining there until 22 October 1918. This provided a rare opportunity, for an Australian officer, of observing the workings of a major headquarters engaged in active operations. For his service on the Western Front, Sturdee was mentioned in despatches a second time, and appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his work at GHQ.
## Between the wars
Sturdee embarked for Australia on 16 November 1918, and his AIF appointment was terminated on 14 March 1919. He was entitled to his AIF rank of lieutenant colonel as an honorary rank, but his substantive rank was still only that of a captain. He was given the brevet rank of lieutenant colonel on 1 January 1920, but this did not become substantive until 1 April 1932. Sturdee initially served as Senior Engineer Officer on the staff of the 3rd Military District at Victoria Barracks, Melbourne. In 1921, he attended the Staff College at Quetta in British India. He was an instructor in military engineering and surveying at the Royal Military College, Duntroon from 16 February to 31 December 1924, before returning to Melbourne to serve on the staff of the 4th Division until 26 March 1929. Posted to the United Kingdom, he served at the War Office and attended the Imperial Defence College in 1931. From 1 January 1931 to 31 December 1932, he was the military representative at the High Commission of Australia in London.
Sturdee was Director of Military Operations and Intelligence at Army Headquarters in Melbourne from 14 February 1933 to 1 March 1938, a period "when the Army was at rock bottom", and then served as Director of Staff Duties until 12 October 1938. He was given the brevet rank of colonel on 1 July 1935; this became temporary on 1 July 1936 and finally substantive on 1 July 1937, over twenty years after he had become a lieutenant colonel in the AIF. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honours in 1939 for his services on the Army Headquarters staff.
Like his predecessor as Director of Military Operations and Intelligence, Colonel John Lavarack, and many other officers, Sturdee had little faith in the government's "Singapore strategy", which aimed to deter Japanese aggression through the presence of a powerful British fleet based at Singapore. In 1933, Sturdee told senior officers that the Japanese
> would all be regulars, fully trained and equipped for the operations, and fanatics who like dying in battle, whilst our troops would consist mainly of civilians hastily thrown together on mobilisation with very little training, short of artillery and possibly of gun ammunition.
## Second World War
### Defence of Australia
In 1939, the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Ernest Squires, implemented a reorganisation of the Army in which the old military districts were replaced by larger commands led by lieutenant generals. On 13 October 1939, Sturdee was promoted from colonel to lieutenant general and assumed control of the new Eastern Command. He had to supervise the raising, training and equipping of the new Second Australian Imperial Force units being formed in New South Wales, as well as the now-conscript Militia.
On 1 July 1940, Sturdee accepted a demotion to major general to become the commander of Second AIF's newly raised 8th Division, receiving the Second AIF serial number NX35000. His period in this command was brief. On 13 August 1940, the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Brudenell White, was killed in the Canberra air disaster. Sturdee was restored to his rank of lieutenant general and appointed Chief of the General Staff. As such, he was responsible for the training and maintenance of the AIF in the Middle East and the Far East—although not their operational control—and for the administration and training of the Militia.
As the prospect of war with Japan became more likely, so also did the need to make appropriate arrangements for leading the defence of Australia. In 1935, Lavarack had recommended that in the event of war, the Military Board be abolished and its powers vested in a Commander-in-chief. In April 1941, the Minister for the Army, Percy Spender, recommended that this now be done and Sturdee become Commander in Chief of the Australian Military Forces. Instead, the government elected to adopt the British system, in which the Military Board (or Army Council as it was called there) continued to operate, with a separate GOC Home Forces. On 5 August 1941, Major General Sir Iven Mackay was appointed to this newly created post. The idea of a Commander in Chief did not go away and editorials in the Sunday Telegraph and The Sydney Morning Herald advocated the appointment.
### East Indies campaign
Sturdee attempted to defend the islands to the north of Australia to satisfy an allied agreement made during the second Four-Power Staff Conference at Singapore on 22 February 1941. With only one AIF infantry brigade available, the 23rd, he could only afford to protect the islands most strategically important to the defence of Australia. He sent Gull Force centred on the 2/21st Infantry Battalion to Ambon, Lark Force centred on the 2/22nd to Rabaul, and Sparrow Force centred on the 2/40th Infantry Battalion with 2/2nd Independent Company to Timor.
Sturdee knew that their prospects were slim at best but the was required to secure Dutch support for the defence of the region. He expected them "to put up the best possible defence" with what resources they had, and hopefully slow the Japanese advance to allow time for reinforcements to arrive. When there were doubts about the morale of one commander, Sturdee replaced him with a staff officer from Army Headquarters who volunteered for the position despite being well aware of the odds. All the garrisons were overrun after a spirited defence, except for the 2/2nd Independent Company, which managed to hold on in East Timor. After the war Sturdee described the situation thus:
> I realised at the time [in 1941–42] that these forces [on Rabaul,Timor and Ambon] would be swallowed up ... but these garrisons were the smallest self-contained units then in existence. My only regret now looking back was that we didn't have more knowledge of the value of Independent Companies, at that time they were only in the hatching stage and their value unknown. I am now certain that they would have been the answer, and at no time did I consider that additional troops and arms should be sent to these potentially beleaguered garrisons, as it would only put more [men] in the [prisoner-of-war] bag.
Commenting on Sturdee's forward defence strategy after the war, Colonel Eustace Graham Keogh wrote:
> Taking the prevailing circumstances into full account, it is hard to justify the detachments at Ambon and Rabaul. Neither place was a vital link in the defences or communications. Certainly it was highly desirable to deny the enemy access to them, but once command of the sea had been lost any forces stationed at those places could not be supported until the navy situation had been restored. In neither case was the force anything like strong enough to survive for the required length of time, or even to impose delay on the powerful forces the enemy was employing. It is true that the arrangements for the despatch of these forces were made before Japan struck, before the strength of the blows she would deliver had been appreciated. But after her probable course of action and her methods had been amply demonstrated there was still time to reconsider the situation. Despite this demonstration, it would appear that Army Headquarters persisted in believing that these lone battalions could impose delay on the enemy. Consequently the maxim, enunciated it is believed by one of the early Pharaohs, operated in full– "Detachments beyond effective supporting distance usually get their heads cut off." There are, of course, occasions when something worthwhile can be gained by the sacrifice of a detachment. This was not one of them.
In a 2010 PhD thesis on Ambon, David Evans attacked Sturdee as incompetent. A more balanced appraisal was written by Michael Evans in 2000:
> At this time, Sturdee and his colleagues were faced with critical decisions in the face of a swift and unrelenting tide of Japanese success—a success that seemed to herald an imminent invasion of Australia. Under these circumstances, that the Chiefs of Staff sought, at high cost, to keep the Japanese military juggernaut as far as possible from Australian soil should be no great surprise. The Chiefs of Staff recommended a change of strategy only when there was irrefutable evidence of military failure to place before the War Cabinet. Such a stance was consistent with both the turbulent political climate in Australia and the realities of coalition warfare that prevailed in early 1942... If there is a villain in the tragedy of Ambon in 1942, it is a "ghost in the machine' that can be found in the systemic crisis of Australian defence in 1941–42—a crisis caused by twenty years of neglect of defence by a succession of governments and by the electorate they served."
In February 1942, on advice from Lavarack that the Dutch East Indies would soon fall, Sturdee urged the Australian government that the 17,800 troops returning from the Middle East, originally bound for Java, be diverted to Australia. Sturdee contended that Java could not be held, and that Allied resources should instead be concentrated in an area from which an offensive could be launched. The best place for this, he argued, was Australia. When Prime Minister John Curtin backed his Chief of the General Staff, it brought him into conflict with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who suggested that the AIF be diverted to Burma. In the end, Curtin won his point, and subsequent events vindicated Sturdee's appreciation of the situation. Official historian Lionel Wigmore concluded:
> It is now evident that the 7th Division would have arrived only in time to help in the extraction from Pegu and to take part in the long retreat to India. In that event it could not have been returned to Australia, rested and sent to New Guinea in time to perform the crucial role it was to carry out in the defeat of the Japanese offensive which would open there in July 1942. The Allied cause therefore was well served in sound judgement and solid persistence of General Sturdee who maintained his advice against that of the Chiefs of Staff in London and Washington.
### Island campaigns
In March 1942, the Military Board was abolished and General Sir Thomas Blamey was appointed Commander in Chief. Blamey decided that after the hectic events of the previous months, Sturdee needed a rest and appointed him as Head of the Australian Military Mission to Washington, D.C., where the war's strategy was now being decided. Sturdee accepted on condition that after a year's duty in Washington he would be appointed to an important command. In Washington, Sturdee represented Australia before the Combined Chiefs of Staff and managed to obtain the right of direct access to the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General George Marshall. For his services as Chief of the General Staff, Sturdee was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 1 January 1943.
Sturdee returned to Australia and assumed command of the First Army on 1 March 1944. His headquarters was initially located in Queensland, but on 2 October 1944 it commenced operations in Lae, and Sturdee assumed command of the troops in New Guinea. These included Lieutenant General Stanley Savige's II Corps, with its headquarters at Torokina on Bougainville; Major General Alan Ramsay's 5th Division on New Britain; Major General Jack Stevens' 6th Division at Aitape; and the 8th Infantry Brigade west of Madang. On 18 October, Blamey issued an operational instruction that defined the role of the First Army: "by offensive action to destroy enemy resistance as opportunity offers without committing major forces."
Sturdee was concerned by this order's ambiguity and sought clarification from Blamey. The Commander in Chief responded by stating that "my conception is that action must be of a gradual nature" involving the use of patrols to determine Japanese strengths and positions before large offensives were undertaken. The situation on New Britain was straightforward enough; the enemy was known to be stronger than the Australian forces there—although it was not realised just how much stronger—and so the best that could be done was to eliminate small numbers of Japanese troops by aggressive patrolling. At Aitape, Stevens was tasked on the one hand with pushing the Japanese back far enough to protect the airfields; but on the other, with not allowing the 6th Division to become heavily engaged since it might be required for use elsewhere. On Bougainville, Savige had the strength and ability to conduct a major campaign, but Blamey counselled caution.
Juggling several contradictory requirements, Sturdee had to conduct three widely separated campaigns, the Aitape–Wewak campaign, the New Britain campaign and the Bougainville Campaign, and do so with limited resources. Shipping, which was controlled by General Douglas MacArthur's GHQ South West Pacific Area, was a source of "continual anxiety". On 18 July 1945, Sturdee wrote to Savige:
> We are on rather a hair trigger with operations in Bougainville and in 6 Division area in view of the political hostility of the Opposition and the Press criticism of the policy of operations being followed in these areas. The general policy is out of our hands, but we must conduct our operations in the spirit of the role given us by C. in C. [Blamey], the main essence of which is that we should attain our object with a minimum of Australian casualties. We have in no way been pressed on the time factor and to date have managed to defeat the Japs with very reasonable casualties considering the number of the Japs that have been eliminated.
Sturdee's operations were effective. On Bougainville, at a cost of 516 Australian dead and 1,572 wounded, Savige's troops had occupied much of the island and killed 8,500 Japanese; another 9,800 died from malnutrition and disease. On New Britain, where 74 Australians died and 140 were wounded, the heavily outnumbered 5th Division had overrun central New Britain. Meanwhile, the 6th Division at Aitape and Wewak had lost 442 dead and 1,141 wounded while clearing the Japanese from the coast and driving them into the mountains, killing 9,000 and taking 269 prisoners.
On 6 September 1945, Sturdee received the surrender of Japanese forces in the First Army area from General Hitoshi Imamura, the commander of the Japanese Eighth Area Army, and Admiral Jinichi Kusaka, the commander of the South East Area Fleet, in a ceremony held on the deck of the British aircraft carrier HMS Glory at Rabaul. The two Japanese swords handed over in the surrender ceremony, together with the sword worn by Sturdee, which was his father's, were presented to the Australian War Memorial by Lady Sturdee in 1982. For his service in the final campaigns, Blamey recommended Sturdee for a knighthood, but this was reduced to a third mention in despatches.
## Later life
In November 1945, the Minister for the Army, Frank Forde, informed Blamey that the government had decided to re-establish the Military Board and he should therefore vacate his office. Sturdee became acting Commander in Chief on 1 December 1945. On 1 March 1946, the post of Commander in Chief was abolished and Sturdee became Chief of the General Staff again. There was much work to be done; the wartime Army had a strength of 383,000 in August 1945, of whom 177,000 were serving outside Australia.
These troops had to be demobilised, but what should replace the wartime Army had not yet been determined. Sturdee and his Vice Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Sydney Rowell, had to develop an appropriate structure. The proposal submitted to Cabinet called for national service, a regular army of 33,000 and reserves of 42,000, but the government baulked at the £20m per annum price tag. A smaller force of 19,000 regulars and 50,000 reservists at a cost of £12.5m per annum was finally approved in 1947. Conditions of service were also overhauled.
At the same time, the Army had to handle huge stockpiles of equipment, stores and supplies. Some were far in excess of the Army's needs and had to be disposed of. Hospitals still had to be run, although some were transferred to the Department of Repatriation. The Army had to maintain its schools and training establishments. Moreover, the Army had to field and maintain part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan. Over next fifty years, operations would be conducted by the new Australian Regular Army that Sturdee created, rather than the Militia or specially enlisted expeditionary forces.
Sturdee retired on 17 April 1950. In recognition of his services, he was created a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire on 1 January 1951. In retirement, he continued to live in Kooyong, Melbourne. He became a director of the Australian arm of Standard Telephones and Cables and was honorary colonel of the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers from 1951 to 1956. The Army named the Landing Ship Medium Vernon Sturdee after him. He died on 25 May 1966 at the Repatriation General Hospital, Heidelberg. He was accorded a funeral with full military honours, and cremated. Lieutenant General Sir Edmund Herring, a boyhood friend from Melbourne Grammar, was principal pall bearer. Sturdee was survived by his wife, their daughter and one of their two sons. Before he died, he burned all his private papers. "I have done the job," he said. "It is over."
|
5,651,162 |
Honan Chapel
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Catholic church at University College Cork, Ireland
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[
"20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Ireland",
"20th-century churches in the Republic of Ireland",
"Harry Clarke",
"Roman Catholic churches completed in 1916",
"Roman Catholic churches in Cork (city)",
"Romanesque Revival architecture in Ireland",
"Romanesque Revival church buildings",
"University College Cork",
"University and college chapels"
] |
The Honan Chapel (Irish: Séipéal Uí Eonáin, formally Saint Finbarr's Collegiate Chapel and The Honan Hostel Chapel) is a small Catholic church built in the Hiberno-Romanesque revival style on the grounds of University College Cork, Ireland. Designed in 1914, the building was completed in 1916 and furnished by 1917. Its architecture and fittings are representative of the Celtic Revival movement and evoke the Insular art style prevalent in Ireland and Britain between the 7th and 12th centuries.
Its construction was initiated and supervised by the Dublin solicitor John O'Connell, a leading member of the Celtic Revival and Arts and Crafts movements. He was funded by Isabella Honan (1861–1913), the last member of a wealthy Cork family, who made a significant donation towards the construction of the chapel. O'Connell oversaw both the design and the commissioning of its building and furnishings. He guided the architect James F. McMullen, the builders John Sisk and Sons, and the craftsmen and artists involved in its artwork.
The Honan Chapel is known for its interior which is designed and fitted in a traditional Irish style, but with an appreciation of contemporary trends in international art. Its furnishings include a mosaic flooring, altar plate, metalwork and enamels, liturgical textiles and sanctuary furnishings, and especially its nineteen stained glass windows. Of these, fifteen depict Irish saints, the remainder show Jesus, Mary, St. Joseph and St. John. Eleven were designed and installed by Harry Clarke, while the other eight are by A. E. Child, Catherine O'Brien and Ethel Rhind of An Túr Gloine cooperative studio. In 1986, the sculptor Imogen Stuart was commissioned to oversee the installation of a new altar and other carvings, furnishings and fittings.
## Background and construction
Population growth and urbanisation in early 20th-century Ireland led to the development of a number of suburbs around Cork, which necessitated the building of churches to serve these new areas; the Honan Chapel was the first church to be built in Cork in the new century. Its genesis was rooted in a longstanding educational disagreement between the Protestant and Catholic hierarchies. Queen's College Cork (today known as University College Cork, or UCC) was incorporated in 1845 as part of a nationwide series of new universities known as the Queen's Colleges. Although the Colleges were intended to be non-denominational, the lack of provision for any religious instruction made them unacceptable to the Irish Catholic bishops, who strongly discouraged Catholics from attending, and in 1851 founded the Catholic University of Ireland. In 1911, the Queen's Colleges ceased as legal entities. The Irish Universities Act 1908 forbade government funding for any "church, chapel, or other place of religious worship or observance"; thus any centre for Catholic students would have to be built with private funding.
Isabella Honan (born Isabella Cunningham in 1861) was the sister-in-law of Robert Honan, the last male heir of a wealthy Catholic family of butter merchants. Robert and his brother Matthew had both died by 1909, and Robert had left his estate to Isabella. When she died in 1913, she left £40,000 (equivalent to £ in 2019) to the city of Cork, including £10,000 which her executor, a Dublin solicitor John O'Connell, was instructed to use to establish a centre of worship for Catholic students in UCC, along with other charitable and educational purposes. These monies became known as the Honan Fund. O'Connell used part of the funds to provide scholarships for Catholic students at UCC and acquired the site of St. Anthony's Hall (also known as Berkeley Hall) from the Franciscan order to develop an accommodation block for male Catholic students known as the Honan Hostel.
The Honan Chapel was one of the first modern Irish churches conceived with a thematic design not directed by the clergy. O'Connell entered the priesthood in 1929, after the death of his wife. He was an active member of the Celtic Revival movement, a member of both the Irish Arts and Crafts Committees and the Royal Irish Academy, a fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, and chairman of the Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland in 1917. He was deeply interested in ecclesiastical archaeology and sought to construct a chapel that was "something more than merely sufficient ... a church designed and fashioned on the same lines and on the same plan as those which their forefathers had built for their priests and missioners all over Ireland nearly a thousand years ago." He disliked the contemporary, international approach to church building – which he described as "machine made" – preferring a localised and uniquely Irish approach to style and form, which he sought from the most skilled local craftsmen available. He wanted work on the chapel to be "carried out in Cork, by Cork labour and with materials obtained from the City or County of Cork".
O'Connell was assisted in the project by the university president, Sir Bertram Windle. The art historian Virginia Teehan describes O'Connell and Windle as not only devout Catholics, but especially single-minded, creative and energetic. O'Connell employed the firm of Cork architects James Finbarre McMullen and Associates. The building's plans were drawn up in 1914. The contractor John Sisk, also from Cork, was the principal builder and undertook the work at a cost of £8,000. The foundation stone, laid on 18 May 1915 by Thomas A. O'Callaghan D.D., Bishop of Cork, records that the chapel was built "by the charity of Isabella Honan for the scholars and students of Munster". It was consecrated on 5 November 1916 and dedicated to Saint Finbarr (also spelled as Finbar, Finnbarr, Finnbar, or Fin Barre), patron saint of Cork and of the Diocese of Cork, on grounds believed to be close to an early Christian monastic site founded by the saint.
## Architecture
O'Connell was mainly inspired by medieval architecture, and the Honan Chapel's architectural style is Hiberno-Romanesque revival. Compared to the decorative and sculpted elements of the interior, its architecture, austere and modest, was described by architectural historian and conservationist Frank Keohane in 2020 as "a little too commonplace and formulaic". The chapel is located on a hillside overlooking the valley of the River Lee, near a site thought to contain one of Finbarr's original churches. The western entrance is approached through double-hinged wrought iron gates. Its façade was influenced by the 12th-century St. Cronan's Church, Roscrea and features an arcade and gabled wall. The side walls project slightly beyond the gables to form antae, described by Keohane as "surmounted by improbable pinnacles...and probably better regarded as clasping buttresses".
The chapel's interior has a simple layout consisting of a main entrance, a six-bay nave, and a two-bay square chancel. It does not contain either lateral aisles or transepts. The oblong nave measures 72 by 28 feet (22 by 8.5 m). Above, a timber barrel vaulted ceiling ends at the chancel; this is 26 by 18 feet (7.9 by 5.5 m). The nave lacks shrines where worshippers normally light candles or place flowers near devotional images; in this sense, it is similar to a Protestant church. The plain, round bell tower is based on the 12th-century Irish round tower on Teampull Finghin (Fineen's church) in Clonmacnoise, County Offaly.
The mouldings around the tops of the five arches on the west façade are carved with lozenge and pellet decoration. The doorway at one point had an iron grille which has since been removed. It is capped by three limestone ribbed vaults, supported by capitals carrying reliefs of the heads of six Munster saints: Finbarr of Cork, Coleman of Cloyne; Gobnait of Ballyvourney; Brendan of Kerry, Declán of Ardmore and Íte of Killeedy. The reliefs were sculpted by Henry Emery, assisted by students at the nearby Cork School of Art. The tympanum over the door was designed by the sculptor Oliver Sheppard and is dominated by the figure of St. Finbarr, dressed in bishop's vestments.
The timber doors hang on wrought iron strapwork hinges designed by the architect William Scott in (according to the writer Paul Larmour) a "Celticized art nouveau" style. The sacristy is on the north side (left, looking towards the altar) under the bell tower. The building is listed as a protected structure under Section 51 of the Irish Planning and Development Act.
### Altar
The original altar table was built from a slab of local limestone, chosen as a reaction against the ornately carved Italian marble then in fashion with church builders. It contained silver ornaments fitted by the Dublin gold and silversmith Edmond Johnson and William Egan and Sons of St Patrick's Street, Cork. The altar was positioned on a five-legged table, each leg of which was embedded with an Irish crucifix formed from simple geometric designs, including zig-zag patterns in lozenge and saltire, continuous dots and chevrons.
The altar was replaced in 1986 when the chapel was considered to contravene the requirements of the Second Vatican Council in several ways: it was based on medieval churches and the old rites; it was built with a large spatial divide between the nave and chancel; and the altar was positioned at the very back of the chancel with the priest facing away from the congregation. That year, the chapel authorities commissioned the architect Richard Hurley to redesign elements of its fixtures. He in turn employed the German-Irish sculptor Imogen Stuart, aided by John and Teresa Murphy, to undertake a redevelopment, including replacement of the altar, pulpit, ceremonial chairs and baptismal font.
Stuart works with other materials but favours wooden carvings, as exemplified by those at the front of the Honan altar. Her replacement altar, constructed in oak, depicts two of the Evangelists. Being movable, it allowed clergy and attendants to be closer to the congregation. Although the altar was first intended for the centre of the chancel at the focal point of the mosaic floor, this arrangement proved to be too far back and was impractical during ceremonies.
### Tabernacle
The tabernacle is positioned at the far end of the chancel and is the chapel's focal point. It is formed from carved stone and shaped in a manner reminiscent of the arched roofs and entrances of medieval Irish churches. Its upper, triangular panel is set in the gable of the "entrance" and shows the Trinity of God the Father, Jesus crucified, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove; around them, two angels carry the sun, moon and other symbols of creation.
The lower, rectangular panel represents the doorway and is set against a background of branches and leaves attached in silver-gilt; it shows the Lamb of God standing on a brightly coloured altar decorated with three-ringed crosses and two angels acting as servers kneeling before it. The dove is surrounded by what Teehan describes as "the deep blue void of Heaven". Here, he is accompanied by flights of angels, carrying instruments of the Passion. The enamel embellishments are by the Irish craftsman and stained glass specialist Oswald Reeves and described by Teehan as the best of his work.
### Mosaic floor
The mosaic flooring was designed and installed by the UK-based artist Ludwig Oppenheimer. It contains symbols of the zodiac, images based on the mythological "River of Life", and depictions of flora, fauna and river scenes. These designs celebrate the Genesis creation narrative and illustrate passages from the Old Testament including the "Benedicite" (also known as "A Song of Creation") from the Book of Daniel, which was sung during the office of lauds on Sundays and feast days. The pattern at the entrance contains a verse from Psalm 148 ("Praise to the Lord from Creation").
The floor consists of four sections. The main entrance on the west side is dominated by a sunburst and stars surrounded by signs of the zodiac, while the imagery on the aisle depicts the head of a beast, his jaws open to form a river in which fish swim toward the chancel. The east side of the nave shows a large coiled sea creature which is part-serpent, part dragon and part whale. There are stags, deer, sheep and other animals, drinking from a river in a forest, while exotic birds fly around them. The section inside the chancel shows a globe and symbols of creation, including animals, plants and imagery of planets. The four sections are unified by interlaced Celtic and zoomorphic border designs.
The representations of the sun and night stars at the entrance signify both the new day and the resurrection, as Jesus is traditionally believed to have risen at dawn. Reflecting 12th-century Christian art, the presence of signs of the zodiac symbolises God's dominion over time. The beast's head in the aisle contains a series of tripartite motifs representing the Trinity: spirals, trefoil knots and interlace containing three saltire crosses. The sea creature at the east end of the nave is mentioned in the verse on the floor by the entrance dracones et omnes abyssi ("Dragons and all the depths"); alongside are the words cete et omnia quae moventur in aquis ("whales and all that move in the water"), which in medieval exegesis conjured images of death and reference the Biblical story of Jonah.
The colouring on the floor by and inside the chancel is more subdued and restrained. The imagery depicts a paradise which can be interpreted both as the Garden of Eden and the eternal paradise promised at the end of time. The imagery includes the seasons, the classical elements and symbols of the Resurrection. A similar representation on a 5th-century sarcophagus in the Lateran Museum shows Jonah swimming towards the open jaws of a whale with horned ears and a long, coiled tail. In both examples the imagery emphasises how Jesus overcame death. This connection is further made by the inclusion of trees in reference to the tree of life, which in mythology grows in paradise and represents Christ, and the surrounding animals at rest, presented as symbols of Christ's followers.
## Stained glass windows
O'Connell planned that Sarah Purser's studio, An Túr Gloine, at that time the leading proponent in the production of stained glass in Ireland, would provide all of the windows for the chapel. However, he also commissioned designs by the emerging stained glass artist Harry Clarke, and eventually set him and Purser's studio in competition against each other.
When O'Connell viewed Clarke's cartoon for the Brigid window, he commissioned him to produce five for the chapel. Later, having viewed the design for St Gobnait, he requested a further six from him. Although Purser was upset with the younger artist being awarded the majority of windows, An Túr Gloine ended up producing the original eight planned for them.
Both studios were asked to depict Gaelic saints from the early-medieval, so-called "golden age", of Christianity in Ireland. The nineteen stained glass windows in the chapel are: Our Lord (or "Christ in Majesty") (Child), Mary as Our Lady of Sorrows (Clarke), St. John (O'Brien) and St. Joseph (Clarke). To the right of the chancel looking down are: St. Finbarr (Clarke), St. Albert (Clarke), St. Declan (Clarke), St Ailbe (Child), St Fauchtna (Child) and St Munchin (O'Brien). To the left are: St Ita (Clarke), St Coleman (Child), St. Brendan (Clarke), St Gobnait (Clarke), St Flannan (O'Brien) and St Carthage (Rhind). The windows in the west gable are all by Clarke and represent St Patrick, St Brigid and St Columcille. Six are on each side of the nave; four are within the chancel and three are above the west gable. Eleven were designed by Harry Clarke, and eight by An Túr Gloine. Of the latter, four are by Child, three by Catherine O'Brien, and one by Ethel Rhind. Four windows depict female saints, each in a deep royal blue colour scheme.
Although the windows from each studio contain comparable imagery, their styles differ greatly. Clarke's are highly detailed while An Túr Gloine's are deliberately simple. Both studios displayed their cartoons in Dublin before they were transferred to glass and installed in Cork; both shows were highly praised, and critics debated which group was superior. Following the Honan's opening, the art historian and collector Thomas Bodkin wrote that "nothing like Mr Clarke's windows had been seen before in Ireland" and praised their "sustained magnificence of colour ... intricate drawing [and] lavish and mysterious symbolism".
### Harry Clarke
Clarke was 21 years old and working in his father's studio when commissioned by O'Connell. The Honan windows became his first works for a public space and went on to establish his reputation as a significant international artist. A contemporary reviewer, comparing the windows to French medieval glass, including those in the Gothic royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, described them as "remarkable" and a "distinct advance on anything which has been heretofore done in Ireland in stained glass". Clarke's windows are all single-light (that have just one opening, or vertical panel), each consisting of nine separate panels. They are decorated with simplified, often whimsical forms which are nevertheless highly stylised. The windows contain Celtic designs and motifs, as well as figures and incidents from the life of each saint. The most obvious Celtic embellishments are Mary's red hair and green halo, and Brendan's pampooties. The writer M. J. O'Kelly suggests they evoke "the spirit of the ancient Celt". His designs blend Catholic iconography with motifs from Celtic mythology in a style that draws heavily from Art Nouveau, in particular the darker, fin de siècle works of Gustav Klimt, Aubrey Beardsley and Egon Schiele. His blending of bold and dark colours has been praised, especially for the effects they achieve in morning light.
The designer Percy Oswald Reeves highlighted Clarkes' windows for their "beauty of ... colour, quality and treatment of each piece of glass". His individualised depictions of saints and merging of Catholic and early medieval imagery in a modern and individualised style was at odds with prevailing trends in Irish church art, which were still favouring soft, Raphael-like imagery. According to the scholar Luke Gibbons, Clarke's break "from episcopal interference ... enabled [him] to exploit vernacular traditions of local saints ... that belonged more to legend and folklore ... and whose popular appeal lay outside the highly centralised power of post-famine ultramontane Catholicism."
#### Patrick, Brigid and Columcille
Designed in 1915 and the first of Clarke's designs to be completed, the Triadis Thaumaturga windows of Ireland's three patron saints, Brigid, Saint Patrick and Columcille, are positioned on the west wall above the main entrance door. The Patrick window was the first of Clarke's windows. He worked on it for two months beginning on 18 March 1915, the day after his 21st birthday. The window, at 11.6 x 2.10 inches (29.5 x 5.3 cm) the largest in the chapel, is positioned on a base of five lilies, and the deep blue and green hues in the window were achieved using sheets of "antique" pot metal glass which were specially ordered from Chance Glasswork in Birmingham. Patrick wears a bishop's mitre and holds a crosier in one hand and a shamrock in the other. The upper panel shows the saint's birth, the lower panel his death. The borders are decorated with what O'Connell described as "symbols of his learning, his justice, his kingly dignity, of truth, of spiritual fire, of light overcoming darkness, of the serpent typical of the reptiles which he banished from Ireland".
Clark depicts Brigid in a blue cloak and robe, wearing a white headdress decorated with spirals. A large angel wearing a multi-coloured robe is positioned above her, while another four hover at her feet. She holds a representation of Kildare Cathedral, which she is said to have founded. A lamb alongside her represents faith, while the calf signifies innocence. The window was well received by critics when first shown in Clarke's studio in Dublin, and was a key element in his attaining the commission for the Honan windows.
Columcille, whose name translates as "Church Dove" (Colm Cille), lived in the 6th-century and is said to have founded Iona Abbey. Clarke shows him as accompanied by the dove O'Connell describes as his "daily adviser and companion", and the white horse said to have "comforted him in his last days". He is dressed in red, green and blue vestments, and holds a silver and gold mitre.
#### Brendan, Declan and Gobnait
The Brendan, Declan and Gobnait windows were completed as a group from August to October 1916. Following the Easter Rising that year, Clarke and his wife, Margaret Quincey, had left Dublin to move into a cottage in Mount Merrion, Blackrock. Clarke was under considerable pressure to complete and install the three windows in time for the chapel's 5 November consecration.
St Brendan's window illustrates episodes from the "Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot", first recorded c. 900 AD. Brendan wears a robe of blue, purple, greens and gold hues, and fishnet gloves. In his left hand he holds a paddle as a reference to his reputation as a seaman and voyager. In the lower panel a grotesque, claw-limbed Judas Iscariot appears, described by the writer Lucy Costigan as a "devilish figure surrounded by red and yellow flames", his lower body transformed into that of a goat. According to legend, Brendan found Judas abandoned on a rock in the ocean, condemned to be tormented for eternity by demons. In another traditional recounting, he arrives at an island referred to as the "Paradise of Birds", where birds sing psalms "as if with one voice" in praise of God; Clarke reflects this in the depictions of birds on the window's borders. As with several of Clarke's windows at Honan, Brendan's panels reflect the artist's taste for the macabre, especially in what Costigan describes as "the woefully metamorphosed fallen angels from the Paradise of Birds island" and "Brendan's sore-tried contemporaries" lining the window's borders.
Declán of Ardmore lived in the 5th century and is the patron saint of the Decii clan of County Waterford. The main image is dominated by mustard yellow hues, and shows Declán wearing a hooded cloak in red and gold. He holds a long cross and is surrounded by a patchwork of red, purple, gold and black glass shards. The upper panels detail his return to Ireland from Wales and show the saint carrying a bell, one of his attributes. According to legend, the bell, sent to Declán as a gift from heaven, was inadvertently left behind on a rock, but in response to his prayers, it miraculously reappeared in Ardmore. In the lower panel Declán, his assistant Ruamus, and followers are shown meeting Patrick on their return from Rome where Declán had studied and been consecrated bishop. Declán wears a red and gold cloak, and opposite him, Patrick is dressed in green, purple and fawn. On either side of them are Ruamus, holding the bell, and an unidentified attendant, holding a candle.
The Saint Gobnait window was described by the curator and writer Audrey Whitty as the "most remarkable" of the Honan windows and a high point of Clarke's career. While a number of the early Honan windows were completed by assistants working from his designs, Clarke designed the cartoon, the final window, oversaw the installation in Cork. It is located on the north side of the chapel, and depicts scenes from the life of Gobnait, a healer who established a convent in Ballyvourney and became the patron saint of bees.
In the main panel, Gobnait is shown in half-profile with a pale, thin and ascetic face and individualistic, unmistakably Irish features. She wears royal blue and purple robes adorned with lozenged jewels, a veil and a silver cloak. Her clothing draws on Léon Bakst's costume for Ida Rubinstein's 1911 performance of Le Martyre de saint Sébastien. Her right arm is outstretched in a pose influenced by Beardsley's facial and figurative types, Alesso Baldovinetti's c. 1465 Portrait of a Lady in Yellow, and portraits by Donatello. In the upper panel, the victims of a plague flee to her for sanctuary and protection. The image shows her drawing the sign of the cross on the road and marking a line around her church with her crosier. According to O'Connell, the line represents the point beyond which "the infection did not come, so that none of those who lived and served with her suffered from the plague".
Clarke and his assistant Kathleen Quigly completed the window's modello under considerable time pressure over five weeks in 1914, during the offer period for the commission. A monochrome study was made in pencil, pen, inks, and watercolour on board, before the cartoon, now at the Corning Museum of Glass, was completed and eventually transferred to glass. During this process, each panel was cut up, waxed and painted. This was an expensive process for the largely unknown artist, and was funded by both his father and his friend Austin Malloy.
The window is described by Teehan as "kaleidoscopically sumptuous" and "filled with a wealth of art historical allusions, often unexpected". According to the Irish novelist E. Œ. Somerville, it evokes late 19th-century decadence in its resemblance to a Beardsley–type female face, which "though horrible [is] so modern and conventionally unconventional ... [Clarke's] windows have a kind of hellish splendour."
#### Finbarr and Ita
The chapel is dedicated to Finbarr, patron saint of Cork. His window was completed in 1916 alongside Ita's, and is located on the north wall of the nave. Its colour scheme is dominated by a series of red hues. The upper panel depicts his parents who, by legend, were sentenced to death by burning after his mother refused to marry the chieftain Tyagerlach of Rathluin. The panel shows them rescued by the divine hurricane said to have put out the fire about to engulf them. Finbarr, like his mother in the upper panel, has blond hair. He wears a chasuble coloured in a variety of red and rosepink colours. He holds an ornately decorated crosier in his left hand, and on his right hand is the glove he is said to have worn continuously since the day he met with Christ, who, according to O'Connell "raised the kneeling saint by his right hand, after which it ever glowed with a celestial radiance which could not be obscured, and which was only to be borne if the hand were kept covered with a glove". In the lower register, Finbarr prays alongside bishop Maccuirp, under whom he studied in Macroom.
The little-known ascetic Íte of Killeedy (sometimes "The Brigid of Munster") was born as either Deirdre or Dorothy in the 6th century to a local chieftain, probably in Decies-within-Drum in County Waterford, and thought to have been a descendant of Fedlimid Rechtmar and Conn of the Hundred Battles. She is in places referred to as Ita the Wise, and having changed her name to Ita due to her "extraordinary thirst for divine love", later becoming the patron saint of Killeedy in County Limerick. Her window is dominated by shades of blue, a colour usually associated with Brigid.
Íte wears royal blue clothes and her facial features are based on representations of the Eastern Roman Empress Theodora, who died in 548. The white glass surrounding her head is intended to represent a halo. The upper register shows Mary enthroned as Queen of Heaven. She is dressed in red, gold and blue robes, and shards of white glass interwoven with painted oak colours radiating from her head, representing a halo. which according to O'Connell, "symbolizes the spiritual fire which Ita spent her life in enkindling and keeping burning". Clarke wrote of the window that "in the border and wherever possible emblems are introduced symbolising Ita's great devotion to the Holy Trinity". Three jewels representing the holy trinity are sewn into her gown. The lower panel shows her, alongside her maids, in prayer to the Trinity, with, according to O'Connell, their "prayers ascending through the firmament to the Throne of God". Clarke's preparatory notes describe the lower register as depicting "St. Ita with her holy maids [who pray] with St Coleman and St. Brendan", while the borders show "the heads of four Irish saints over whom St. Ita exercised spiritual influence".
#### Albert of Cashel
The window of the little-known 8th-century missionary saint Albert of Cashel was designed immediately after the Finbarr and Ita windows. It was installed in 1916 in the chapel's north wall. Albert is shown preaching in the upper panel, with red hair and a purple chasuble, crimson stole and a mitre. He sits on an elaborately decorated green, blue and golden throne, which is positioned underneath a large cross. His shoes are decorated with blue and grey diamonds, while the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven are shown at his feet. The window is adorned with Celtic motifs, including the bronze spirals around his beard. The lower register shows him in the act of blessing as he walks in a procession with his followers, who include St. Erhard and St. Hildulph, both of whom he is said to have met while in Regensburg in Bavaria, Germany.
#### Our Lady of Sorrows and Joseph
The last two of Clarke's windows depict Mary and Joseph, and were installed in Cork in April 1917, a year after the chapel's opening. Both were favourably reviewed when previewed in his Dublin studio. Mary's window is located to the right of the altar. Due to its mournful tone, it is said to depict Our Lady of Sorrows. She is shown as "Mary of the Irish", with red hair and an emerald halo. She wears a deep royal blue and turquoise robe, and is shown holding a pink rose. The uppermost panel contains a star representing of the Holy Family, below which is the Holy Spirit indicated by tongues of fire. In the lower panel, St. Cronan of Roscrea holds a scroll inscribed with notation and lyrics from "Cronan na Magdine", an Irish lullaby. He is surrounded by four early Christian martyrs, each bearing emblems. Around these figures are four Japanese seals, influenced by work from Henry Payne's students at the Birmingham School of Art.
The upper panel of Joseph's window shows the saint wearing a crown of fire, and standing beside the Holy Family and four angels. In the main panel, he wears a gold and red cloak, and is given a blue and green halo. Clarke's depiction of Joseph is based on a 14th-century representation of the prophet Zephaniah now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In contrast to contemporary Catholic representations of Joseph which depict him as a healthy and strong middle-aged man, Clarke shows him in the medieval tradition, as an old and frail man. The lower panel illustrates Joseph's death, with Mary, Jesus, Finbarr, Columcille and a number of other saints kneeling in prayer at his deathbed.
### An Túr Gloine
Sarah Purser and Edward Martyn formed An Túr Gloine ("The Glass Tower") in 1902 as a workshop to advance the artistic quality of stained glass production in Ireland. The workshop was managed by Sarah Purser's pupil A. E. Child, who was then teaching at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin. The studio's eight windows are attributed to Child, O'Brien and Ethel Rhind. The cartoons, like those from Clarke's studio, were designed and realised in Dublin before installation in Cork. Although their subject matter is similar to Clarke's, An Túr Gloine window's are very different in style and not of the same quality, being somewhat conventional by comparison. They are minimalist in line and colour, consisting of a dominating but simply rendered and naturalistic central figure in pale hues, surrounded by uncomplicated, largely empty opaque sub-panels. The most prominently placed window is Child's "Our Lord" on the east gable above the altar. Child depicts the risen Christ in simple forms, subdued colours and with a strong but dignified facial expression. O'Kelly's describes the portrait of Christ's eyes "as look[ing] out on humanity with a welcoming and understanding sympathy".
#### Our Lord (Child)
The central single-light window was designed by Alfred Child and is located directly above the altar. It is set in pale and subdued tones, and shows the risen Christ holding the banner of the Resurrection. He is marked apart from the other saints by the window's stone frames, the splendour of his crown, his crimson robe and his royal jewels. O'Connell described the window as a "touching and appealing figure marked apart in its frame of stone [which] forms the centre of such rich but restrained decoration as the chapel contains". O'Kelly wrote that his "bearded countenance is calm and dignified and the eyes look out on humanity with a welcoming and understanding sympathy".
#### St John (O'Brien)
Catherine O'Brien, who came from an Anglo-Irish and devout Church of Ireland family, joined An Túr Gloine in 1904 and is credited with three of the chapel's windows. The "St John" window is the only window in the chapel to portray a biblical narrative and is usually considered the strongest of An Túr Gloine's windows. It is divided into three registers, each containing pairs of medallions. Its imagery mostly comes from the life of Christ as told in the Gospel of John and draws more from close readings of scripture than traditional Catholic iconography. The upper panel is based on Revelations 1:1, and shows a vision of the glorified Christ in Majesty, with the Alpha and Omega symbols and the seven candles.
The crucifixion scene in the central panel is more richly coloured than the other panels and follows tradition in showing Mary and John at the foot of the cross. More characteristic of Protestant than Catholic iconography is the depiction of a serpent with its mouth open, coiled around the cross below Jesus' feet; the serpent probably refers to Genesis 3:15: "And I will put enmity between thee (the serpent) and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." The medallions below the crucifixion reflect two accounts of John's brother James. The lowest register is again in bright colours and shows the calling of James and John. The images stay with scriptural tradition; James and John are accompanied by their father, and are the second pair to be called, after St. Peter and St Andrew, who are already at Jesus' side. The eagle at the foot of the window is John's usual symbol.
## Furnishings, textiles and objects
O'Connell was keen that the chapel's artwork would draw from Ireland's ancient culture and was heavily influenced by 19th-century antiquarian research into early Christian and early medieval art, in particular early medieval metal and stone works and illuminated manuscripts. He wanted the chapel to reflect the earlier period's influence on Irish culture, while maintaining a relatively simple physical outlay, comprising what Teehan describes as a "peaceful, dignified space". The chapel's furniture includes circular iron ventilation ceiling panels and the oak chair and kneeler reserved for the president. The majority of the fittings were designed by McMullen or Sisk & Sons. The original furnishings and oak pews were designed to blend into the chapel's Celtic Revival style and (according to Teehan) create "a way that represented the spirit and skill of earlier times [that] could nonetheless be fully appreciated by contemporary society. The overall effect is one of simplicity and restfulness." Changes in liturgy following Vatican II meant that a number of furnishings had to be replaced, a project overseen by the chapel's then dean, Gearóid Ó Súilleabháin. The Honan has a large collection of metalwork and enamel pieces built by Edmond Johnson's and Egan & Sons, all in the Celtic Revival style. The most well-known piece is a large processional cross, a replica of the 12th-century ornamented processional Cross of Cong, which contains a number of inscriptions, including a remembrance for the chapel's benefactors, Mathew, Robert and Isabella Honan; and for John and Mary O'Connell.
Other items include further processional crosses, chalices, candlesticks, dishes, bells, hinges, and the iron gates at the entrance. O'Connell commissioned Egan & Sons for the altar plate and vestments. Most of the textile collection was designed by the Dun Emer Guild co-founded in Dublin by Evelyn Gleeson, with her niece Kitty MacCormack working on the textile designs for the chapel. Their additions include vestments, chasubles, burses, veils, stoles, maniples, altar cloths, wall hangings and altar fronts. The tapestry dossal on the east wall, designed and woven by Gleeson, contains Celtic symbols borrowed from the Book of Durrow. Materials vary from silk embroidery, gold braid, gold thread, linen, poplin and cotton. In general the textiles follow the usual liturgical colours for the seasons of the liturgical year. Most of the designs are centred around the Life of Mary, or the Passion, or Crucifixion, with black and white being the predominant colours.
The pipe organ is on the west wall in a timber frame. It was built by Wicklow native Kenneth Jones and installed in 1996.
Michael Barry Egan's firm designed and sewed many of the vestments. A highlight is the Y-shaped, silver threaded chasuble in black poplin cloth, made for use at funerals. Covering the altar is a violet altar cloth with an altar frontal that is decorated with Celtic interlacing, realised in shades of purple silk with orange and yellow highlights, and a border of lemon and violet cotton satin. The "Black set" of Honan textiles includes an altar frontal with a Celtic cross based on a gravestone from Tullylease Church in Cork, and a black hooded cope with a crown of thorns design, and a black chasuble designed for funeral masses containing Celtic interlace patterns.
## Administration and liturgical services
The chapel's day-to-day operations are run in conjunction with UCC's chaplaincy department, while management and funding is provided by the Honan Trust, established in 1915. The Honan is a separate legal entity from the university and holds the title for its demise, bounded by its back wall and chapel gates. Its dean is secretary to the Board of Governors of the trust, manages the staff and finances, and is responsible for the chapel's conservation and maintenance. The chapel holds daily and Sunday masses as well as memorial services for deceased students and staff. Morning prayers are held each Monday and daily during Advent and Lent. It hosts an average of 150 wedding services per year for graduates, which are a funding source for the chapel. It also holds a number of musical and other cultural events.
|
69,416,072 |
1993–94 Gillingham F.C. season
| 1,154,372,165 | null |
[
"1993–94 Football League Third Division by team",
"Gillingham F.C. seasons"
] |
During the 1993–94 English football season, Gillingham F.C. competed in the Football League Third Division, the fourth tier of the English football league system. It was the 62nd season in which Gillingham competed in the Football League, and the 44th since the club was voted back into the league in 1950. Prior to the season, Glenn Roeder resigned as the club's manager and was replaced by Mike Flanagan. The team struggled in August and September, and did not win a Third Division match until the eighth league game of the season. A week later, Gillingham won away from home in the Football League for the first time in 18 months. Gillingham's form remained inconsistent and, although they climbed to 10th in the 22-team league table in October, the team spent most of the season in the bottom half and finished 16th.
Gillingham also competed in three knock-out competitions. The team reached the second round of the FA Cup but failed to progress beyond the earliest stage of the Football League Cup or Football League Trophy. The team played a total of 49 competitive matches, winning 14, drawing 17, and losing 18. Nicky Forster was the team's top goalscorer, with 18 goals, all scored in the Football League. He also made the most appearances, playing in 46 of the team's 49 competitive matches. The highest attendance recorded at the club's home ground, Priestfield Stadium, was 4,573, for a game against Northampton Town.
## Background and pre-season
The 1993–94 season was Gillingham's 62nd season playing in the Football League and the 44th since the club was elected back into the League in 1950 after being voted out in 1938. It was the club's fifth consecutive season in the English football league system's fourth tier, which had been renamed from the Football League Fourth Division to the Third Division after the teams in the top division broke away from the Football League to form the new FA Premier League in 1992. Gillingham had finished 21st in the 22-team division in the 1992–93 season, narrowly avoiding relegation into non-League football.
Gillingham's manager, Glenn Roeder, resigned in July to manage Watford of the First Division, one of the clubs he had played for. Watford were later fined by the Football Association, the governing body of the sport in England, for making an illegal approach to Roeder. Mike Flanagan was promoted from reserves and youth coach to become Gillingham's new manager. One of his first moves as manager was to sign veteran Neil Smillie from Brentford and appoint him to a player-coach role. Gary Micklewhite, another highly experienced player, joined Gillingham from Derby County.
A new kit was introduced designed to mark the club's centenary, adding panels of black and white stripes to the usual blue shirts, which were worn with white shorts and socks; the club's original shirts when it was founded in 1893 had featured black and white stripes. The second-choice kit, to be worn in the event of a clash of colours with the opposition, was all red with similar black and white panels on the shirts. The team prepared for the new season with a number of friendly matches, including one against Charlton Athletic of the First Division. Alan Gough, a goalkeeper who had recently left Fulham, played on a trial basis against Charlton but Gillingham opted not to sign him to a contract.
## Third Division
### August–December
Gillingham's first match of the season was at their home ground, Priestfield Stadium, against Chesterfield. Both Smillie and Micklewhite made their debuts in a game which finished 2–0 to Gillingham's opponents; a week later the team again lost without scoring a goal, losing 3–0 away to Rochdale. Gillingham's next five league games all ended in draws; Paul Baker scored the team's first league goal in the first of these games, a 2–2 draw at home to Scarborough. Steve Banks, a 21-year old goalkeeper who had joined the club five months earlier, made his debut in the following game at home to Doncaster Rovers, replacing the previous season's regular goalkeeper, Scott Barrett. After a late goal from Nicky Forster gave the team a third consecutive league draw against Wycombe Wanderers, Flanagan told the press that "the sign of a good side is that they can roll their sleeves up and battle back."
Following their run of five consecutive league draws, which set a new club record, Gillingham were 18th in the 22-team league table. The team won their first league game of the season at the eighth attempt, defeating Scunthorpe United 1–0 on 25 September with a goal from Smillie. One week later, Gillingham gained their second league win of the season, defeating Carlisle United 2–1 with two goals from Forster despite Baker being sent off after less than 15 minutes; it was the first time the team had won away from home in the Football League since March 1992. The team's run of seven league games without defeat ended when they lost 1–0 away to Walsall on 9 October; Barrett was recalled to the team for the next game, in which Gillingham beat Darlington 2–1 at Priestfield with goals from Andy Arnott and Neil Smith to rise to 14th in the table. Gillingham's next game, away to Crewe Alexandra, resulted in a 1–0 defeat, but the team then won two consecutive home games, defeating Colchester United 3–0 and Hereford United 2–0. The two victories took the team up to 10th place in the table. Forster scored in both games, taking his total of league goals for the season to 7, more than any Gillingham player had achieved in the whole of the previous season.
Banks resumed the position of goalkeeper in early November and would remain in the starting line-up until April. Following the win over Hereford on 2 November, Gillingham lost four of the next five games and slipped to 17th in the division. The run included consecutive defeats in the first three matches of December against Lincoln City, Rochdale, and Chesterfield; against Rochdale Baker was sent off again. Forster scored Gillingham's second goal against Chesterfield, meaning that he had scored in six of the last seven league games. Gillingham ended their losing run in the final game of 1993 on 27 December, beating Northampton Town 1–0 at home with an own goal from Steve Terry; the attendance of 4,573 was the largest recorded at Priestfield during the season. The start of the match was delayed by 40 minutes as an electricity board worker had to be called out to disengage a timer switch which prevented the floodlights being turned on on weekday afternoons. Gillingham ended the year 17th in the table.
### January–May
Gillingham began 1994 with a second consecutive 1–0 win at Priestfield, defeating Bury with a goal from Smillie on 1 January; the result took the team back up to 14th in the table. Two days later, Banks kept a third consecutive clean sheet as Gillingham drew 0–0 away to Doncaster; it was the first league game since October in which Gillingham failed to score a goal. Having failed to score in four consecutive games, Forster was relegated to the substitutes' bench for the game at home to Walsall on 22 January and was replaced in the starting line-up by Baker, who made his first appearance since before Christmas and scored in a 1–1 draw. Seven days later, Forster came off the bench to score the winning goal away to Colchester in the final minute of the game.
Forster once again came on as a substitute and scored in Gillingham's first match of February, a 3–1 defeat at home to Crewe. It was the first in a run of five league games in which Gillingham achieved no wins and scored only two goals. Forster returned to the starting line-up for the game away to Preston North End on 12 February but failed to score and the game finished goalless. The last game of February and the first of March both resulted in 1–0 defeats, at home to Wycombe and away to Chester City. Gillingham ended their winless run with a 1–0 win away to Torquay United on 5 March, but lost again seven days later away to Shrewsbury Town. The team had now not won at home in more than two months and had slipped to 15th in the table. In the final game of March, Forster scored for the first time in eight games as Gillingham defeated Carlisle 2–0 at Priestfield.
Gillingham began the month of April with a second consecutive victory, winning 2–1 away to Northampton, and followed this with two consecutive 2–2 draws at Priestfield, against Chester and Preston. Forster scored both goals against Preston, the second time that he had scored twice in a game; no other Gillingham player scored more than a single goal in a game during the season. Gillingham failed to score in the next two games; in the first of these games Gillingham's Tony Butler was sent off and Chris Pike scored two penalty kicks to give Hereford a 2–0 victory. Gillingham ended their winless run of four games when Forster scored the only goal of the game against Mansfield Town on 23 April. The final match of the season was a 1–1 draw at home to Lincoln; Richard Carpenter's goal was one of only two scored by Gillingham in the final five games of the season. Veteran former club captain Paul Clark was recalled to the team for the first time since January, and made what turned out to be his final appearance for the club. The result left Gillingham 16th in the final league table with 51 points, 13 points below the play-offs for potential promotion to the Second Division and 13 points above 22nd-placed Northampton, who were relegated from the Football League. Gillingham had the 12th best home record in the division but their overall position suffered from the fact that only two Third Division teams had a worse season away from home.
### Match details
Key
- In result column, Gillingham's score shown first
- H = Home match
- A = Away match
- pen. = Penalty kick
- o.g. = Own goal
### Partial league table
## Cup matches
### FA Cup
As a Third Division team, Gillingham entered the 1993–94 FA Cup in the first round and were drawn to play away to Yeading of the Isthmian League Premier Division, two levels lower in the English football league system, who had progressed through four qualifying rounds to reach this stage of the competition for the first time. The game was played at Church Road, home of Yeading's local rivals Hayes, as the police deemed the crowd segregation facilities at Yeading's ground, The Warren, to be inadequate. Gillingham were held to a 0–0 draw by their semi-professional opponents, necessitating a replay at Priestfield. In the second match, Gillingham scored three goals in the first half and ultimately won 3–1. In the second round, Gillingham played away to Plymouth Argyle of the Second Division; Richard Green missed a penalty for Gillingham, who lost 2–0.
#### Match details
Key
- In result column, Gillingham's score shown first
- H = Home match
- A = Away match
- pen. = Penalty kick
- o.g. = Own goal
a\. The match was played at Hayes's Church Road ground, but remained officially a home game for Yeading rather than being considered to have taken place at a neutral venue.
### Football League Cup
As a Third Division team, Gillingham entered the 1993–94 Football League Cup in the first round and were paired with Brighton & Hove Albion of the Second Division. The first leg of the two-legged tie took place at Priestfield and Gillingham defeated their higher-level opponents 1–0 with a goal from Robbie Reinelt. Eight days later, however, Brighton won the second leg at the Goldstone Ground 2–0 and eliminated Gillingham from the competition by an aggregate score of 2–1.
#### Match details
Key
- In result column, Gillingham's score shown first
- H = Home match
- A = Away match
- pen. = Penalty kick
- o.g. = Own goal
### Football League Trophy
The 1993–94 Football League Trophy, a tournament exclusively for Second and Third Division teams, began with a round in which the teams were drawn into groups of three, contested on a round-robin basis. Gillingham were grouped with fellow Third Division team Colchester United and Cambridge United of the Second Division. Gillingham's first group match was at home to Colchester in late September and resulted in a 0–0 draw; the attendance of 1,091 was the lowest recorded at Priestfield during the season. Five weeks later, Gillingham played their second group game away to Cambridge and lost 2–0. With only one point from the two games, Gillingham finished third in the group and failed to qualify for the second round, ending their participation in the competition.
#### Match details
Key
- In result column, Gillingham's score shown first
- H = Home match
- A = Away match
- pen. = Penalty kick
- o.g. = Own goal
## Player details
During the course of the season, 24 players played for Gillingham in competitive matches. Forster made the most appearances, playing in 46 of the team's 49 games; he missed only one Third Division match and both of the team's two League Trophy games. Mark Dempsey made the fewest appearances, playing only one game.
Eleven players scored at least one goal for the team. Forster was the highest scorer with 18 goals, all scored in Third Division matches. No other player reached double figures; Baker came closest with 9 goals but no other player scored more than 4.
## Aftermath
Eight days after the last game of the season, the club staged a gala centenary match at Priestfield featuring two teams of past and present Gillingham players managed by former Gillingham player Ernie Morgan and former manager Keith Peacock. Gillingham offered top scorer Forster a new contract, but he turned it down and instead signed for Brentford of the Second Division. Flanagan remained as manager for the next season, during which the team again struggled. In January 1995, after several seasons spent near the bottom of the Football League coupled with nearly a decade of financial difficulties, the club was declared insolvent and placed in receivership. Flanagan was made redundant by the administrators and replaced by Smillie for the remainder of the season. Gillingham finished the season 19th in the Third Division, but the club's continued existence remained in doubt. In June 1995, however, the club was saved from going out of business when it was purchased by businessman Paul Scally.
|
1,299,930 |
21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg
| 1,173,748,415 |
German mountain division of World War II
|
[
"Albanian collaborators with Nazi Germany",
"Criminal organizations",
"Foreign volunteer units of the Waffen-SS",
"Military history of Albania during World War II",
"Military units and formations disestablished in 1944",
"Military units and formations established in 1944",
"Military units and formations of Germany in Yugoslavia in World War II",
"Modern history of Kosovo",
"Mountain divisions of the Waffen-SS",
"Mutinies in World War II"
] |
The 21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg (1st Albanian) was a German mountain infantry division of the Waffen-SS, the armed wing of the German Nazi Party that served alongside, but was never formally part of, the Wehrmacht during World War II. At the post-war Nuremberg trials, the Waffen-SS was declared to be a criminal organisation due to its major involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The division was developed around the nucleus of an ethnic Albanian battalion which had briefly seen combat against the Yugoslav Partisans in eastern Bosnia as part of the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian). Composed of Albanians with mostly German and Yugoslav Volksdeutsche (ethnic German) officers and non-commissioned officers, it was given the title Skanderbeg after medieval Albanian lord George Kastrioti Skanderbeg, who defended the region of Albania against the Ottoman Empire for more than two decades in the 15th century.
Skanderbeg never reached divisional strength, being at most a brigade-sized formation of between 6,000 and 6,500 troops. In May 1944, members of the division arrested 281 Jews in Pristina and handed them over to the Germans, who transported them to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where many were killed. The division itself was better known for this action and for murdering, raping, and looting in predominantly Serb areas than for participating in combat operations on behalf of the German war effort. Its only significant military actions took place during a German anti-Partisan offensive in the German occupied territory of Montenegro in June and July 1944. Following those operations, the unit was deployed as a guard force at the chromium mines in Kosovo, where it was quickly overrun by the Partisans, leading to widespread desertion. Reinforced by German Kriegsmarine personnel and with fewer than 500 Albanians remaining in its ranks, it was disbanded on 1 November 1944. The remaining members were incorporated into the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen. After the war, divisional commander SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS August Schmidhuber was found guilty of war crimes by a court in Belgrade and executed in 1947.
## History
### Background
On 7 April 1939, five months prior to the outbreak of World War II, the Kingdom of Italy invaded Albania. The country was overrun in five days, and Italian King Victor Emmanuel III accepted the crown offered by the Parliament of Albania. The Royal Albanian Army was incorporated into the Royal Italian Army and a viceroy was appointed to administer the country as a protectorate. Following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941, Italian Albania was expanded to include adjacent parts of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia incorporated mainly from the Yugoslav banovinas (regional subdivisions) of Vardar and Morava. Most of Kosovo was annexed to Albania, and in the beginning, Albanians living there enthusiastically welcomed the Italian occupation. Some Kosovo Albanians even suggested that Albanians were "Aryans of Illyrian heritage". Although officially under Italian rule, the Albanians in Kosovo were given control of the region and encouraged to open Albanian-language schools, which had been banned by the Yugoslav government. The Italians also gave the inhabitants Albanian citizenship and allowed them to fly the flag of Albania. The Royal Italian Army expelled most of the Serbs and Montenegrins that had settled Kosovo during the interwar period. The Kosovo Albanians despised the Serbs for the oppression they had experienced at their hands during the Balkan Wars, World War I, and under Yugoslav rule. They took advantage of their changed circumstances, attacked their Serb neighbours, and burned the homes of as many as 30,000 Serb and Montenegrin settlers.
Albania remained occupied by Italy until its surrender to the Allies in September 1943. In August of that year, faced with the imminent collapse of the Italian war effort, Germany deployed the 2nd Panzer Army to the Balkans to take over areas previously occupied by Italy. One of the Italian areas seized by the Germans was Albania, where the XXI Mountain Corps of Generaloberst Lothar Rendulic's 2nd Panzer Army had been deployed. A Wehrmacht plenipotentiary general, and a special representative of Heinrich Himmler, SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS und Polizei Josef Fitzthum, were both based in the Albanian capital of Tirana. The Germans took control of all Albanian forces that had been collaborating with the Italians prior to their capitulation, including the Balli Kombëtar, an anti-communist and nationalist militia. The Germans strengthened the Albanian army and gendarmerie, but quickly decided those troops were unreliable. That year, a number of Albanians from Kosovo and the Sandžak region were recruited into the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian), a Waffen-SS division composed largely of Bosnian Muslims and Croats with mostly German officers, that operated in the puppet Independent State of Croatia (Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH). A key recruiter amongst Albanians for the Waffen-SS was SS-Standartenführer Karl von Krempler. For about six months the division included about 1,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and the Sandžak who made up the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Regiment (I/2), which later became the 1st Battalion of the 28th Regiment (I/28). The division later recruited a further 500 men from the Sandžak. The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini assisted in organising and recruiting Muslims into the Waffen-SS and other units. The Mufti also visited in order to bless and inspect the 13th SS Division, during which he used the Nazi salute.
The formation of an Albanian Waffen-SS division was Fitzthum's idea, initially opposed by the German Foreign Ministry representative for the Balkans Hermann Neubacher, and also by the head of the Reich Security Main Office SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who influenced Himmler to shelve it. But the Albanian government supported the idea; in the face of increasing difficulties Himmler soon changed his mind, and in February 1944 the idea received Adolf Hitler's approval.
### Formation
In February 1944, Hitler approved the creation of an Albanian Waffen-SS division that was to serve only inside Kosovo, and was intended to protect ethnic Albanians but remain under German control. It was meant to be one of three Muslim Waffen-SS divisions serving in the Balkans, the other two being the 13th SS Division and the 23rd Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Kama (2nd Croatian). Himmler's goal was to expand Waffen-SS recruiting in the Balkans and form two corps of two divisions each, with one corps to operate in the region of Bosnia in the Independent State of Croatia and the other in Albania. These corps would then be combined with the Volksdeutsche 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen and together would form a Balkan Waffen-SS mountain army of five divisions.
In March 1944, Bedri Pejani, the chairman of the Second League of Prizren, an organisation created after the Italian surrender to advance the interests of Kosovo Albanians, proposed to Hitler that a force of 120,000–150,000 Kosovo Albanian volunteers be raised to fight the Yugoslav and Albanian partisans. Pejani asked the German leadership to give the Albanians equipment and supplies to fight the communist insurgency, and requested the expansion of the borders of the German puppet state of Albania at the expense of the German occupied territory of Serbia and the German occupied territory of Montenegro. These requests were not fulfilled. Nevertheless, in April 1944, Himmler ordered the establishment of the new Albanian volunteer division that Hitler had authorised. It was subsequently named after the medieval Albanian warrior Skanderbeg. By this point, the Germans and some members of the Albanian puppet government believed that about 50,000 ethnic Albanians could be recruited to join the Waffen-SS. The Germans had initially envisioned a force of 10,000–12,000 men for the Albanian SS division. Himmler saw the Muslim Albanians as a potential source of manpower in Germany's war against the Yugoslav Partisans, who faced significant difficulties in recruiting Kosovo Albanians to join their ranks.
On 17 April 1944, the Albanian battalion of the 13th SS Division was transferred via rail directly from combat in Bosnia to Kosovo to form part of the new Albanian division. The head of Waffen-SS recruitment, SS-Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger, reported to Himmler that the Albanians "... were quite sad about leaving." Himmler himself expected "great usefulness" from the unit since the Albanians that fought in the 13th SS Division had proven to be "highly motivated and disciplined" in the fight against the Partisans in the NDH. After the war, Bosnian Muslim former members of the 13th SS Division stated that while with the division the Albanians had shot unarmed civilians and were "very brutal".
On 23 May, Fitzthum noted the failure of the Albanian units that had been used in operations against the Partisans. He reported that he had dissolved four Albanian battalions organised by the Wehrmacht, describing most Albanian army and gendarmerie officers as "totally corrupt, unusable, undisciplined and untrainable." The Germans found that Kosovo Albanians were more cooperative than Albanians from Albania-proper. This was mainly because they feared a return to Yugoslav rule. Thus, many of the division's recruits were Kosovo Albanians, although some were refugees from Albania-proper. The quality of most of these recruits was poor, and only between 6,000 and 6,500 were considered suitable to receive training. Those that were accepted were a combination of about 1,500 former Royal Yugoslav Army prisoners of war, elements of the failed Albanian army and gendarmerie, volunteers from both pre-war and expanded Albania, and conscripts from families that had more than two sons. Unlike the Albanians in the Handschar division, who received extensive training in France and then Neuhammer training grounds in Germany, the new recruits underwent a very short training period of only six weeks. The Albanians may have joined for a range of reasons, including access to modern weapons and military training, to help revise the borders of Albania, revenge, and even the opportunity for looting.
The enlistment of Albanian civilians was organised in close cooperation with the Albanian puppet government. In June 1944, Neubacher successfully displaced Pejani, whom he considered "insane". The Albanian Minister of the Interior and new chairman of the Second League of Prizren, Xhafer Deva, was a key factor in recruiting Albanians for the new division. Fitzthum, who had developed a close friendship with Deva, noted that the right-wing and anti-Serb politician was vital for German recruitment efforts. In contrast to the 13th SS Division, the use of Islam as an incentive to join the Waffen-SS disappeared completely from the German agenda, while the utilisation of ethnic tensions became much more important. No field imam is documented in the new division and ideological training was avoided entirely, because the Germans feared that such instruction would upset their new recruits. According to Nazi propaganda, the division was to source its manpower exclusively from Muslim Albanians, but the reality was different. While the vast majority of the division's Albanians were Bektashi or Sunni Muslims, "several hundred" Albanian Catholics also served in the division.
### Operations
#### May–August 1944
The division was founded as the 21. Waffen-SS Gebirgsdivision der SS Skanderbeg (albanische Nr.1) on 1 May 1944, as part of the XXI Mountain Corps. Most or all of the division's officers, non-commissioned officers (NCOs), and specialists were German, and were mainly provided by the 7th and 13th SS Divisions, which noticeably weakened those formations. The divisional artillery regiment was formed from the 1st Albanian Artillery Regiment. The division was placed under the command of SS-Standartenführer August Schmidhuber, who was promoted to SS-Oberführer in June. Members took a religious oath using the Quran, pledging "jihad against unbelievers." The division was originally equipped with captured Italian Carro Armato M15/42 tanks, which proved to be unreliable. Its garrison was located in the town of Prizren.
The division was to be responsible for security in Kosovo, including transport routes, the defence of economically important objects such as the chrome ore mines in Kukës and Đakovica, as well as offensive action against Yugoslav Partisans operating in the region. Men who had already served in the 13th SS Division were also deployed as guards at a concentration camp in Pristina. Early on, it became clear that most of the division's Muslim Albanian members seemed to be interested only in settling scores with their Christian Serb adversaries, who became the target of numerous atrocities. In order to put a stop to the crimes, the Germans had to disarm battalions of the division in the towns of Peć and Prizren and arrest the Albanian officers, with one commanding officer even being sent to prison in Germany. On 14 May 1944, members of the division raided Jewish homes in Pristina, arrested 281 Jews and handed them over to the Germans, who sent them to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where many were killed. The historian Noel Malcolm describes this event as "the most shameful episode in Kosovo's wartime history." The division was later involved in a massacre of Albanian partisans. It was also responsible for the expulsion of up to 10,000 Slavic families from Kosovo as new Albanian settlers arrived from the poor areas of northern Albania. The arrival of these Albanians was encouraged by Italian authorities, and it is estimated that as many as 72,000 Albanians were settled or re-settled in Kosovo during the war. Between 28 May and 5 July 1944, the division apprehended a total of 510 Jews, communists and other anti-fascists and turned them over to the Germans. It also carried out retaliatory hangings of suspected saboteurs.
In June 1944, Skanderbeg engaged in large-scale field manoeuvres in eastern Montenegro. In Andrijevica, the division summarily executed more than 400 Orthodox Christian civilians. It participated in Operations Endlich (Finally) and Falkenauge (Hawkeye) in June and July, as well as Operation Draufgänger (Daredevil), the first phase of Operation Rübezahl, which ran from 5 to 22 August. During Operation Draufgänger Skanderbeg was the main force used by the Germans. These operations were focused on the destruction of strong Partisan forces in the Đakovica, Peć and Mokra Gora areas. By the end of Operation Draufgänger, more than 400 men of the division had deserted or otherwise gone missing. According to Neubacher, the division was carelessly committed to fighting in the early stages of its training and performed poorly. Between 18 and 27 August, the division fought the Partisans in and around Debar but failed to capture the city. During the summer of 1944, Deva was sidelined within the League. Fitzthum was so concerned about the impact that this would have on the development of the division that he wrote to Himmler. By the end of August 1944, the Germans had decided that the division was only of use for basic guarding duties. Some members were charged with guarding chromium mines near Kosovo before the area was overrun by the Partisans. In the ensuing clashes, one of the division's regiments lost more than 1,000 men and many Albanians deserted. Some of the desertions occurred after a Partisan offensive northeast of Gusinje. Army Group E reported that the division's performance showed that it had "absolutely no military value."
#### September–November 1944
On 1 September 1944, members of the division stationed in Tetovo and Gostivar mutinied, killing their German officers and NCOs. By this time, the division numbered fewer than 7,000 men, less than one third of its intended strength. Within two months of its initial deployment, 3,500 had deserted. Himmler brought in 3,000–4,000 Kriegsmarine (German navy) personnel from Greece to make up the numbers, but this had little effect on the division's fighting ability. The desertions were mainly caused by Germany's defeats, serious shortfalls in food and equipment, as well as from observing constant overflights by the United States Army Air Force, Allied propaganda, and the approaching end of Germany's military hegemony in the Balkans. Further reasons for the escalating number of desertions included the news that both Bulgaria and Romania had joined the Allies, Josip Broz Tito's amnesty which ended on 15 September, and a demand by Albania's Party of Labour that fighting-age men join the National Liberation Front.
By the beginning of October 1944, the division's strength had fallen to about 4,900 men, fewer than 1,500 of whom were fit for combat. Between April and October, 3,425 had deserted, constituting over half the division's strength. Schmidhuber reported that even the 697 members of the battalion that had served in the 13th SS Division had deserted. The unit was blighted by shortages of equipment and armaments, and a lack of German staff to train new recruits, as demonstrated by the fact that over the summer and autumn only a single battalion had been readied for combat. Schmidhuber held his men in contempt, and he, his superiors, and Fitzthum attempted to justify their failure to create an effective security force by denigrating the Albanians' culture and military reputation. Schmidhuber also linked the failure of the division to the lack of time for proper military training, ideological training and the absence of suitable instructors. Later, less-involved members of the Wehrmacht stated that the principal issue regarding the unit's reliability may have been that the Germans did not work closely with the Albanians at the local level. In mid-October, the division was engaged in heavy fighting around Đakovica. It also aided the Wehrmacht in its orderly withdrawal from Kosovo, covering the Wehrmacht's flanks and engaging the Partisans. By this time, desertions had significantly affected the division's strength, and its 86 officers and 467 NCOs were left with a force of only 899 men, about half of whom were Albanian. On 24 October, Generaloberst Alexander Löhr, the commander of Army Group E, ordered that all Albanian members of the division be disarmed and released. Between 19 September and 23 October, 131 anti-fascist guerrillas had been shot or hanged by members of the division acting on Schmidhuber's orders.
On 1 November 1944, the division was disbanded. Kosovo Albanians took up arms against the Partisans upon learning that the region would not be unified with Albania after the war, despite earlier Partisan promises. Atrocities occurred when 30,000 Partisans were sent to Kosovo to quell Albanian resistance in the region. Between 3,000 and 25,000 Kosovo Albanians were killed in the ensuing violence.
## Aftermath and legacy
The remaining German troops and former naval personnel were reorganised as the regimental Kampfgruppe Skanderbeg under the command of SS-Obersturmbannführer Alfred Graf. The unit withdrew from the Kosovo region in mid-November along with the rest of the German troops in the area. Many Serbs and Montenegrins then took revenge against the region's ethnic Albanians, especially collaborators and those who had been members of the division. In his strongly apologetic history of the 7th SS Division, which he commanded at the time, Otto Kumm wrote that Kampfgruppe Skanderbeg reached Ljubovija on the Drina river, it was placed under the command of the 7th SS Division, which was securing the river crossings in that area. According to Kumm, the Kampfgruppe held the towns of Zvornik and Drinjača during the first half of December 1944 as part of the Ljubovija bridgehead. It withdrew across the Drina and fought its way north, towards Brčko on the Sava river, where it relieved the Wehrmacht forces holding the town. In late December, the Kampfgruppe'''s assault gun battery was committed to the Syrmian Front at Vinkovci. The remainder of the Kampfgruppe was deployed to Bijeljina.
In January 1945, the handful of naval personnel that survived were transferred to the 32nd SS Volunteer Grenadier Division 30 Januar, and the remnants of the former division were reorganised as II Battalion of the 14th SS Volunteer Mountain Infantry Regiment of the 7th SS Division. On 21 January 1945, Schmidhuber was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS and placed in command of the 7th SS Division. After the war, he was found guilty of war crimes and hanged. In February 1945, the battalion was disbanded altogether and its remaining manpower was assigned to the German police regiment near Zagreb.
The division itself was considered to have been a military failure. Not one of its members was awarded an Iron Cross while serving in it. Schmidhuber and the staff of XXI Mountain Corps blamed the division's failure solely on the Albanian personnel. Schmidhuber claimed that Albanians had stagnated culturally since Skanderbeg's time in the fifteenth century, and both he and the corps staff claimed that the Albanians had not developed national or state traditions. Schmidhuber argued that the legend of Albanian military achievements was just a saga. Further, he claimed that "[w]ith a light mortar you can basically chase him [the Albanian] around the world. During the attack he goes only as far as he finds something to steal or sack. For him, the war is over when he captures a goat, a ploughshare or the wheel of a sewing machine." Fitzthum was one of the harshest critics of their soldiers. Fitzthum complained to Hitler personally: 'For the currently existing Albanian formations an alteration in the future cannot be expected to be brought about even by thorough training. They will never become a serious and employable troop'. Fitzthum went as far as saying that "the Albanian soldier is undisciplined and cowardly". Fitzthum additionally angrily wrote to Himmler, that one battalion dissolved after being attacked by a few planes and the rest just disappeared. Professor Paul Mojzes writes that the division was better known for committing atrocities against Serbs than it was for contributing to the German war effort. Its role in deporting Jews from Kosovo has been challenged by the Albanian historian Shaban Sinani, who claims that the division did not participate in any deportations on the Germans' behalf. David Patterson, a historian specializing in anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, writes that the division "played a major role in rendering the Balkans Judenrein in the winter of 1943–1944." It was reported that some soldiers from the division deserted the division to join the partisan unit led by Gani Kryeziu after refusing to fight it.
The post-war Nuremberg trials made the declaratory judgement that the Waffen-SS was a criminal organisation due to its major involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the killing of prisoners-of-war and atrocities committed in occupied countries. Excluded from this judgement were those who were conscripted into the Waffen-SS and had not personally committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.
During the Kosovo War of 1998–1999, the American journalist Chris Hedges alleged that some Kosovo Liberation Army leaders were directly descended from members of the division and were ideologically influenced by it. Malcolm has challenged this claim.
## Insignia
The division's identification symbol, used on its vehicles, was a black Albanian double-headed eagle. Despite its short existence, a collar patch depicting the goat-crested helmet of Skanderbeg was designed and manufactured for the division, but it was withdrawn from service after a trial as it was unrecognisable from a distance. As a result, officers of the division wore the collar patch with the SS runes, and enlisted ranks wore a plain black collar patch. Photographs exist of a machine-woven cuff band with the title Skanderbeg, but this was awarded to the 14th SS Volunteer Gebirgsjäger Regiment of the 7th SS Division in the latter part of 1944, and not to this division. Albanian members of the division wore an arm shield on their upper left arm depicting a black Albanian double-headed eagle on a red shield with black backing. Many of the division's Muslim members wore traditional grey-coloured skull caps with the SS eagle and death's head on the front instead of the standard SS field cap. Others wore the traditional Albanian highlander hat, the qeleshe.
## Order of battle
The principal units of the division and order of battle were:
- 50th Waffen Gebirgsjäger (Mountain Infantry) Regiment of the SS (1st Albanian) (I, II, III battalions)
- 51st Waffen Gebirgsjäger Regiment of the SS (2nd Albanian) (I, II, III battalions)
- 21st SS Reconnaissance Battalion (four companies)
- 21st SS Freiwilligen (Volunteer) Panzerjäger (Anti-tank) Battalion (three companies)
- 21st SS Gebirgs (Mountain) Artillery Regiment (four battalions)
- 21st SS Freiwilligen Pioneer Battalion (three companies)
- 21st SS Feldersatz (Replacement) Battalion
- 21st SS Freiwilligen'' Signals Battalion (three companies)
- 21st SS Mountain Supply Troop
## See also
- List of Waffen-SS units
- Table of ranks and insignia of the Waffen-SS
- Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts
- The Holocaust in Albania
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Ice hockey at the Olympic Games
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"Ice hockey at multi-sport events",
"Ice hockey at the Olympic Games",
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Ice hockey tournaments have been staged at the Olympic Games since 1920. The men's tournament was introduced at the 1920 Summer Olympics and was transferred permanently to the Winter Olympic Games program in 1924, in France. The women's tournament was first held at the 1998 Winter Olympics.
The Olympic Games were originally intended for amateur athletes. However, the advent of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc countries further eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage. The Soviet Union entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession, but many of whom were in reality paid by the state to train on a full-time basis. In 1986, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to allow professional athletes to compete in the Olympic Games starting in 1988. The National Hockey League (NHL) was initially reluctant to allow its players to compete because the Olympics are held in the middle of the NHL season, and the league would have to halt play if many of its players participated. Eventually, NHL players were admitted starting in 1998.
From 1924 to 1988, the tournament started with a round-robin series of games and ended with the medal round. Medals were awarded based on points accumulated during that round. In 1992, the playoffs were introduced for the first time since 1920. In 1998, the format of the tournament was adjusted to accommodate the NHL schedule; a preliminary round was played without NHL players or the top six teams—Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Sweden and the United States—followed by a final round which included them. The tournament format was changed again in 2006; every team played five preliminary games with the full use of NHL players.
The games of the tournament follow the rules of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), which differ slightly from the rules used in the NHL. In the men's tournament, Canada was the most successful team of the first three decades, winning six of seven gold medals from 1924 to 1952. Czechoslovakia, Sweden and the United States were also competitive during this period and won multiple medals. Between 1920 and 1968, the Olympic hockey tournament was also counted as the Ice Hockey World Championship for that year. The Soviet Union first participated in 1956 and overtook Canada as the dominant international team, winning seven of the nine tournaments in which they participated. The United States won gold medals in 1960 and in 1980, which included their "Miracle on Ice" upset of the Soviet Union. Canada went 50 years without a gold medal, before winning one in 2002, and following it with back-to-back wins in 2010 and 2014. Other nations to win gold include Great Britain in 1936, the Unified Team in 1992, Sweden in 1994 and 2006, the Czech Republic in 1998, Russia (as OAR) in 2018 and Finland in 2022. Other medal-winning nations include Switzerland, Germany and Slovakia.
In July 1992, the IOC voted to approve women's hockey as an Olympic event; it was first held at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. The Nagano Organizing Committee was hesitant to include the event because of the additional costs of staging the tournament, but an agreement was reached that limited the field to six teams, and ensured that no additional facilities would be built. The Canadian teams have dominated the event. The United States won the first tournament in 1998 and in 2018. Canada has won all of the other tournaments (2002–2014, 2022).
## Inception as an Olympic sport
The first Olympic ice hockey tournament took place at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. At the time, organized international ice hockey was still relatively new. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), the sport's governing body, was created on 15 May 1908, and was known as the Ligue Internationale de Hockey sur Glace (LIHG) until 1947. At the 1914 Olympic Congress in Paris, ice hockey was added to the list of optional sports that Olympics organizers could include. The decision to include ice hockey for the 1920 Summer Olympics was made in January, three months before the start of the Games. Several occurrences led to the sport's inclusion in the programme. Five European nations had committed to participating in the tournament and the managers of Antwerp's Palais de Glace stadium refused to allow the building to be used for figure skating unless ice hockey was included. The IIHF considers the 1920 tournament to be the first Ice Hockey World Championship. From then on, the two events occurred concurrently, and every Olympic tournament until 1968 is counted as the World Championship. The Olympic Games were originally intended for amateur athletes, so the players of the National Hockey League (NHL) and other professional leagues were not allowed to play.
The first Winter Olympic Games were held in 1924 in Chamonix, France. Chapter 1, article 6, of the 2007 edition of the Olympic Charter defines winter sports as "sports which are practised on snow or ice". Ice hockey and figure skating were permanently integrated in the Winter Olympics programme. The IOC made the Winter Games a permanent fixture and they were held the same year as the Summer Games until 1992. Following that, further Winter Games have been held on the third year (i.e. 1994, 1998, etc.) of each Olympiad.
## History of events
### Men's tournament
#### 1920 Summer Olympics
The men's tournament held at the 1920 Summer Olympics was organized by a committee that included future LIHG president Paul Loicq. The tournament used the Bergvall System, in which three rounds were played. The first round was an elimination tournament that determined the gold medal winner. The second round consisted of the teams that were defeated by the gold medal winner; the winner of that round was awarded the silver medal. The final round was played between teams that had lost to the gold or silver medal winners; the winner of that round received the bronze medal.
The tournament was played from 23 to 29 April and seven teams participated: Canada, Czechoslovakia, the United States, Switzerland, Sweden, France and Belgium. Canada chose to send the Allan Cup-winning Winnipeg Falcons. The Swedish team consisted of mostly bandy players, many of whom had only started playing hockey in preparation for the tournament. Canadian team manager W. A. Hewitt refereed the first game played, an 8–0 win by Sweden versus Belgium.
Canada won all three of the team's games in the first round and won the gold medal, defeating Sweden in the final and outscoring opponents 27–1. In the two subsequent rounds, the United States and Czechoslovakia won the silver and bronze medals respectively. The Bergvall System was criticized, especially in Sweden, because the Swedish team had to play six games (winning three) while the bronze medal-winning Czech team only had to play three (winning one). Erik Bergvall, the creator of the system, stated that it was used incorrectly and that a tournament of all of the losing teams from the first round should have been played for the silver medal. Because of these criticisms, the Bergvall System was not used again for ice hockey.
#### 1924–1936
In 1924, the tournament was played in a round-robin format, consisting of a preliminary round and a medal round. The medals were awarded based on win–loss records during the medal round. This format was used until 1988, although the number of teams and games played varied slightly. The Toronto Granites, representing Canada, became one of the dominant hockey teams in Olympic history, outscoring opponents 110–3, led by Harry Watson, who scored 36 goals. The United States won silver and Great Britain won bronze. Watson's 36 goals remains the tournament record for career goals. He also set the record for career points with 36 (assists were not counted at the time), which stood until 2010.
Eleven teams participated in the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland. The Canadian team was given a bye to the medal round and won all of its games by a combined score of 38–0. The Swedish and Swiss teams won their first medals—silver and bronze respectively—and a German team participated for the first time, finishing ninth. At the 1932 Winter Olympics, Canada won gold in a tournament that consisted of four teams that played each other twice. Germany won bronze, the nation's first medal in the sport.
Two days before the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, Canadian officials protested that two players on the British team—James Foster and Alex Archer—had played in Canada but transferred without permission to play for clubs in the English National League. The IIHF agreed with Canada, but Great Britain threatened to withdraw the team if the two were barred from competing. To avoid a conflict, Canada withdrew the protest shortly before the Games began. The tournament consisted of four groups and fifteen teams. Great Britain became the first non-Canadian team to win gold; Canada won silver and the United States bronze.
#### Challenges to the definition of amateur
The Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) revised its definition of amateur and broke away from the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada in 1936, despite the possibility that its players may no longer be eligible for Olympic hockey. Tommy Lockhart founded the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States (AHAUS) in 1937, after disagreements with the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States over international amateurs. The CAHA and the AHAUS joined to form the International Ice Hockey Association in 1940. Its president W. G. Hardy sought for acceptance by the IOC on terms acceptable to the CAHA. CAHA president George Dudley subsequently threatened to withdraw Canada from the Olympics over the definition of amateur. An IOC decision on the matter was postponed when the 1940 Winter Olympics and 1944 Winter Olympics were cancelled due to World War II. In 1947, the LIHG agreed to a merger with the International Ice Hockey Association, was subsequently renamed to the IIHF, and recognized the AHAUS as the governing body of hockey in the United States instead of the AAU.
#### 1948–1952
The IIHF considered whether to have an ice hockey tournament at the Winter Olympics, or host a separate Ice Hockey World Championships elsewhere in Switzerland in 1948. Avery Brundage of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) reportedly campaigned to IIHF delegates to vote against inclusion of the AHAUS in the upcoming Olympics. The LIHG passed a resolution that its teams would only play against teams approved by the CAHA and the AHAUS, which was accepted by the Swiss Olympic organizing committee. Brundage threatened that the USOC would boycott the Olympics if the AHAUS team was recognized. The Swiss Olympic organizing committee insisted on the AHAUS team being recognized, despite persistent charges by Brundage that the AHAUS team was "tainted with professionalism". Brundage and the AAU supported a National Collegiate Athletic Association team instead. After bitter negotiations which were not resolved until the night before the Olympics, the AHAUS team was allowed to play in the tournament, but the IOC declared those games would not count in the standings.
Both Czechoslovakia and Canada won seven games and tied when they played each other. The gold medal winner was determined by goal difference: Canada won the gold because it had an average of 13.8 goals per game compared to Czechoslovakia's average of 4.3. Czechoslovakia's team was quickly improving; it won the 1947 and 1949 World Championships. The AHAUS team finished fourth in the standings in 1948.
Discussions began in 1950, whether or not ice hockey would be included in the 1952 Winter Olympics hosted in Oslo. The IOC sought assurance that participating teams would adhere to its amateur code rather than what was accepted by the IIHF, and also wanted to exclude IIHF president Fritz Kraatz from negotiations. George Dudley and W. G. Hardy agreed there would be no negotiations on those terms, nor would they repudiate Kraatz. Dudley referred to the IOC as dictatorial and undemocratic, and expected the IIHF to discuss having its own 1952 Ice Hockey World Championships instead. He further stated that the Olympics would be a financial failure without the inclusion of hockey. Hockey was ultimately included in the Olympics, and the gold medal was won by Canada's team for the second consecutive Games. It would be the last time that a Canadian team would win a gold medal in hockey for 50 years. The United States won silver and Sweden won bronze. A team from Finland competed for the first time.
#### 1956–1976
The Soviet Union competed in its first World Championship in 1954, defeating Canada and winning the gold medal. At the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, the Soviet team went undefeated and won its first gold medal. Canada's team lost to the Soviets and the United States in the medal round, winning the bronze. The 1960 Winter Olympics, in Squaw Valley, United States, saw the first, and to date only, team from Australia compete in the tournament. Canada, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Sweden were the top four teams heading into the Games, but were all defeated by the American team, which won all seven games en route to its first Olympic gold medal. Canada won the silver medal and the Soviet Union won the bronze.
At the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, the Soviet team won all seven of its games, earning the gold medal. Canada finished the tournament with five wins and two losses, putting the team in a three-way tie for second place with Sweden and Czechoslovakia. Before 1964, the tie-breaking procedure was based on goal difference in games against teams in the medal round; under that system, Canada would have placed third ahead of the Czechoslovakian team. During the tournament the procedure was changed to take all games into consideration, which meant that the Canadians finished fourth. At the time, the Olympics counted as the World Championships; under their (unchanged) rules, Canada should have received bronze for the World Championships.
The Soviet Union won its third gold medal with a 7–1 record in the 1968 Grenoble Olympics. Czechoslovakia and Canada won the silver and bronze medals. It was the last time that the Olympics were counted as the World Championships. In 1970, Canada withdrew from international ice hockey competition protesting the use of full-time "amateurs" by the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, and the team did not participate in the 1972 and 1976 Winter Olympics. Led by goaltender Vladislav Tretiak and forwards Valeri Kharlamov, Alexander Yakushev, Vladimir Petrov and Boris Mikhailov, the Soviet team won gold at both the 1972 Games in Sapporo, Japan and 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. In 1971, the United States finished last at the World Championships and was relegated to Pool B. The team qualified for the 1972 Olympics and won silver, making it the first Pool B team to win an Olympic medal. Czechoslovakia won the bronze medal in 1972. In 1976, Czechoslovakia won the silver and West Germany won bronze. Along with Canada, the Swedish team did not participate in the 1976 tournament joining the boycott.
#### 1980: "Miracle on Ice"
The Winter Olympics returned to Lake Placid, New York in 1980. Twelve teams participated in the tournament, including Canada for the first time since 1968. The Soviet Union had won the gold medal in five of the six previous Winter Olympic Games, and were the favorites to win once more in Lake Placid. The team consisted of full-time players with significant experience in international play. By contrast, the United States' team—led by head coach Herb Brooks—consisted exclusively of amateur players with mostly college experience, and was the youngest team in the tournament and in U.S. national team history. In the group stage, both the Soviet and U.S. teams were unbeaten; the U.S. achieved several notable results, including a 2–2 draw against Sweden, and a 7–3 upset victory over second-place favorites Czechoslovakia.
For the first game in the medal round, the United States played the Soviets. The first period finished tied at 2–2, and the Soviets lead 3–2 following the second. The U.S. team scored two more goals to take their first lead during the third and final period, winning the game 4–3. Following the game, the U.S. went on to clinch the gold medal by beating Finland in the final. The Soviet Union took the silver medal by beating Sweden.
The victory became one of the most iconic moments of the Games and in U.S. sports. Equally well-known was the television call of the final seconds of the game by Al Michaels for ABC, in which he declared: "Do you believe in miracles?! YES!" In 1999, Sports Illustrated named the "Miracle on Ice" the top sports moment of the 20th century. As part of its centennial celebration in 2008, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) named the "Miracle on Ice" as the best international ice hockey story of the past 100 years.
#### 1984–1994
At the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union won its sixth gold medal. Czechoslovakia and Sweden won the silver and bronze medals. The 1988 Winter Olympics were held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where the Soviet team captured its seventh and final gold medal. The Soviets' last Olympic game was a loss to Finland. The Finnish team was not considered a serious medal contender—it had competed in the World Championships since 1939 and had not won a single medal. However, Finland upset the Soviets 2–1 and won silver. The IIHF decided to change the tournament format because in several cases, the gold medal winner had been decided before the final day of play. During a congress in 1990, the IIHF introduced a playoff system. The new system was used at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. Preliminary round-robin games were held and followed by an eight-team cup-system style medal round that culminated in a gold medal game.
Before 1989, players who lived in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and other nations behind the Iron Curtain were not allowed to leave and play in the NHL. Soviet officials agreed to allow players to leave following the 1989 World Championships. The Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991. Nine former Soviet states became part of the IIHF and started competing internationally, including Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Ukraine. At the 1992 Olympics, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan competed as one entity, known as the Unified Team. In the final, the Unified Team defeated Canada to win gold while Czechoslovakia won the bronze.
Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in January 1993. The IIHF recognized the Czech Republic as the successor to Czechoslovakia, allowing the team to retain its position in the top World Championship division, while Slovakia started in the lowest division (Pool C) in 1994 and was forced to work its way up. Both nations competed in the tournament at the 1994 Winter Olympics, as did Russia. Slovakia and Finland both finished the preliminary round undefeated. Slovakia lost their medal round quarter-final game to Russia 2–3 OT, who later lost to Sweden 3–4 in the semi-final and Finland (who was defeated by Canada in another semi-final) 0–4 in the bronze medal game. In the gold medal game between Sweden and Canada, both teams finished regulation and overtime play with a 2–2 tie. In the resulting shootout, the first in Olympic competition, both nations scored two goals, which resulted in a sudden death shootout. Peter Forsberg of Sweden scored one of the most famous goals in Olympic history by faking a forehand shot, then sliding a one-handed backhand shot past goaltender Corey Hirsch. Canada's final shooter Paul Kariya's shot was saved by Tommy Salo and Sweden won the game and its first gold medal.
#### 1998–2014
In 1995, an agreement to allow NHL players to participate in Olympics was reached between the IOC, IIHF, NHL, and National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA). The format of the 1998 tournament was adjusted to accommodate the NHL's schedule. Canada, considered a pre-tournament favourite, was upset in the semi-final round by the Czech Republic and then lost the bronze medal game to Finland. Led by goaltender Dominik Hašek, the Czech team defeated Russia, winning its first gold medal in the sport. Following the tournament, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman commented that it "was what we had predicted and hoped for from a pure hockey perspective, [it was] a wonderful tournament".
The next tournament format was hosted in Salt Lake City, United States. Finnish centre Raimo Helminen became the first ice hockey player to compete in six tournaments. In the quarter-finals, Belarus defeated Sweden in one of the biggest upsets since the Miracle on Ice. The team lost to Canada 7–1 in the semi-final and Russia 7–2 in the bronze medal game, respectively. The Canadian team rebounded from a disappointing first round and defeated the American team (who eliminated Russia 3–2 in the semi-final) in the gold medal game, winning their first gold medal in 50 years and seventh in men's hockey overall.
The tournament format was adjusted for 2006. In the semi-finals, Sweden defeated the Czech Republic 7–3, and Finland ousted Russia 4–0. Sweden won the gold medal over Finland 3–2 and the Czech Republic won the bronze medal over Russia 3–0. Three months later, Sweden won the 2006 World Championships and became the first team to win the Olympic and World Championship gold in the same year. Allegations have surfaced of Sweden throwing a game against Slovakia so the Swedes would face Switzerland in the quarterfinals instead of Canada or the Czech Republic. Shortly before the game, Sweden coach Bengt-Åke Gustafsson was reported to have publicly contemplated tanking in order to avoid those teams, saying about Canada and the Czechs, "One is cholera, the other the plague."
The 2010 Winter Olympics were held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the first time since NHL players started competing that the Olympics were held in a city with an NHL team. Teemu Selänne of Finland scored his 37th point, breaking the record of 36 first set by Canadian Harry Watson in 1924 and later tied by Vlastimil Bubník of Czechoslovakia, and Valeri Kharlamov of the Soviet Union. Slovakia made the final four for the first time, but lost the bronze medal game to Finland 3–5. In the gold medal game, Canada and the United States ended regulation play with a 2–2 tie, making it only the second Olympic gold medal match to go into overtime. Canadian player Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal 7:40 into overtime play to give Canada its eighth gold medal in men's hockey.
The 2014 Winter Olympics were held in Sochi, Russia, and retained the same game format used in Vancouver 2010, while returning to the larger international-sized ice rinks. Slovenia participated for the first time, upsetting Slovakia in the round-robin before losing to Sweden in the quarterfinals 0–5, for its best finish in any international tournament. Latvia upset Switzerland 3–1 in the qualification playoffs, also making it to the Olympic quarterfinals for the first time, where they were narrowly defeated by Canada 2–1. Host nation Russia, considered a pre-tournament favourite, lost 3–1 in the quarterfinals to Finland and finished fifth. Entering the semi-finals undefeated after outscoring opponents 20–6, the United States lost to Canada 0–1, then lost the bronze medal game against Finland 0–5. Teemu Selänne scored six more points in the tournament, was named tournament MVP and boosted his modern-era Olympic career record for points to 43 (24 goals, 19 assists). At the age of 43, he also set records as both the oldest Olympic goal-scorer and oldest Olympic ice hockey medal winner. Canada defeated Sweden 3–0 to win its ninth Olympic gold medal. The team did not trail at any point over the course of the tournament, and became the first back-to-back gold medal winner since the start of NHL participation in 1998, as well as the first team to go undefeated since 1984.
#### 2018–2022
The Olympic ice hockey tournament in PyeongChang in 2018 was held without participation of NHL players, for the first time since the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. The favorites to win the gold medal were the Russians due to their domestic league, the KHL, taking an Olympic break and allowing such stars as Pavel Datsyuk and Ilya Kovalchuk to play on the team. As a consequence of a doping scandal, the IOC banned the Russian federation, but allowed Russian athletes to compete under the Olympic flag after passing anti-doping tests. The final was played between the Germans, who unexpectedly eliminated the Canadians in the semi-final, and the Olympic Athletes from Russia. In the final, the Russians prevailed, defeating Germany 4–3, and won the gold medal after Kirill Kaprizov scored the winning goal in overtime. The Russian players sang the banned anthem during the medal ceremony, but the IOC decided not to pursue any action. Canada won the bronze medal over the Czech Republic 6–4.
Although NHL players were originally planned to participate in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the league and the NHL Players' Association announced on December 21, 2021, that they would be pulling out of the tournament, citing the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Finland won their first ever ice hockey gold medal after going undefeated and beating the Russian Olympic Committee in the final. Slovakia claimed their first ever bronze medal after defeating Sweden 4–0. For the first time in history, the Czech Republic did not qualify for the quarter-finals and finished in ninth place, their lowest placement in history.
### Women's tournament
#### Addition to the programme
At the 99th IOC Session in July 1992, the IOC voted to approve women's hockey as an Olympic event beginning with the 1998 Winter Olympics as part of their effort to increase the number of female athletes at the Olympics. Women's ice hockey had not been in the programme when Nagano, Japan had won the right to host the Olympics in June 1991, and the decision required approval by the Nagano Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (NAOOC). The NAOOC was initially hesitant to include the event because of the additional costs of staging the tournament and because they felt their team, which had failed to qualify for that year's World Championships, could not be competitive. According to Glynis Peters, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association's (CAHA) head of female hockey, "the Japanese would have to finance an entirely new sports operation to bring their team up to Olympic standards in six years, which they were also really reluctant to do." In November 1992, the NWOOC and IOC Coordination Committee reached an agreement to include a women's ice hockey tournament in the programme. Part of the agreement was that the tournament would be limited to six teams, and no additional facilities would be built. The CAHA also agreed to help build and train the Japanese team so that it could be more competitive. The IOC had agreed that if the NAOOC had not approved the event, it would be held at the 2002 Winter Olympics. The format of the first tournament was similar to the men's: preliminary round-robin games followed by a medal round playoff.
#### 1998–2006
Before 1998, women's hockey had been dominated by Canada. Canadian teams had won every World Championship up to that point; however, by 1997, the American team had improved and was evenly matched with Canada. In thirteen games played between the two teams in 1997, Canada won seven and the United States won six. The 1998 Olympic tournament also included teams from Finland, Sweden, China and host Japan. Canada and the United States dominated the round-robin portion. In their head-to-head match, the United States overcame a 4–1 deficit to win 7–4. The two teams met in the final, which the United States won 3–1 to become the third American ice hockey team to win Olympic gold. Finland defeated China 4–1 to win the bronze medal.
For the 2002 Winter Olympics, the number of teams was increased to eight with Russia, Germany and Kazakhstan qualifying for the first time. The Canadian and American teams went undefeated in the first round and semi-finals, setting up a gold medal rematch that the Canadian team won 3–2. Following the game, members of the Canadian team accused the Americans of stomping on a Canadian flag in their dressing room, although an investigation later proved the rumour false. The Swedish team won the bronze medal over Finland 2–1, the nation's first in women's ice hockey.
In 2006, Sweden defeated the US in a shootout in the semi-finals, marking the first time the US had lost to an opponent other than Canada. The upset drew comparisons to the Miracle on Ice from 1980. In the medal games, Canada defeated Sweden 4–1 to claim its second consecutive gold medal, while the Americans beat Finland 4–0 to win the bronze.
#### 2010 and debate on removal from the Olympics
In 2010, eight teams participated, including Slovakia for the first time. In the gold medal game, Canada defeated the United States 2–0 to win their third consecutive gold. The Finnish team won the bronze medal over Sweden 3–2 OT, their first since 1998.
The future of international women's ice hockey was discussed at the World Hockey Summit in 2010, and dealt with how IIHF member associations could work together to grow the game and increase registration numbers, and the relative strength of the women's game in North America compared to the rest of the world. International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge raised concerns that the women's hockey tournament might be eliminated from the Olympics since the event was not competitively balanced and was dominated by Canada and the United States. Team Canada captain Hayley Wickenheiser explained that the talent gap between the North American and European countries was due to the presence of women's professional leagues in North America, along with year-round training facilities. She stated the European players were talented, but their respective national team programs were not given the same level of support as the European men's national teams, or the North American women's national teams. She stressed the need for women to have their own professional league which would be for the benefit of international hockey. IIHF vice-president Murray Costello promised to invest \$2-million towards developing international women's hockey.
#### 2014–2022
At the 2014 Winter Olympics, Canada defeated the United States 3–2, as Marie-Philip Poulin scored at 8:10 of overtime to win their fourth consecutive gold, rebounding from a two-nothing deficit late in the game. With the win, Canadians Hayley Wickenheiser, Jayna Hefford and Caroline Ouellette became the first athletes to win four ice hockey gold medals. They also joined Soviet biathlete Alexander Tikhonov and German speedskater Claudia Pechstein as the only athletes to win gold medals in four straight Winter Olympics. In the bronze medal game Switzerland beat Sweden 4–3 to win their first women's medal.
In 2018, the United States defeated Canada for the gold medal in a shootout, winning 3–2. The Americans' winning the gold medal game marks the first time in 20 years that the United States took home a gold medal in women's hockey. They previously won in 1998 in Nagano, Japan, which was also against Canada. Canada's loss effectively ended their winning streak of four consecutive winter games, having won since 2002.
The 2022 edition was played with ten teams for the first time. Canada won their fifth gold medal, defeating the United States in the final 3–2. Finland defeated Switzerland 4–0 for the bronze medal. The final standings were a repeat of the 2021 IIHF Women's World Championship.
## Rules
### Qualification
Since 1976, 12 teams have participated in the men's tournament, except in 1998 and 2002, when the number was raised to 14. The number of teams has ranged from 4 (in 1932) to 16 (in 1964). After the NHL allowed its players to compete at the 1998 Winter Olympics, the "Big Six" teams (Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Sweden and the United States) were given automatic qualification and byes to the final round. The number of teams was increased to 14 so that a preliminary round-robin tournament consisting of eight teams could be held. The top two teams from the preliminary round (Belarus and Kazakhstan) joined the "Big Six" in the finals. A similar system was used in 2002. For the following tournament, the number of teams was lowered to 12 so that all teams played fewer games. Qualification for the men's tournament at the 2010 Winter Olympics was structured around the 2008 IIHF World Ranking. Twelve spots were made available for teams. The top nine teams in the World Ranking after the 2008 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships received automatic berths. Teams ranked 19th through 30th played in a first qualification round in November 2008. The top three teams from the round advanced to the second qualification round, joined by teams ranked 10th through 18th. The top three teams from this round advanced to the Olympic tournament.
The women's tournament uses a similar qualification format. The top six teams in the IIHF Women's World Ranking after the 2008 Women's World Ice Hockey Championships received automatic berths. Teams ranked 13th and below were divided into two groups for a first qualification round in September 2008. The two group winners advanced to the second qualification round, where the teams ranked seventh through twelfth joined them.
### Players
#### Eligibility
The IIHF lists the following requirements for a player to be eligible to play in international tournaments:
- "Each player must be under the jurisdiction of an IIHF member national association."
- "Each player must be a citizen of the country he/she represents."
If a player who has never played in an IIHF competition changes their citizenship, they must participate in national competitions in their new country for at least two consecutive years and have an international transfer card (ITC). If a player who has previously played in an IIHF tournament wishes to change their national team, they must have played in their new country for four years. A player can only do this once. The original IOC rules stated that an athlete that had already played for one nation could not later change nations under any circumstances.
#### Use of professional players
Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the IOC, was influenced by the ethos of the aristocracy as exemplified in the English public schools. The public schools subscribed to the belief that sport formed an important part of education and there was a prevailing concept of fairness in which practicing or training was considered cheating. As class structure evolved through the 20th century, the definition of the amateur athlete as an aristocratic gentleman became outdated. The advent of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc countries further eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage. The Soviet Union entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession, but many of whom were in reality paid by the state to train on a full-time basis. Nevertheless, the IOC held to the traditional rules regarding amateurism until 1988.
Near the end of the 1960s, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) felt their amateur players could no longer be competitive against the Soviet team's full-time athletes and the other constantly improving European teams. They pushed for the ability to use players from professional leagues but met opposition from the IIHF and IOC. At the IIHF Congress in 1969, the IIHF decided to allow Canada to use nine non-NHL professional hockey players at the 1970 World Championships in Montreal and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The decision was reversed in January 1970 after IOC President Brundage said that ice hockey's status as an Olympic sport would be in jeopardy if the change was made. In response, Canada withdrew from international ice hockey competition and officials stated that they would not return until "open competition" was instituted. Günther Sabetzki became president of the IIHF in 1975 and helped to resolve the dispute with the CAHA. In 1976, the IIHF agreed to allow "open competition" between all players in the World Championships. However, NHL players were still not allowed to play in the Olympics, because of the unwillingness of the NHL to take a break mid-season and the IOC's amateur-only policy.
Before the 1984 Winter Olympics, a dispute formed over what made a player a professional. The IOC had adopted a rule that made any player who had signed an NHL contract but played less than ten games in the league eligible. However, the United States Olympic Committee maintained that any player contracted with an NHL team was a professional and therefore not eligible to play. The IOC held an emergency meeting that ruled NHL-contracted players were eligible, as long as they had not played in any NHL games. This made five players on Olympic rosters—one Austrian, two Italians and two Canadians—ineligible. Players who had played in other professional leagues—such as the World Hockey Association—were allowed to play. Canadian hockey official Alan Eagleson stated that the rule was only applied to the NHL and that professionally contracted players in European leagues were still considered amateurs. Murray Costello of the CAHA suggested that a Canadian withdrawal was possible. In 1986, the IOC voted to allow all athletes to compete in the Olympic Games starting in 1988.
#### NHL participation
The NHL decided not to allow all players to participate in 1988, 1992, 1994, 2018, and 2022 because the Winter Olympics typically occur in February, during the league's regular season. To allow participation, the NHL would have been forced to take a break in its schedule.
In 1992, National Basketball Association (NBA) players participated in the 1992 Summer Olympics. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman (an NBA executive in 1992) commented that the "[NBA]'s worldwide awareness grew dramatically". He hoped that NHL participation would "get exposure like the world has never seen for hockey". The typical NBA season is held in the winter and spring, so the Summer Olympics do not conflict with the regular season schedule. Bettman "floated a concept of moving hockey to the Summer Games", but this was rejected because of the Olympic Charter. In March 1995, Bettman, René Fasel, IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch and NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow met in Geneva, Switzerland. They reached an agreement that allowed NHL players to participate in the Olympics, starting with the 1998 Games in Nagano, Japan. The deal was officially announced by the NHL on 2 October 1995. Bettman said: "We're doing this to build the game of hockey, pure and simple, we think whatever benefits are recouped, it will end up making this game bigger, stronger and healthier."
The 2004–05 NHL season was locked out and eventually cancelled because of a labour dispute between the league and its players. In January 2005, Bettman commented that he was hesitant to allow league participation in the Olympics because he did not like the idea of stopping play mid-season after the cancellation of the previous season. The lockout was resolved in July 2005 and the newly negotiated NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement allowed league participation in the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics. Some NHL team owners were against their players participating in the tournament because of concerns about injury or exhaustion. Philadelphia Flyers owner Ed Snider commented that "I'm a believer in the Olympics and I think it's good for the NHL to participate, having said that, the people who participate should be the ones who are absolutely healthy." Some NHL players used the break as an opportunity to rest and did not participate in the tournament, and several players were injured during the Olympics and were forced to miss NHL games. Bettman said that several format changes were being discussed so that the tournament would be "a little easier for everybody".
It was originally thought that for NHL participating in the 2014 Winter Olympics a deal would have to be negotiated between the NHL and NHLPA in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. In January 2013, the NHL and NHLPA agreed on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. However, the decision on NHL participation at the Olympics was later announced on 19 July 2013. As part of the deal, the NHL will go on break for 17 days during the Olympics and will send 13 on-ice officials to help with the Games. NHL management was hesitant to commit to the tournament; Bettman argued the Olympic break is a "strain on the players, on the schedule and on fans", adding that "the benefits we get tend to be greater when the Olympics are in North America than when they're in distant time zones." According to Bettman, most of the NHL team owners agree with his position, and feel that the league does not receive enough benefits to justify the schedule break and risk of player injuries. René Fasel wants NHL participation and vowed that he would "work day and night to have NHL players in Sochi".
At an October 2008 press conference, then-NHLPA executive director Paul Kelly stated that the players want to return to the Olympics and would try to include the ability in the next agreement. Russian NHL players Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin stated that they want to participate in the tournament and would do so without the permission of the NHL, if necessary. Paul Kelly also believed that the NHL's strained relationship with the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia and the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) could affect participation. In a 2009 interview, KHL president Alexander Medvedev claimed that the unwillingness of NHL officials to immediately commit to the Sochi Games was "an instrument of pressure" to force a transfer agreement between the two leagues.
A major sticking point over NHL participation has been the insurance of players; for the 2014 Winter Olympics, the IOC paid around US\$7 million to insure NHL players participating in the Games. In April 2016, the IOC announced that beginning in 2018, it would no longer cover accommodations, insurance, or travel for NHL players in the Olympics, prompting the IIHF to ask for support from national ice hockey associations and National Olympic Committees to help cover costs; Matti Nurminen of the Finnish Ice Hockey Association argued that it was the responsibility of the event's organizer to cover costs, and that "In our opinion, the same party should pay the bills, and that's not us. All the countries replied to the IIHF that they are not willing to pay for the insurance or the travel or any of the other expenses that are related to having the NHL players participate in Pyeongchang." The New York Times felt that the removal of this financial support would put NHL participation at Pyeongchang in jeopardy, noting the already-strenuous relationship between the NHL and the IOC; Gary Bettman noted that the NHL does not profit from their presence, adding that "in fact, we kind of disappear for two weeks because historically the IOC hasn't even let us join in promoting our participation in the Olympics."
On 3 April 2017, the NHL announced that it would not participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics. In that statement, the NHL said that it had been open to hearing from the IOC, the IIHF, and the players' association on ways to make Olympic participation more attractive to team owners, but no meaningful dialogue on that matter had materialized. As to reasons the Board of Governors might be interested in re-evaluating their strongly held views on the subject, the NHLPA "confirmed that it has no interest or intention of engaging in any discussion that might make Olympic participation more attractive to the Clubs", and that it would not schedule a break for the Olympics in the 2017–18 season.
Although in the following months the president of the IIHF René Fasel tried to convince NHL to change its decision, in September he stated that there was no chance for participation of NHL players in the Pyeongchang olympic tournament. "I can say that this is now gone. We can tick that off the list. We will have to look ahead to China and the Beijing 2022 winter Games because there is an interest of the league and we have noted that. But logistically it is practically impossible for Pyeongchang. That train has left the station", he said. Some NHL players expressed their discontent with league's decision to skip the Olympics. Alexander Ovechkin, captain of the Washington Capitals: "The Olympics are in my blood and everybody knows how much I love my country", adding that "he would compete with Russia if he were the only NHL player to travel to South Korea". "It's brutal, [...] I don't think there's any reason we shouldn't be going", said Justin Faulk, 2014 Olympian and alternate captain for the Carolina Hurricanes. Eventually, the NHL players were forced to follow the league's decision and stay in their clubs during the 2018 Olympics.
### Game rules
At the first tournament in 1920, there were many differences from the modern game: games were played outdoors on natural ice, forward passes were not allowed, the rink (which had been intended to be used only for figure skating) was 56 m × 18 m (165 ft × 58.5 ft) and two 20-minute periods were played. Each team had seven players on the ice, the extra position being the rover. Following the tournament, the IIHF held a congress and decided to adopt the Canadian rules—six men per side and three periods of play.
The tournaments follow the rules used by the IIHF. At the 1969 IIHF Congress, officials voted to allow body-checking in all three zones in a rink similar to the NHL; it's prohibited for women. Before that, body-checking was only allowed in the defending zone in international hockey Several other rule changes were implemented in the early 1970s: players were required to wear helmets starting in 1970, and goaltender masks became mandatory in 1972. In 1992, the IIHF switched to using a playoff system to determine medalists and decided that tie games in the medal round would be decided in a shootout. In 1998, the IIHF passed a rule that allowed two-line passes. Before then, the neutral zone trap had slowed the game down and reduced scoring.
The current IIHF rules differ slightly from the rules used in the NHL. One difference between NHL and IIHF rules is standard rink dimensions: the NHL rink is narrower, measuring 61 m × 26 m (200 ft × 85 ft), instead of the international size of 61 m × 30.5 m (200 ft × 100 ft) The larger international size allows for a faster and less physical style of play. Another rule difference between the NHL and the IIHF rules concerns how icing is called. In the NHL, a linesman stops play due to icing if a defending player (other than the goaltender) is not behind an attacking player in the race to the end-zone faceoff dots in his defensive zone, in contrast to the IIHF rules in which play is stopped the moment the puck crosses the goal line. The NHL and IIHF also differ in penalty rules. The NHL calls five-minute major penalties for more dangerous infractions of the rules, such as fighting, in addition to the minor and double minor penalties called in IIHF games. This is in contrast to the IIHF rule, by which players who fight risk a game misconduct & major penalties. Beginning with the 2005–06 season, the NHL instituted several new rules. Some were already used by the IIHF, such as the shootout and the two-line pass. Others were not picked up by the IIHF, such as those requiring smaller goaltender equipment and the addition of the goaltender trapezoid to the rink. However, the IIHF did agree to follow the NHL's zero-tolerance policy on obstruction and required referees to call more hooking, holding, and interference penalties.
Each team is allowed to have between 15 and 20 skaters (forwards and defencemen) and two or three goaltenders, all of whom must be citizens of the nation they play for.
### Banned substances
The IIHF follows the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) regulations on performance-enhancing drugs. The IIHF maintains a Registered Testing Pool, a list of top players who are subjected to random in-competition and out-of-competition drug tests. According to the WADA, a positive in-competition test results in disqualification of the player and a suspension that varies based on the number of offences. When a player tests positive, the rest of their team is subjected to testing; another positive test can result in a disqualification of the entire team.
In late 2005, two NHL players who had been listed as potential Olympians failed drug tests administered by the WADA. Bryan Berard tested positive for 19-Norandrosterone. José Théodore failed a drug test because he was taking Propecia, a hair loss medication that contains the non-performance-enhancing drug Finasteride. Both players received two-year bans from international competition, although neither had made their team's final roster. On 6 December 2017 six Russian women ice hockey players were disqualified for doping violations. Results of the Russian women's team at the 2014 Winter Olympics were made void. Two other Russian players, Tatiana Burina and Anna Shukina, were also disqualified ten days later.
## Results
### Men
#### Summary
#### Medal table
Accurate as of 2022 Winter Olympics.
##### Alternate medal table
Unlike the IOC, the IIHF combines the records of predecessor and successor nations.
#### Participating nations
Key
### Women
#### Summary
<table>
<thead>
<tr class="header">
<th><p>#</p></th>
<th><p>Year</p></th>
<th><p>Hosts</p></th>
<th><p>Gold medal game</p></th>
<th><p>Bronze medal game</p></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p>Gold</p></td>
<td><p>Score</p></td>
<td><p>Silver</p></td>
<td><p>Bronze</p></td>
<td><p>Score</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p>1</p></td>
<td><p>1998<br />
Details</p></td>
<td><p><br />
Nagano</p></td>
<td><p>'</p></td>
<td><p>3–1</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p>2</p></td>
<td><p>2002<br />
Details</p></td>
<td><p><br />
Salt Lake City</p></td>
<td><p>'</p></td>
<td><p>3–2</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p>3</p></td>
<td><p>2006<br />
Details</p></td>
<td><p><br />
Torino</p></td>
<td><p>'</p></td>
<td><p>4–1</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p>4</p></td>
<td><p>2010<br />
Details</p></td>
<td><p><br />
Vancouver</p></td>
<td><p>'</p></td>
<td><p>2–0</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p>5</p></td>
<td><p>2014<br />
Details</p></td>
<td><p><br />
Sochi</p></td>
<td><p>'</p></td>
<td><p>3–2 OT</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p>6</p></td>
<td><p>2018<br />
Details</p></td>
<td><p><br />
Pyeongchang</p></td>
<td><p>'</p></td>
<td><p>3–2 SO</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p>7</p></td>
<td><p>2022<br />
Details</p></td>
<td><p><br />
Beijing</p></td>
<td><p>'</p></td>
<td><p>3–2</p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
#### Medal table
Accurate as of 2022 Winter Olympics.
#### Participating nations
Key'''
### Overall medal table
Sources (after the 2022 Winter Olympics):
Accurate as of 2022 Winter Olympics.''
#### Alternate overall medal table
Unlike the IOC, the IIHF combines the records of predecessor and successor nations.
## See also
- Ice sledge hockey at the Winter Paralympics
- List of Olympic venues in ice hockey
|
331,124 |
Christian Bale
| 1,172,503,006 |
English actor (born 1974)
|
[
"1974 births",
"20th-century English male actors",
"21st-century American male actors",
"21st-century English male actors",
"Actors from Bournemouth",
"American male film actors",
"American male voice actors",
"Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners",
"Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winners",
"Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe (film) winners",
"English emigrants to the United States",
"English male child actors",
"English male film actors",
"English male voice actors",
"Living people",
"Male actors from Dorset",
"Male actors from Surrey",
"Naturalized citizens of the United States",
"Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners",
"Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role Screen Actors Guild Award winners",
"People educated at Bournemouth School",
"People from Haverfordwest"
] |
Christian Charles Philip Bale (born 30 January 1974) is an English actor. Known for his versatility and physical transformations for his roles, he has been a leading man in films of several genres. He has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards. Forbes magazine ranked him as one of the highest-paid actors in 2014.
Born in Wales to English parents, Bale had his breakthrough role at age 13 in Steven Spielberg's 1987 war film Empire of the Sun. After more than a decade of performing in leading and supporting roles in films, he gained wider recognition for his portrayals of serial killer Patrick Bateman in the black comedy American Psycho (2000) and the titular role in the psychological thriller The Machinist (2004). In 2005, he played superhero Batman in Batman Begins and again in The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), garnering acclaim for his performance in the trilogy, which is one of the highest-grossing film franchises.
Bale continued in starring roles in a range of films outside his work as Batman, including the period drama The Prestige (2006), the action film Terminator Salvation (2009), the crime drama Public Enemies (2009), the epic film Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) and the superhero film Thor: Love and Thunder (2022). For his portrayal of boxer Dicky Eklund in the 2010 biographical film The Fighter, he won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Further Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations came for his work in the black comedy American Hustle (2013) and the biographical dramedies The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018). His performances as politician Dick Cheney in Vice and race car driver Ken Miles in the sports drama Ford v Ferrari (2019) earned him a second win and a fifth nomination respectively at the Golden Globe Awards.
## Early life
Christian Charles Philip Bale was born on 30 January 1974 in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, to English parents—Jenny James, a circus performer, and David Bale, an entrepreneur and activist. Bale has remarked, "I was born in Wales but I'm not Welsh—I'm English." He has two elder sisters, Sharon and Louise, and a half-sister from his father's first marriage, Erin. One of his grandfathers was a comedian while the other was a stand-in for John Wayne. Bale and his family left Wales when he was two years old, and after living in Portugal and Oxfordshire, England, they settled in Bournemouth. As well as saying that the family had lived in 15 towns by the time he was 15, Bale described the frequent relocation as being driven by "necessity rather than choice" and acknowledged that it had a major influence on his career selection. He attended Bournemouth School, later saying he left school at age 16. Bale's parents divorced in 1991, and at age 17, he moved with his sister Louise and their father to Los Angeles.
Bale trained in ballet as a child. His first acting role came at eight years old in a commercial for the fabric softener Lenor. He also appeared in a Pac-Man cereal commercial. After his sister was cast in a West End musical, Bale considered taking up acting professionally. He said later he did not find acting appealing but pursued it at the request of those around him because he had no reason not to do so. After participating in school plays, Bale performed opposite Rowan Atkinson in the play The Nerd in the West End in 1984. He did not undergo any formal acting training.
## Career
### Early roles and breakthrough (1986–1999)
After deciding to become an actor at age ten, Bale secured a minor role in the 1986 television film Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna. Its star, Amy Irving, who was married to director Steven Spielberg, subsequently recommended Bale for Spielberg's 1987 film Empire of the Sun. At age 13, Bale was chosen from over 4,000 actors to portray a British boy in a World War II Japanese internment camp. For the film, he spoke with an upper-class cadence without the help of a dialogue coach. The role propelled Bale to fame, and his work earned him acclaim and the inaugural Best Performance by a Juvenile Actor Award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. Earlier in the same year, he starred in the fantasy film Mio in the Land of Faraway, based on the novel Mio, My Son by Astrid Lindgren. The fame from Empire of the Sun led to Bale being bullied in school and finding the pressures of working as an actor unbearable. He grew distrustful of the acting profession because of media attention but said that he felt obligated at a young age to continue to act for financial reasons. Around this time, actor and filmmaker Kenneth Branagh persuaded Bale to appear in his film Henry V in 1989, which drew him back into acting. The following year, Bale played Jim Hawkins opposite Charlton Heston as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, a television film adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's book of the same name.
Bale starred in the 1992 Disney musical film Newsies, which was unsuccessful both at the box office and with critics. Rebecca Milzoff of Vulture revisited the film in 2012 and found the cracks in Bale's voice during his performance of the song "Santa Fe" charming and apt even though he was not a great singer. In 1993, he appeared in Swing Kids, a film about teenagers who secretly listen to forbidden jazz during the rise of Nazi Germany. In Gillian Armstrong's 1994 film Little Women, Bale played Theodore "Laurie" Laurence following a recommendation from Winona Ryder, who starred as Jo March. The film achieved critical and commercial success. Of Bale's performance, Ryder said he captured the complex nature of the role. He next voiced Thomas, a young compatriot of Captain John Smith, in the 1995 Disney animated film Pocahontas, which attracted a mixed critical reception. Bale played a small part in the 1996 film The Portrait of a Lady, based on the Henry James novel of the same name, and appeared in the 1998 musical film Velvet Goldmine, set in the 1970s during the glam rock era. In 1999, he was part of an ensemble cast, which included Kevin Kline and Michelle Pfeiffer, portraying Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream, a film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same name.
### Rise to prominence and commercial decline (2000–2004)
Bale played Patrick Bateman, an investment banker and serial killer, in American Psycho, a film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' novel of the same name, directed by Mary Harron. While Harron had chosen Bale for the part, the film's production and distribution company, Lionsgate, originally disagreed and hired Leonardo DiCaprio to play Bateman with Oliver Stone to direct. Bale and Harron were brought back after DiCaprio and Stone had left the project. Bale exercised and tanned himself for months to achieve Bateman's chiseled physique and had his teeth capped to assimilate to the character's narcissistic nature. American Psycho premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. Harron said critic Roger Ebert named it the most hated film at the event. Of Bale's work, Ebert wrote he "is heroic in the way he allows the character to leap joyfully into despicability; there is no instinct for self-preservation here, and that is one mark of a good actor." The film was released in April 2000, becoming a commercial and critical success and later developing a cult following; the role established Bale as a leading man.
In the four years that followed American Psycho, Bale's career experienced critical and commercial failure. He next played a villainous real estate heir in John Singleton's action film Shaft and appeared in John Madden's film adaptation of the novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin as Mandras, a Greek fisherman who vies with Nicolas Cage's title character for the affections of Pelagia, played by Penélope Cruz. Bale said he found it refreshing to play Mandras, who is emotionally humane, after working on American Psycho and Shaft. In 2002, he appeared in three films: Laurel Canyon, Reign of Fire and Equilibrium. Reviewing Laurel Canyon for Entertainment Weekly, Lisa Schwarzbaum called Bale's performance "fussy". After having reservations about joining the post-apocalyptic Reign of Fire, which involved computer-generated imagery, Bale professed his enjoyment of making films that could go awry and cited director Rob Bowman as a reason for his involvement. In Equilibrium, he plays a police officer in a futuristic society and performs gun kata, a fictional martial art that incorporates gunfighting. IGN's Jeff Otto characterised Reign of Fire as "poorly received" and Equilibrium as "highly underrated", while The Independent's Stephen Applebaum described the two films along with Shaft and Captain Corelli's Mandolin as "mediocre fare".
Bale starred as the insomnia-ridden, emotionally dysfunctional title character in the psychological thriller The Machinist. To prepare for the role, he initially only smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey. His diet later expanded to include black coffee, an apple and a can of tuna per day. Bale lost 63 pounds (29 kg), weighing 121 pounds (55 kg) to play the character, who was written in the script as "a walking skeleton". His weight loss prompted comparisons with Robert De Niro's weight gain in preparation to play Jake LaMotta in the 1980 film Raging Bull. Describing his transformation as mentally calming, Bale claimed he had stopped working for a while because he did not come upon scripts that piqued his interest and that the film's script drew him to lose weight for the part. The Machinist was released in October 2004; it performed poorly at the box office. Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel regarded it as one of the best films of the year, and Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote that Bale's "haunted, aggressive and finally wrenching performance" gave it a "strong anchor".
### Batman and dramatic roles (2005–2008)
Bale portrayed American billionaire Bruce Wayne and his superhero alias Batman in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, a reboot of the Batman film series. Nolan cast Bale, who was still fairly unknown at the time, because Bale had "exactly the balance of darkness and light" Nolan sought. For the part, Bale regained the weight he lost for The Machinist and built muscle, weighing 220 pounds (100 kg). He trained in weapons, Wing Chun Kung Fu and the Keysi Fighting Method. Acknowledging the story's peculiar circumstances involving a character "who thinks he can run around in a batsuit in the middle of the night", Bale said he and Nolan had deliberately approached it with "as realistic a motivation as possible", referencing Wayne's parents' murder. Bale voiced Wayne and Batman differently. He employed gravelly tone qualities for Batman, which Nolan believed reinforced the character's visual appearance. Batman Begins was released in the US in June 2005. Tim Grierson and Will Leitch of Vulture complimented Bale's "sensitive, intelligent portrayal of a spoiled, wayward Bruce who finally grows up (and fights crime)." The performance earned Bale the MTV Movie Award for Best Hero.
In the same year, Bale voiced the titular Howl, a wizard, in the English-language dub of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle, a Japanese animated film adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones's children's novel of the same name. He committed himself to voice the role after watching Miyazaki's animated film Spirited Away. Later that year, he starred as a US war veteran who deals with post-traumatic stress disorder in the David Ayer-helmed crime drama Harsh Times, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. He portrayed colonist John Rolfe in The New World, a historical drama film inspired by the stories of Pocahontas, directed by Terrence Malick. The film was released on 25 December 2005. The following year saw the premiere of Rescue Dawn, by German filmmaker Werner Herzog, in which Bale portrayed US fighter pilot Dieter Dengler, who fights for his life after being shot down while on a mission during the Vietnam War. After the two worked together, Herzog stated that he had considered Bale to be among his generation's greatest talents long before he played Batman. The Austin Chronicle's Marjorie Baumgarten viewed Bale's work as a continuance of his "masterful command of yet another American personality type."
For the 2006 film The Prestige, Bale reunited with Batman Begins director Nolan, who said that Bale was cast after offering himself for the part. It is based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Priest about a rivalry between two Victorian era magicians, whom Bale and Hugh Jackman play in the film. While it attracted acclaim from critics, the film performed more modestly during its run in theatres, earning \$110 million against a \$40 million budget. In his review for The New York Times, A. O. Scott highlighted Bale's "fierce inwardness" and called his performance "something to savor". Bale next starred in the 2007 drama films I'm Not There, portraying two incarnations of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, and in 3:10 to Yuma, playing a justice-seeking cattleman. He characterised his Dylan incarnations as "two men on a real quest for truth" and attributed his interest in 3:10 to Yuma to his affinity for films where he gets to "just be dirty and crawling in the mud". Bale reprised the role of Batman in Nolan's Batman Begins sequel The Dark Knight, which received acclaim and became the fourth film to gross more than \$1 billion worldwide upon its July 2008 release. He did many of his own stunts, including one that involved standing on the roof of the Sears Tower in Chicago. The Dark Knight has been regarded by critics as the best superhero film.
### The Dark Knight trilogy completion and acclaim (2009–2012)
In February 2008, Warner Bros. announced that Bale would star as rebellion leader John Connor in the post-apocalyptic action film Terminator Salvation, directed by McG, who cited Bale as "the most credible actor of his generation". In February 2009, an audio recording of a tirade on the film's set in July 2008 involving Bale was released. It captured him directing profanities at the film's cinematographer Shane Hurlbut, who walked onto the set during the filming of a scene acted by Bale and Bryce Dallas Howard, and culminated in Bale threatening to quit the film if Hurlbut was not fired. Several colleagues in the film industry defended Bale, attributing the incident to his dedication to acting. Bale publicly apologised in February 2009, calling the outburst "inexcusable" and his behaviour "way out of order" and affirming to have made amends with Hurlbut. Terminator Salvation was released in May 2009 to tepid reviews. Claudia Puig of USA Today considered Bale's work to be "surprisingly one-dimensional", while The Age's Jake Wilson wrote he gave one of his least compelling performances. Bale later admitted he knew during production that the film would not revitalise the Terminator franchise as he had wished. He asserted he would not work with McG again.
Bale portrayed FBI agent Melvin Purvis opposite Johnny Depp as gangster John Dillinger in Michael Mann's crime drama Public Enemies. Released in July 2009, it earned critical praise and had a commercially successful theatrical run. Dan Zak of The Washington Post was unsatisfied with the casting of Bale and Depp, believing their characters' rivalry lacked electricity, while The New Republic's Christopher Orr found Bale's "characteristically closed off" performance "nonetheless effective". The following year, Bale starred in the role of Dicky Eklund, a professional boxer whose career has ended due to his drug addiction, in David O. Russell's drama film The Fighter. It chronicles the relationship between Eklund and his brother and boxing trainee, Micky Ward, played by Mark Wahlberg. To balance Eklund's tragic condition, Bale incorporated humor in his characterisation. The portrayal, for which he lost 30 pounds (14 kg), was acclaimed, the San Francisco Chronicle's Mick LaSalle describing it as "shrewdly observed, physically precise and psychologically acute". Bale won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for his performance. In 2011, he starred in Zhang Yimou's historical drama film The Flowers of War, which was the highest-grossing Chinese film of the year. Critics described it as "nationalistic", "anti-Japanese" and "too long, too melodramatic, too lightweight".
Bale played Batman again under Christopher Nolan's direction in the sequel The Dark Knight Rises, released in July 2012. He described Batman in the film as a remorseful recluse in poor mental and physical health, who has surrendered following the events of The Dark Knight. Following the shooting at a midnight showing of the film in Aurora, Colorado, Bale and his wife visited survivors, doctors and first responders at The Medical Center of Aurora as well as a memorial to victims. The Dark Knight Rises was the 11th film to gross more than \$1 billion worldwide, surpassing The Dark Knight. Nolan's Batman film series, dubbed the Dark Knight trilogy, is one of the highest-grossing film franchises. It is also regarded as one of the best comic book film franchises. Bale's performance in the three films garnered universal acclaim, with The Guardian, The Indian Express, MovieWeb, NME and a poll conducted by the Radio Times ranking it as the best portrayal of Batman on film. Bale later revealed his dissatisfaction with his work throughout the trilogy, saying he "didn't quite nail" his part and that he "didn't quite manage" what he had hoped he would as Batman.
### Continued critical success (2013–2018)
In 2013, Bale played a steel mill worker in Scott Cooper's thriller Out of the Furnace. Cooper rewrote the film's script with Bale in mind before the two even met and would not proceed with the project without the actor's involvement. Critics commended the film and deemed it an excellent beginning of the next phase in Bale's career after playing Batman, with Kristopher Tapley of Variety noting his work in the film was his best. That same year, he starred in American Hustle, which reunited him with David O. Russell after their work on The Fighter. To play con artist Irving Rosenfeld, Bale studied footage of interviews with real-life con artist Mel Weinberg, who served as inspiration for the character. He gained 43 pounds (20 kg), shaved part of his head and adopted a slouched posture, which reduced his height by 3 inches (7.6 cm) and caused him to suffer a herniated disc. Russell indicated that Robert De Niro, who appeared in an uncredited role, did not recognise Bale when they were first introduced. Writing for the New York Daily News, Joe Neumaier found Bale's performance to be "sad, funny and riveting". He was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his work.
Bale portrayed Moses in Ridley Scott's epic film Exodus: Gods and Kings. Released in December 2014, the film faced accusations of whitewashing for the casting of Caucasian actors in Middle Eastern roles. Scott justified casting decisions citing financing needs, Bale stating that Scott had been forthright in getting the film made. Its critical response varied between negative and mixed, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Joe Williams called Bale's performance in the film the most apathetic of his career. Bale appeared in Terrence Malick's drama Knight of Cups, which The Atlantic critic David Sims dubbed a "noble failure". During its premiere at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2015, he said he filmed the project without having learned any dialogue and that Malick had only given him a character description. Later that year, he starred as Michael Burry, an antisocial hedge fund manager, in Adam McKay's The Big Short, a biographical comedy-drama film about the financial crisis of 2007–08. He used an ocular prosthesis in the film. The Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern found his portrayal "scarily hilarious—or in one-liners and quick takes, deftly edited". The role earned Bale Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor.
In the 2016 historical drama The Promise, set during the Armenian Genocide, he played an American journalist who becomes involved in a love triangle with a woman, played by Charlotte Le Bon, and an Armenian medical student, played by Oscar Isaac. Critics disapproved of the film, which accrued a \$102 million loss. Reviewing the film for The New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis wrote that Bale appeared "muffled and indistinct". In Cooper's 2017 film Hostiles, Bale starred as a US Army officer escorting a gravely ill Cheyenne war chief and his family back to their home in Montana. He calls the film "a western with brutal, modern-day resonance" and his character "a bigoted and hate-filled man". Bale learned the Cheyenne language while working on the film. Empire critic Dan Jolin considered his performance striking and one of the strongest of his career. In 2018, Bale voiced Bagheera in the adventure film Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle. Rolling Stone's David Fear wrote that his voice work and that of Andy Serkis, who directed the film, "bring the soul as well as sound and fury".
### Recent career (2018–present)
For the 2018 biographical comedy drama Vice, written and directed by Adam McKay, Bale underwent a major body transformation once again, as he gained over 40 pounds (18 kg) and shaved his head to portray US Vice President Dick Cheney. He described Cheney, who is reckoned the most influential and loathed vice president in US history, as "quiet and secretive". The film reunited Bale with Amy Adams, with whom he had co-starred in The Fighter and American Hustle. It received positive reviews, and The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw commended Bale's "terrifically and in fact rather scarily plausible" Cheney impersonation. Lauded by critics, the performance won Bale the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and garnered him an Academy Award nomination. During his acceptance speech at the 76th Golden Globe Awards, Bale thanked Satan for inspiring his Cheney portrayal, which elicited a response from Cheney's daughter and US Representative Liz Cheney, who stated that Bale ruined his opportunity to play "a real superhero".
Bale portrayed sports car racing driver Ken Miles in the 2019 sports drama Ford v Ferrari, for which he lost 70 pounds (32 kg) after playing Cheney. Directed by James Mangold, the film follows Miles and automotive designer Carroll Shelby, played by Matt Damon, in events surrounding the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans race. The role earned Bale a fifth Golden Globe Award nomination. While promoting the film, he said he would no longer go through weight fluctuations for roles.
Bale played Gorr the God Butcher, a villain, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Thor: Love and Thunder, which was released in July 2022. He cited a character in the music video for the Aphex Twin song "Come to Daddy" as an inspiration for his characterisation of Gorr. Bale's portrayal drew praise from critics, who deemed it "grounded and non-campy". He produced and appeared in David O. Russell's period film Amsterdam and Scott Cooper's thriller The Pale Blue Eye, reuniting with both directors for the third time. Amsterdam was released in October 2022, receiving dire reviews and failing at the box office. The Pale Blue Eye, adapted from the 2003 novel of the same name by Louis Bayard, was released in December 2022, receiving mixed reviews from critics.
## Artistry and public image
Bale is known for his exhaustive dedication to the weight fluctuations that his parts demand as well as "the intensity with which he completely inhabits his roles", with The Washington Post's Ann Hornaday rating him among the most physically gifted actors of his generation. Max O'Connell of RogerEbert.com deemed Bale's commitment to altering his physical appearance "an anchoring facet to a depiction of obsession" in his performances, while the Los Angeles Times's Hugh Hart likened the urgency that drives Bale's acting style to method acting, adding that it "convincingly animates even his most extreme physical transformations." Bale has said that he does not practise method acting and that he does not use a particular technique. He named Rowan Atkinson as his template as an actor and added that he was mesmerised by him when they worked together. He also studied the work of Gary Oldman, crediting him as the reason for his pursuit of acting.
Bale has been recognised for his versatility; Martha Ross of The Mercury News named him one of his generation's most versatile actors. Known to be very private about his personal life, Bale has said that his objective was to embody characters without showing any aspect of himself. He explained that "letting people know who you are" does not help create different characters, viewing anonymity as "what's giving you the ability to play those characters". During interviews to promote films in which he puts on an accent, Bale would continue speaking in the given accent. Bale has also been noted for portraying roles with an American accent, with The Atlantic's Joe Reid listing him among those who "work least in their native accents"; in real life, Bale speaks in an "emphatic, non-posh" English accent.
Bale was ranked at number eight on Forbes magazine's list of the highest-paid actors of 2014, earning \$35 million. He has been described as a sex symbol.
## Personal life
Bale has lived in Los Angeles since the 1990s. He holds US citizenship. Bale married Sandra "Sibi" Blažić, a former model, in Las Vegas on 29 January 2000. The couple have a daughter and a son. In 2000, Bale became feminist Gloria Steinem's stepson following her marriage to his father, who died in 2003 of brain lymphoma.
Bale became a vegetarian at seven years old but in 2009 said he was "in and out of the vegetarianism now". He had stopped eating red meat after reading the children's book Charlotte's Web. An animal rights activist, he supports the organisations Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Doris Day Animal League, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International and Redwings Horse Sanctuary. While promoting The Flowers of War in December 2011, Bale, with a crew from the television network CNN, attempted to visit Chen Guangcheng, a confined blind barefoot lawyer, in a village in eastern China. He was forced to retreat after scuffling with guards at a checkpoint. Bale finally met Chen at a dinner held by the nonprofit Human Rights First the following year, during which he presented Chen with an award. Bale voiced Chen's story in Amnesty International's podcast, In Their Own Words.
On 22 July 2008, Bale was arrested in London after his mother and his sister Sharon reported him to the police for an alleged assault at a hotel. He was released on bail. Bale denied the allegations and later called the incident "a deeply personal matter". On 14 August, the Crown Prosecution Service declared they would take no further action against him because of "insufficient evidence to afford a realistic prospect of conviction".
## Acting credits and accolades
According to the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, which assigns films scores based on the number of positive critical reviews they receive, some of Bale's highest-scoring films are The Dark Knight (2008), Ford v Ferrari (2019), American Hustle (2013), Little Women (1994), The Fighter (2010), Rescue Dawn (2007), 3:10 to Yuma (2007), The Big Short (2015), Howl's Moving Castle (2005) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012); the first, third and last of which are also listed by the data website The Numbers as his highest-grossing films, alongside Terminator Salvation (2009), Batman Begins (2005), Pocahontas (1995), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) and Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014).
Bale has garnered four Academy Award nominations, including two in the Best Actor category for his work in American Hustle and Vice (2018) as well as two in the Best Supporting Actor category for his work in The Fighter (2010) and The Big Short; he won one for The Fighter. He has earned two Golden Globe Awards, including Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for his role in The Fighter and Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his role in Vice, and received two nominations for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performances in American Hustle and The Big Short and a nomination for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for his performance in Ford v Ferrari. Bale has also been nominated for eight Screen Actors Guild Awards, winning in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role category for The Fighter and the Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture category as part of the American Hustle cast.
|
904,623 |
Damageplan
| 1,150,843,498 |
American metal band
|
[
"2003 establishments in Texas",
"2004 disestablishments in Texas",
"American groove metal musical groups",
"American nu metal musical groups",
"American thrash metal musical groups",
"Heavy metal musical groups from Texas",
"Musical groups disestablished in 2004",
"Musical groups established in 2003",
"Musical quartets",
"Pantera",
"Sibling musical groups"
] |
Damageplan was an American heavy metal band from Dallas, Texas, formed in 2003. Following the demise of their previous group Pantera, brothers Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul Abbott wanted to start a new band. The pair recruited former Diesel Machine and Halford guitarist Patrick Lachman on vocals, and later Bob Zilla on bass. Damageplan released New Found Power, their only album, on February 10, 2004. New Found Power debuted at number 38 on the Billboard 200, selling 44,676 copies in its first week.
While Damageplan was promoting the album at a concert on December 8, 2004 at the Alrosa Villa nightclub in Columbus, Ohio, deranged fan Nathan Gale climbed on stage and killed guitarist Dimebag Darrell and three others before being fatally shot by police officer James Niggemeyer. Although no motive was found, some of Gale's friends reported that he believed that Pantera had stolen his lyrics and that its former members were attempting to steal his identity. Damageplan's manager confirmed there are unreleased Damageplan recordings, although they have not surfaced, and the band has been inactive since the incident. Vinnie and Zilla joined the band Hellyeah, and Lachman joined the Mercy Clinic. Vinnie Paul died in 2018.
## History
### Formation
By 2003, drummer Vinnie Paul and guitarist Dimebag Darrell were plagued with difficulties that their previous metal band, Pantera, was experiencing. Both described the performance level of Pantera's vocalist, Phil Anselmo, as "hit and miss, depending on what type of chemicals he was on". Following the release of Pantera's 2000 album Reinventing the Steel and the subsequent tour, Anselmo and bassist Rex Brown started to focus on their side projects, and did not discuss or record any further Pantera material, while Darrell and Paul wanted to continue to write and play music. Both Abbott brothers thought it was time to move on, and, upon disbanding Pantera, they began writing new material.
A demo of the song "Crawl" was sent to former Halford guitarist Pat Lachman who auditioned as vocalist. Lachman was hired, and New Found Power was formed in early 2003 with former Jerry Cantrell guitarist Shawn Matthews on bass initially, who was replaced after the album recording with the brothers' tattoo artist, Bob Zilla. When writing music, Paul claimed; "we put no boundaries on it ... we wanted it to be very diverse", and Darrell said "We wanted to stretch out and expand our capabilities to their fullest." The band changed its name to Damageplan and decided to name the first album New Found Power.
### New Found Power
The single "Save Me" debuted on American radio on January 26, 2004, and the band's debut album, New Found Power, was released in the United States on February 10. The album was recorded at the brothers' backyard studio, Chasin' Jason, in Arlington, Texas, where previous Pantera albums were also recorded. The Abbott brothers found out that during recording, everyone was willing to contribute and "put 100% effort into it" while with Pantera, but they found it too difficult to have Anselmo in the recording studio. Corey Taylor of Slipknot and Stone Sour, Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society, and Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains made guest appearances on the tracks "Fuck You", "Soul Bleed", and the bonus track "Ashes to Ashes" respectively, and Sterling Winfield handled co-production duties.
New Found Power sold 44,676 copies in its first week to debut at number 38 on the Billboard 200. The album received mixed reviews from music critics; Christine Klunk of PopMatters commented "I'm not in the least bit interested in where this band goes or what new and exciting ways they'll think of to abuse the listeners," while Johnny Loftus of AllMusic felt it was a "blazing new beginning".
Alice in Chains' vocalist/guitarist Jerry Cantrell attended a Thanksgiving party hosted by the Abbott brothers. Darrell and Paul had a demo of the first song they wrote, titled "Ashes to Ashes". Lachman insisted that it was on the "backburner" until Cantrell showed interest. The band entered the Abbott brothers' backyard studio with Cantrell to record "Ashes to Ashes". Although the song was not completed in time to be featured on New Found Power, it was included on the Japanese version, and for the soundtrack The Punisher: The Album. To promote New Found Power, the band toured with Hatebreed, Drowning Pool, and Unearth on the second installment of the Headbangers Ball.
### Death of Dimebag Darrell
On December 8, 2004, the band was on a tour at the Alrosa Villa nightclub in Columbus, Ohio. Moments into the concert, Nathan Gale, a deranged 25-year-old ex-marine and fan of the band, climbed onto the stage, drew a 9 mm Beretta 92FS, and shot Dimebag Darrell five times in the head, killing him instantly. The band's head of security Jeffery "Mayhem" Thompson then engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Gale, which allowed Paul and other members to escape. However, Thompson was shot and killed in the ensuing struggle. A fan named Nathan Bray, who attempted to give CPR to Thompson and Darrell, and Erin Halk, a U.S. Marine-turned-roadie who tried to disarm Gale while he was reloading, were both shot and killed as well. Once the police arrived, Columbus Police officer James Niggemeyer approached the stage from behind, and saw Gale holding his weapon to a hostage, who was the band's drum technician. Niggemeyer shot Gale once in the head with a 12-gauge Remington Model 870, killing him instantly. Fifteen shots were fired by Gale, and an additional 36 rounds were found in his possession.
A police investigation did not find any motive behind the shooting, although Gale's mother stated that he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and that he believed the Abbott brothers had stolen his lyrics while trying to steal his identity. She was unaware if her son took the medication he was given for his condition, but was proud of his military service following his discharge, and had given him the weapon that was used in the shooting. Major Jason Johnston, a Marine Corps spokesman at The Pentagon, was unable to comment on Gale's discharge.
A foundation called The Dimebag Darrell Memorial Fund was founded after the incident, which donated its profits to cover medical expenses of drum technician John Brooks and tour manager Chris Paluska, who were among those injured during the shooting. A public memorial service for Darrell took place on December 14, 2004 at Arlington Convention Center in Arlington, Texas. Many musicians paid tribute to Darrell on message boards and at live performances.
In May 2005, Niggemeyer was called before a grand jury, which was convened by the Franklin County prosecutor's office to examine the actions taken on the night of Dimebag Darrell's demise, a standard practice when deadly force is used. The jury found that there was no wrongdoing on Niggemeyer's part. Franklin County prosecutor Ron O'Brien commented, "There was little doubt [the shooting] was lawful, given the 200 eyewitnesses and the circumstances that surrounded the shooting. Nevertheless, we still have an independent body review the facts". Niggemeyer was nominated for a bravery award on the TV show America's Most Wanted.
### Aftermath
In a 2005 interview, Damageplan manager Paul Bassman said that unreleased recordings before Darrell's death were near completion. He commented, "Vinnie Paul has said there will be a follow-up album down the road, as Dime would have wanted his music to be heard." Rumors circulated of another album, although nothing has been released.
Following the events since Dimebag Darrell's death, Paul was unsure if he wanted to continue playing music. He was invited to join the band called Hellyeah, which included members of Mudvayne and Nothingface, but declined the offer. However, bassist Jerry Montano repeatedly called Paul, and he accepted the offer to join the project as he thought "Everybody had their head in the right place." Hellyeah released its debut album on April 10, 2007. One week later, Zilla joined the band as its new bassist, after Montano left due to "personal reasons". The album was recorded at Abbott's backyard studio, Chasin' Jason, where New Found Power was also recorded.
Vocalist Lachman joined The Mercy Clinic, which aided the grieving process. He commented, "you have to get back on the horse. You could easily let a decade go by and not do anything. I'm happy to have walked away with my life after the situation I was thrown into. But, I mean, what do you do? I'm a musician. I'm going to make music. What Dime would have told me was, 'You make music, motherfucker. Get back on it. Do what you do.' So, that's what I did." Before the shooting, Phil Anselmo stated in the December 2004 edition of Metal Hammer that Dimebag "deserves to be severely beaten". He apologized and said the "severely beaten" comment was a joke, although Paul requested Metal Hammer to provide the audio tapes to discern the nature of the comments. Paul concluded that the quote was not a joke and referred to Anselmo as the "master of lies".
A book titled A Vulgar Display of Power: Courage and Carnage at the Alrosa Villa was penned by author Chris Armold. For 14 months, Armold interviewed people and researched the events leading up to December 8, stating "It's not a book about rock stars, but heroes, regular guys who made the ultimate sacrifice." In his research, Armold found no evidence that the comments Anselmo made before Darrell's death had influenced Gale's actions. The book was released in 2007.
In a 2017 interview with Loudwire, Paul had stated that he had planned to release all unreleased Damageplan recordings at some point in the future, many of which have no vocals. He even stated having some of Dimebag Darrell's favorite musicians, such as Rob Halford of Judas Priest to record vocals for the songs.
Vinnie Paul died on June 22, 2018, at the age of 54.
## Lyrical themes and style
According to Johnny Loftus of AllMusic, Damageplan incorporated elements of traditional heavy metal, post-grunge, metalcore, and death metal. Damageplan's sound has been described as groove metal, nu metal and thrash metal.
The lyrical process was a collaborative effort consisting of Paul, Darrell, and Lachman. Themes explored on the album included the brothers' experiences, Darrell commented, "the crumbling of one empire and then starting over ... So there are a lot of lyrics about being reborn in a sense, about it being a new day, moving forward, letting go of the past and becoming something new." This is exemplified in the songs "Reborn", "Wake Up", and "Breathing New Life". "Blunt Force Trauma" is about when someone or something comes up behind you when you least expect it, "it could be a situation in your life, it could be a person you know with a beer bottle".
When writing music, the Abbott brothers suggested guitar riffs and "grooves", while Lachman added his input to modify the song's structure. The band's sound has been described by music critics to be similar to Pantera. Christine Klunk of PopMatters disliked the similarities and commented, "aside from a constant, driving rhythm, repetitive riffs, and unintelligible lyrics about (I'm assuming) kicking ass—there's nothing of interest to pay attention to". The song "Breathing New Life" features 180 beats-per-minute bass drum pedaling, what Vik Bansal of MusicOMH described as "exploding into a blaze of riffage and a cool chorus". Bansal was impressed with certain elements of the song such as the switch from downbeat singing to "a big chorus lodged in power chord heaven", and the incorporated groove rhythms. However, he felt Dimebag "borrow[ed]" Anthrax's guitar solo from the song "Only".
## Band members
Final lineup
- Vinnie Paul – drums (2003–2004, died 2018)
- Dimebag Darrell – guitars, backing vocals (2003–2004, his death)
- Patrick Lachman – lead vocals (2003–2004)
- Bob Zilla – bass, backing vocals (2003–2004)
Previous members
- Shawn Matthews – bass, backing vocals (2003)
## Discography
### Albums
### Singles
### Other appearances
### Music videos
|
242,497 |
Jarrow March
| 1,146,555,763 |
Protest about UK Northern unemployment
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"1936 in England",
"1936 in politics",
"1936 protests",
"British trade unions history",
"Great Depression in the United Kingdom",
"Jarrow",
"Labour disputes in England",
"North East England",
"October 1936 events",
"Politics of North East England",
"Poverty in England",
"Protest marches",
"Protests in England",
"Unemployment in the United Kingdom"
] |
The Jarrow March of 5–31 October 1936, also known as the Jarrow Crusade, was an organised protest against the unemployment and poverty suffered in the English town of Jarrow during the 1930s. Around 200 men (or "Crusaders" as they preferred to be referred to) marched from Jarrow to London, carrying a petition to the British government requesting the re-establishment of industry in the town following the closure in 1934 of its main employer, Palmer's shipyard. The petition was received by the House of Commons but not debated, and the march produced few immediate results. The Jarrovians went home believing that they had failed.
Jarrow had been a settlement since at least the 8th century. In the early 19th century, a coal industry developed before the establishment of the shipyard in 1851. Over the following 80 years, more than 1,000 ships were launched in Jarrow. In the 1920s, a combination of mismanagement and changed world trade conditions following the First World War brought a decline which led eventually to the yard's closure. Plans for its replacement by a modern steelworks plant were frustrated by opposition from the British Iron and Steel Federation, an employers' organisation with its own plans for the industry. The failure of the steelworks plan, and the lack of any prospect of large-scale employment in the town, were the final factors that led to the decision to march.
Marches of the unemployed to London, termed "hunger marches", had taken place since the early 1920s, mainly organised by the National Unemployed Workers' Movement (NUWM), a communist-led body. For fear of being associated with communist agitation, the Labour Party and Trades Union Congress (TUC) leaderships stood aloof from these marches. They exercised the same policy of detachment towards the Jarrow March, which was organised by the borough council with the support of all sections of the town but without any connection with the NUWM. During their journey the Jarrow marchers received sustenance and hospitality from local branches of all the main political parties, and were given a broad public welcome on their arrival in London.
Despite the initial sense of failure among the marchers, in subsequent years, the Jarrow March became recognised by historians as a defining event of the 1930s. It helped to foster the change in attitudes which prepared the way to social reform measures after the Second World War, which their proponents thought would improve working conditions. The town holds numerous memorials to the march. Re-enactments celebrated the 50th and 75th anniversaries, in both cases invoking the "spirit of Jarrow" in their campaigns against unemployment. In contrast to the Labour Party's coldness in 1936, the post-war party leadership adopted the march as a metaphor for governmental callousness and working-class fortitude.
## National background
### Unemployment in Britain between the wars
In the period immediately after the end of the First World War, Britain's economy enjoyed a brief boom. Businesses rushed to replenish stocks and re-establish peacetime conditions of trade and, while prices rose rapidly, wages rose faster and unemployment was negligible. By April 1920 this boom had given way to Britain's first post-war slump, which ushered in an era of high unemployment. Britain's adoption of generally deflationary economic policies, including a return to the gold standard in 1925, helped to ensure that the percentage of the workforce without jobs remained at around 10% for the rest of the 1920s and beyond, well above the normal pre-war levels. During the world recession that began in 1929 and lasted until 1932, the percentage of unemployed peaked at 22%, representing more than 3 million workers.
Unemployment was particularly heavy in Britain's traditional staple export industries—coal mining, shipbuilding, iron and steel and textiles—all of which were in a slow decline from their Victorian heyday. Because of the concentration of these industries in the north of England, in Scotland and in Wales, the percentage of unemployed persons in these regions was significantly higher, sometimes more than double, than in the south throughout the interwar period. The decline of these industries helped to create pockets of long-term unemployment outside the normal cyclical variations; some workers had no work for years.
### Hunger Marches
In 1921, in reaction to the rising levels of unemployment, the newly formed British Communist Party set up the National Unemployed Workers' Movement (NUWM). From 1922 until the late 1930s, under its charismatic leader Wal Hannington, the NUWM organised regular marches in which unemployed workers converged on London to confront Parliament, in the belief that this would improve conditions. These became known as "hunger marches", reviving a name coined by the press in 1908, when a group of London's unemployed marched to Hyde Park.
The 1922 marchers sought a meeting with the new prime minister, Bonar Law, who refused to see them because of their undemocratic leadership. The march leaders were denounced in The Times as "avowed Communists ... who have been identified with disturbances in their own localities". The Labour Party and the TUC kept aloof, fearful of being tainted by association with the communist organisers. The same pattern was followed with subsequent NUWM marches; successive prime ministers—Stanley Baldwin in 1929, Ramsay MacDonald in 1930 and 1934—declined to meet the marchers' representatives, and the Labour Party and the TUC continued to keep their distance. In 1931 MacDonald became head of a Conservative-dominated National Government that imposed a means test on unemployment benefits. Anger at the means test was the rationale for the 1932 hunger march, in which a series of rallies and demonstrations across London broke out into considerable violence; the leaders provoked clashes with opponents and police in Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square and Westminster which led to the arrest and imprisonment of the march's leaders. Although women were not allowed to march on the Jarrow march, women's contingents were present at other hunger marches across the 1930s. These women, who were often the wives of unemployed men, were often faced with restrictions, such as being forced to stay in workhouses if the local Labour Party would not accommodate them.
Two additional national marches were held in 1934 and 1936. By this time the country had made a substantial recovery from the worst depression years of 1929–32. Unemployment was significantly down, annual growth was averaging 4%, and many parts of the country were enjoying a substantial boom in housing and consumer goods. The increasing prosperity was not, however, uniformly spread, and there were sharp contrasts between economic conditions in the south and those in the north-east, South Wales, Scotland and elsewhere, where the rate of recovery was much slower. At the same time, the national mood was changing; external factors such as the rise of fascism in Europe helped to unify the British left, and there were more supportive voices in parliament on behalf of the unemployed. The idea of marching as a means of expressing political or social grievances had by now become an accepted and well-established tactic, and there was a growing awareness of the problems complained of, which counterbalanced their exploitation by the Communists. The historian A. J. P. Taylor considered that the hunger marchers had "displayed the failure of capitalism in a way that mere figures or literary description could not. Middle-class people felt the call of conscience".
## Local background: Jarrow
### Town history
Jarrow, situated on the River Tyne in County Durham, northern England, entered British history in the 8th century, as the home of Bede, the early Christian monk and scholar. After Bede, little changed in the remote rural community for a thousand years, although his monastery was dissolved under Henry VIII in the 16th century. The discovery of coal in the 17th century led to major changes. Mining on an industrial scale began in the early 1800s, resulting in the population of Jarrow more than doubling between 1801 and 1821 to around 3,500, largely from the influx of mineworkers.
The town's years as a coalfield were unhappy. Living conditions in many of the hastily erected cottages were insanitary, lacking water and drainage. There was a serious outbreak of cholera in Jarrow and northeast England in the winter of 1831–32, as part of an epidemic that spread from Europe and resulted in more than 200 deaths in Newcastle alone. Relations in Jarrow between employer and employee were poor; workers were held by the "bond" system whereby they were tied to a particular employer for a year, whether or not that employer could provide work. Working conditions in the mines were dangerous: there were explosions in 1826, 1828 and 1845, each with large loss of life. Attempts by workers to organise into a trade union were fiercely opposed by the employers. Nevertheless, miners conducted lengthy strikes in 1832 and 1844, each ending when hunger forced them back to work. After the easier seams of coal were exhausted, the Jarrow pits became less profitable, and in 1851 the owners abandoned them altogether.
### Shipbuilding
Jarrow began its development as a shipbuilding town with the establishment in 1851 of Palmer's shipyard on the banks of the River Tyne. The first ship from the yard was launched in 1852, an iron-built and steam-powered collier; many more such carriers followed. In 1856 the yard began building warships, and was soon supplying many of the world's navies. With its associated iron and steel works, it became the largest shipbuilding centre in the country, employing thousands of men. Jarrow's population, at around 3,800 in 1850, had increased nearly tenfold to 35,000 by 1891. Palmer's was central to Jarrow's economy, both for the numbers employed there and for the ancillary businesses that served the needs of both the yard and town.
The shipyard generated high employment to Jarrow, but the industrial works created a harsh environment. Ellen Wilkinson, the town's historian and member of parliament from 1935 to 1947, quotes a newspaper source from 1858: "There is a prevailing blackness about the neighbourhood. The houses are black, the ships are black, the sky is black, and if you go there for an hour or two, reader, you will be black". According to Wilkinson, the yard's founder, Sir Charles Palmer, "regarded it as no part of his duty to see that the conditions under which his workers had to live were either sanitary or tolerable".
In the 1890s, Britain held a near monopoly of the world's shipbuilding, with a share of around 80%. This proportion fell during the early years of the 20th century to about 60%, as other countries increased their production. Palmer's remained busy, and during the years of the First World War built many of Britain's warships: the battleship HMS Resolution, the light cruiser HMS Dauntless, and numerous smaller vessels were all built in Jarrow. During the brief postwar boom of 1919–20, orders remained plentiful and Palmer's prospered. However, the firm's management had not anticipated the conditions that developed in the 1920s when, as Wilkinson says, "every industrial country that had bought ships from Britain was now building for itself". The firm made over-optimistic assessments of future demand, and invested accordingly. The anticipated demand did not materialise; by the mid-1920s, Palmer's was incurring heavy losses, and was close to bankruptcy. It was temporarily reprieved by a short-lived boom in 1929, when orders rose and the town briefly enjoyed the prospect of an economic recovery.
### Closure of Palmer's
On 24 July 1930 Palmer's launched its thousandth ship, the tanker Peter Hurll, but by this time the brief shipbuilding boom had been ended by the Great Depression, and there were no new orders on the firm's books. Rumours of impending reorganisation and rationalisation in the industry gave the workforce cause for anxiety, which deepened with the formation in 1930 of National Shipbuilders Security Ltd (NSS). This was a company created by the government to assist shipbuilders by acquiring failing yards and dismantling them, so that production was concentrated within a smaller number of profitable yards. To ensure this rationalisation was sustained, the closed yards were banned from any shipbuilding activity for at least 40 years.
During 1931, NSS was busy closing shipyards elsewhere in the country, while an order from the Admiralty for two destroyers kept Palmer's working until mid-1932. The second of these ships, HMS Duchess, was the last ship launched from the yard, on 19 July 1932. By this time, Palmer's was insolvent, but retained a faint hope of further naval contracts. These failed to materialise, and in June 1933 the firm's creditors appointed a receiver. By December 1933 rumours of NSS interest in the yard were appearing in the press, and in the House of Commons Walter Runciman, the President of the Board of Trade, told members: "There is nothing to be gained by giving Jarrow the impression that Palmer's can be revived". He continued: "Would it not be very much better to make a clean sweep of that as a shipyard, and throw open to the world for sale what is one of the finest and most convenient sites anywhere in Europe?" Despite efforts by management and workers to find an alternative solution, in the early summer of 1934 NSS acquired the yard, closed it, and began to dismantle its plant. Blythe wrote: "The only sound to compete with the unfamiliar noise of the marsh birds ... was the ring of the breakers' hammers."
Following the Palmer's closure, a small hope of relief and some industrial resurrection was offered by the industrialist Sir John Jarvis, who held the ceremonial office of High Sheriff of Surrey. He was the prospective Conservative candidate for Guildford. On 4 October 1934, Jarvis announced the "adoption" of Jarrow by the county of Surrey, and promised to bring new industries to the town; he mentioned ship breaking, bottle manufacture and furniture-making. While acknowledging the generous principle behind Jarvis's scheme, Betty Vernon (biographer of Jarrow politician Ellen Wilkinson) described it as ultimately superficial, offering little more than patchwork assistance. Blythe observes: "This excellent man failed, as anyone must fail who tries to play the good squire to a town of nearly forty thousand people".
### Ellen Wilkinson
In the 1931 general election, in the nationwide rout of Labour, the Jarrow constituency was won by the National Government's candidate, William Pearson, a Conservative borough councillor and former mayor. In 1932, when the mood in Jarrow was desperate—"a workhouse without walls" according to one commentator—the local Labour Party selected Ellen Wilkinson as its parliamentary candidate for the next general election. Wilkinson had helped to found the British Communist Party in 1920, and had a firebrand reputation. She had been associated with Hannington and the NUWM in the early 1920s, but had left the Communist Party in 1923 and had served as Labour MP for Middlesbrough East between 1924 and 1931.
Wilkinson felt a deep bond of sympathy with the people of Jarrow and the loss of the shipyard which was the life-source of the town. Early in 1934 she led a deputation of Jarrow's unemployed to meet the prime minister, MacDonald, in his nearby Seaham constituency. She records that at the end of the meeting MacDonald said to her: "Ellen, why don't you go out and preach socialism, which is the only remedy for all this?" This "priceless remark", she says, brought home the "reality and sham ... of that warm but so easy sympathy". She became Jarrow's MP in the general election of November 1935, when she won the seat with a majority of 2,360. In the opening debate of the new parliamentary session, on 9 December 1935, she pleaded on behalf of her new constituents: "These are skilled fitters, men who have built destroyers and battleships and the finest passenger ships ... The years go on and nothing is done ... this is a desperately urgent matter and something should be done to get work to these areas which, Heaven knows, want work."
### Proposed steelworks
While Jarvis's palliative measures were being developed, a more substantial project to bring industry back to Jarrow was under consideration. An American entrepreneur, T. Vosper Salt, became aware of the impending sale and break-up of Palmer's yard. He was convinced that the world demand for steel was about to rise, and thought that the site, with its ready-made docking and rail facilities, would be ideal for a new, modern steelworks. In January 1934, when an initial feasibility study report had proved favourable, Salt began discussions with the British Iron and Steel Federation (BISF), a steel producers' organisation formed that year as part of the National Government's rationalisation of the iron and steel industry.
The British steel industry was protected from more efficient foreign competition by the government's high tariff wall. The BISF, through its control of pricing, could also present a united front against new competition at home. When the feasibility report was received by the BISF in March 1935 the Federation's chairman, Sir Andrew Duncan, at first reacted positively; his members from the north-east were rather less enthusiastic. Only one of the large steel firms in the region, the Consett Iron Company, offered support for a Jarrow steelworks, while other BISF members put pressure on London's financial institutions to withhold capital from the new scheme. Reports of such tactics caused great anxiety in the Jarrow area, where the people were desperate for the new works to come about. In a reassuring speech shortly before the November 1935 general election, Baldwin, now leading the National Government, informed his listeners in Newcastle: "There is no truth in any of the reports that either the banks or any other authorities ... are making a dead set to prevent anything of the kind being done in the area".
After the election and the return of the National Government, little happened to support Baldwin's optimistic words. In the House of Commons on 2 March 1936, Wilkinson spoke of the "atmosphere of mystery" that surrounded the Jarrow scheme: "Publicly one sees tremendous optimism ... but when you see people privately there is a great deal of humming and ha'ing, and they are not quite sure". Meanwhile, the BISF argued that increased steel production should be achieved by expanding capacity in existing facilities, rather than by building new plant. Duncan, in a reversal of his earlier attitude, now opposed the provision of finance for Jarrow which, he felt, might create a precedent that other distressed areas could exploit. The BISF finally succeeded in watering down the scheme to the extent that it became unviable; Salt and his syndicate withdrew, and the scheme was dead, "strangled at birth" according to Wilkinson.
In a series of exchanges in the Commons with Runciman on 30 June, Wilkinson requested in vain that the matter be reconsidered by an independent body, rather than being decided by the BISF. One of the government's own negotiators, who had been involved in the project since its early stages, wrote in The Times: "A system which permits the adjudication on a proposal of national importance ... to be left in the hands of parties whose financial interests may run counter to that project, is not conducive to the enterprising development of the steel industry".
When, later in the summer, Runciman met workers from Jarrow the deputation encountered, in Wilkinson's words, "a figure of ice. Icily correct, icily polite, apparently completely indifferent to the woes of others." His insistence that "Jarrow must work out its own salvation", was described by Blythe as "the last straw in official cruelty"; to Wilkinson, the phrase "kindled the town", and inspired it to action.
## March
### Preparation
After the loss of the steelworks, David Riley, the chairman of Jarrow Borough Council, told a rally of the town's unemployed in July 1936: "If I had my way I would organise the unemployed of the whole country ... and march them on London so they would all arrive at the same time. The government would then be forced to listen, or turn the military on us". The idea of a march was taken up with enthusiasm by the mayor Billy Thompson, by Wilkinson, and by political, commercial and religious groups. It was decided that the march would be a local affair, representing the town, with no political connotations. It would be limited to 200 fit men who would arrive in London at the start of the new parliamentary session on 3 November 1936, when a petition from the town would be presented to the House of Commons.
Riley was appointed chief marshal, with four subcommittees to deal with organisational detail. All the local political parties—Labour, Conservative and Liberal—gave their support, as did the town's churches and the business community. Relays of medical students from the Inter-Hospital Socialist Society agreed to accompany the march as medical attendants. A fund was begun, with an initial target of £800, to meet the costs of the march; ultimately, nearly double that amount was raised, locally and on the route. Public meetings were planned for the overnight stops, to publicise the plight of Jarrow and of other areas like it. One marcher explained: "We were more or less missionaries of the distressed areas, [not just] Jarrow".
On Monday 5 October the marchers, selected from over 1,200 volunteers, attended an ecumenical dedication service in Christ Church, Jarrow, where the blessing was given by James Gordon, the Bishop of Jarrow. This apparent endorsement by a senior cleric gained considerable press attention, but earned a sharp response from Hensley Henson, the Bishop of Durham. Henson, a severe critic of socialism and trade unionism, described the march as "revolutionary mob pressure", and regretted his colleague's association with "these fatuous demonstrations, which are mainly designed in the interest, not of the Unemployed, but of the Labour party".
As Jarrow's representatives prepared to leave, six regional contingents of the sixth National Hunger March were taking the road to London, where they were due to arrive a week after the Jarrow marchers. A group of blind veterans, organised by the National League of the Blind and Disabled, was also on the march, demanding better allowances for the country's 67,000 blind persons.
### On the road
#### Week one: Jarrow to Ripon
After the service of dedication, the marchers left Jarrow Town Hall, cheered on by most of the town and bearing banners announcing themselves as the "Jarrow Crusade". By the following weekend they had travelled 69 mi (111 km) to the cathedral city of Ripon, where they were welcomed by the Bishop of Ripon and a delegation representing local churches. Receptions at the intervening stops had been mixed: lukewarm at Chester-le-Street, warm and friendly from the people in Ferryhill and also from the Conservative-controlled council in Darlington.
Wilkinson had left the march at Chester-le-Street to attend the Labour Party's annual conference, taking place in Edinburgh. The conference was not supportive of the march—one delegate criticised Wilkinson for "sending hungry and ill-clad men on a march to London". The Labour conference's negative stance brought angry responses from the marchers; Riley considered that they had been "stabbed in the back". The marchers were further dismayed to learn that the Ministry of Labour's Unemployment Assistance Board had ruled that their benefits would be reduced, since they were unavailable for work should jobs arise.
#### Week two: Ripon to Chesterfield
After a weekend's rest, the marchers proceeded to Harrogate. In this solidly Conservative, prosperous town the marchers were greeted warmly by the civic authorities and were fed by the Rotary Club. They were given sleeping quarters by the Territorial Army, a change from the school and church halls, and occasional workhouse accommodation, that was provided at most overnight stops. It was becoming evident that local Conservatives were often as likely to provide practical assistance as Labour, whose local parties were constrained by the attitude of the party's national leadership. The marchers' claim that theirs was a unique situation, arising from specific actions (the closing of the shipyard and the blocking of the proposed steelworks) that could be remedied by immediate government action, may also have alienated local working-class communities. Cross-party support was important in maintaining the march's non-partisan ethos, a factor that led Riley to refuse a donation of £20 from a communist group, stating: "We are determined at all costs to preserve the non-political character of this Crusade".
At Harrogate Wilkinson rejoined the march, as it proceeded through southern Yorkshire towards Chesterfield in Derbyshire. The march was attracting wide publicity; in London the government worried that King Edward might exceed his constitutional limits and receive the marchers. The cabinet issued a statement that emphasised the constitutional means for expressing grievances, and condemned marches for causing "unnecessary hardship for those taking part in them"—"crocodile tears", according to Wilkinson. In reaching Chesterfield on 17 October, the marchers had travelled 70 mi (110 km) during the week, and were at the approximate half-way point in their journey. That day, the Bishop of Durham was gratified and the marchers correspondingly disappointed, when in a letter to The Times the Bishop of Jarrow denied that his blessing on the march had indicated his support for the venture. The blessing was, he said an act of Christian duty; in general he believed that such marches should be discouraged. Wilkinson was forgiving of the bishop's volte-face, knowing, she later said, "the difficulties he had to face".
#### Week three: Chesterfield to Northampton
The third week of the march covered the greatest distance of the four weeks—83 mi (134 km). At Mansfield, the Labour-controlled council defied the national leadership to give the marchers a warm welcome. This was matched by the reception from Nottingham's Conservative mayor and councillors, and supplemented by gifts of clothing and underwear from the city's manufacturers. At Leicester, the Co-operative Society's bootmakers worked through the night without pay, repairing the marchers' boots. According to some accounts, the marchers presented the vicar of the Church of St Mark, Leicester, with a wooden cross, although Matt Perry, in his history of the Jarrow March, indicates that this cross was donated in 1934 by the national hunger march.
From Leicester the march moved to Market Harborough. This was one of the least welcoming of all the overnight stops. No member of the local council greeted or visited the marchers, and they were forced to spend the night on the stone floor of an unfinished building (the local press later denied that this was so). On Saturday 24 October the marchers reached Northampton, arriving at the same time as the blind group. Wilkinson left to supervise arrangements in London, and would thereafter only participate intermittently until the final day, a week hence.
#### Week four: Northampton to London
The leg on Monday 26 October, from Northampton to Bedford, was the longest daily march—21 mi (34 km). Of the original contingent, 185 were still on the road, together with 10 replacements. To maintain the timetable for arrival at Marble Arch, the marchers took an extra rest day on Tuesday before marching, in teeming rain, the 19 mi (31 km) to Luton.
On 29 October, as the marchers walked from Luton to St Albans, the plight of Jarrow was the subject of exchanges in the House of Commons between Wilkinson and Baldwin. The prime minister drew attention to the recent decrease in Jarrow's unemployed, and said: "There is every reason to hope that the revival of industry now in progress in the Tyneside area will result in further opportunities for employment for those still unemployed at Jarrow." Wilkinson replied that the apparent decrease in Jarrow's unemployment figures arose from the amalgamation of the figures of Jarrow with those of neighbouring South Shields, and did not represent an increase in employment. She asked Baldwin whether he would break with tradition and meet a deputation of the marchers; the prime minister declined.
On the penultimate stage, from St Albans to Edgware, as the march neared its end, marchers began to contemplate the return home, and the prospect of "looking out of the window ... knowing that there's nothing, nothing at all to do". On the final day, for the short 8 mi (13 km) stretch, large crowds watched the column proceed through the London suburbs towards Marble Arch, marching to the accompaniment of their own mouth-organ band despite relentless rain. On arrival, as their leaders talked to the press, the marchers retired to their overnight accommodation in London's East End.
### London
On Sunday 1 November the marchers proceeded to Hyde Park for a hastily organised public meeting. The Communist Party was holding a general rally in the park against unemployment; Wilkinson records that they "generously gave way for an hour and asked their great audience to swell our Crusade meeting". The police made a low estimate of 3,000 for the crowd, but the journalist Ritchie Calder, who was present, put the figure at 50,000.
After a day's rest, the marchers' main event on Tuesday was a public meeting in the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street. Among the guest speakers was the Rev. Canon Dick Sheppard, founder of the Peace Pledge Union. He told the marchers: "You have so aroused the conscience of the country that things are bound to happen". Sir John Jarvis, without prior warning, then revealed plans for a steel tubes mill on the Palmers site. The impression that Jarrow's problems could be solved thus, without government action, disconcerted the listening marchers. Wilkinson commented that such plans were in the future, and were no substitute for the town's requirement for immediate government intervention.
On Wednesday 4 November Wilkinson presented the Jarrow petition to the House of Commons. With over 11,000 signatures, it asked that "His Majesty's Government and this honourable House should realise the urgent need that work should be provided for the town without further delay." In the brief discussion that followed, Runciman said that "the unemployment position at Jarrow, while still far from satisfactory, has improved during recent months", to which James Chuter Ede, the Labour backbencher representing South Shields, the neighbouring constituency to Wilkinson's, replied that "the Government's complacency is regarded throughout the country as an affront to the national conscience".
Blythe summarises the marchers' anger and disillusionment: "And that was that. The result of three months' excited preparation and one month's march has led to a few minutes of flaccid argument during which the Government speakers had hardly mustered enough energy to roll to their feet". A "stay-in" strike was briefly proposed, before Wilkinson arranged a meeting with a cross-party group of MPs. The marchers' case was heard sympathetically; the meeting was warned that, given international uncertainties, they might come to regret the dismantling of an important shipbuilding facility for reasons of private profit. Such statements, according to Wilkinson, made members "distinctly uncomfortable". The next day the marchers returned by train to Jarrow, where they received an ecstatic welcome from the town.
## Appraisal and legacy
Before the start of the Second World War, and the establishment of war-based industries, Jarvis's initiatives brought modest relief to Jarrow. By 1939, about 100 men were employed in a small furniture factory and up to a further 500 in various metal-based industries set up on the Palmer's site. Jarvis had acquired the obsolete liners and , to be broken up at the yard. However, after their triumphant homecoming many of the marchers felt that their endeavour had failed. Con Whalen, who at his death in 2003 was the last survivor of those who marched the full distance, said that the march was "a waste of time", but added that he had enjoyed every step. His fellow marcher Guy Waller, on the 40th anniversary of the march in 1976, said that "[t]he march produced no immediate startling upsurge in employment in the town. It took the war to do that". These views are shared by most commentators and historians. The Daily Mirror columnist Kevin Maguire calls the march "a heroic failure", while Matt Dobson, in The Socialist, writes that "out of all the hunger marches its aims were the most diluted and it made the most modest gains". The historians Malcolm Pearce and Geoffrey Stewart provide a positive perspective, arguing that the Jarrow March "helped to shape [post-Second World War] perceptions of the 1930s", and thus paved the way to social reform.
Perry observes that "the passage of time has transformed the Jarrow Crusade ... into a potent talisman with which many apparently seek association". Thus the Labour Party, which in 1936 shunned the march, later adopted it as "a badge of credibility". In 1950 the party featured the Jarrow banners on its election posters; the march then disappeared from view in an era of high employment, only to be invoked again when unemployment again became a political issue in the 1980s. In the late 20th century and beyond, Labour leaders—Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock, Tony Blair—have all associated themselves with the march. In October 1986, on the 50th anniversary, a group from Jarrow and other towns along the way retraced the route to London. At that time of industrial recession, Jarrow once again had the highest level of unemployment in the country. The 75th anniversary in 2011 was marked by a "March for Jobs", that drew the ire of a Conservative MP, Robert Goodwill, who noted the high level of withdrawals in its early stages and dismissed it as "an insult to the memory of the Jarrow marchers ... They are not fit to walk in [their] footsteps".
Shortly after the return home in November 1936 Riley, together with three other Jarrow councillors who had led the march—James Hanlon, Paddy Scullion and Joseph Symonds—left Labour to form a breakaway group committed to a more direct fight for employment. All four later rejoined the party; Scullion and Symonds both served as the town's mayor, and Symonds was Labour MP for Whitehaven from 1959 to 1970. In 1939 Wilkinson published her history of Jarrow, The Town that Was Murdered. A reviewer for The Economic Journal found the book "not quite as polemical as one might have expected", but felt that in her denunciation of the BISF Wilkinson had not taken full account of the state of the iron and steel industry in the 1930s. Wilkinson continued her parliamentary career, and from 1940 to 1945 held junior ministerial office in Churchill's wartime coalition government. In the 1945 Labour government she was appointed Minister of Education, with a seat in the cabinet, a post in which she served until her death, aged 55, in February 1947.
In 1974 the rock singer Alan Price released the "Jarrow Song", which helped to raise awareness of the events of 1936 among a new generation. Among dramatisations based on the Jarrow March is a play, Whistling at the Milestones (1977) by Alex Glasgow, and an opera, Burning Road (1996), by Will Todd and Ben Dunwell. In what Perry describes as one of the ironies surrounding the march, the opera was performed in Durham Cathedral in May 1997, in retrospective defiance of the bishop who had condemned the march. On 29 October 2017, the Tyne Bridge was closed off and was the venue the Freedom on The Tyne Finale. The Freedom on The Tyne Finale was the finale of the 2017 Freedom City festival. The event, promoted by Newcastle University re-enacted many world civil rights stories throughout history. The final event, revolved around the March, the re-enactment was described as a memorable closing to the finale. The town of Jarrow contains several commemorations, including a steel relief sculpture by Vince Rea at the new railway station, a tile mural designed by local schoolchildren, and a bronze sculpture—"The Spirit of the Crusade" by Graham Ibbeson—in the town centre. Buildings and street names bear the names of Wilkinson and Riley. Perry writes that "In Jarrow, landscape and memory have fused together, just as the red hot rivets once fastened great sheets of steel in Palmer's Yard."
|
1,437,605 |
Monnow Bridge
| 1,166,918,440 |
Grade I listed building and bridge in Monmouth, south-east Wales
|
[
"Bridges completed in the 13th century",
"Bridges in Monmouthshire",
"Buildings and structures in Monmouth, Wales",
"Deck arch bridges",
"Former toll bridges in Wales",
"Grade I listed bridges in Wales",
"Grade I listed buildings in Monmouthshire",
"Pedestrian bridges in Wales",
"Scheduled monuments in Monmouthshire",
"Stone bridges in the United Kingdom"
] |
Monnow Bridge (Welsh: Pont Trefynwy ), in Monmouth, Wales, is the only remaining fortified river bridge in Great Britain with its gate tower standing on the bridge. Such bridge towers were common across Europe from medieval times, but many were destroyed due to urban expansion, diminishing defensive requirements and the increasing demands of traffic and trade. The historical and architectural importance of the bridge and its rarity are reflected in its status as a scheduled monument and a Grade I listed building. The bridge crosses the River Monnow (Afon Mynwy) 500 metres (1,600 ft) above its confluence with the River Wye.
Monmouth had been a significant border settlement since the Roman occupation of Britain, when it was the site of the fort of Blestium. The River Wye may have been bridged at this time but the Monnow, being easily fordable, appears not to have had a crossing until after the Norman Conquest. According to the local tradition, construction of Monnow Bridge began in 1272 to replace a 12th-century Norman timber bridge. Through the medieval era, the English Civil War, and the Chartist uprising, the bridge played a significant, if ineffectual, role in defending Monmouth. It also served as a gaol, a munitions store, a lodge, an advertising hoarding, a focus for celebrations and, most significantly, as a toll gate. Much of the medieval development of Monmouth was funded by the taxes and tolls the borough was entitled to raise through royal charter. The tolls were collected through control of the points of entry to the town, including the gatehouse on Monnow Bridge.
Built predominantly of Old Red Sandstone, the bridge was the subject of significant reconstruction and rebuilding in the 18th and 19th centuries. In those centuries, it also became a popular subject for artists; Turner, Gastineau and Cotman produced sketches of the bridge and gate. In the 20th century, it suffered increasing damage as higher volumes of traffic and the use of ever-larger vehicles led to several serious accidents. In the 21st century, the construction of a new road crossing to the south enabled the pedestrianisation of the bridge.
## History
### Earliest history
Monmouth was a significant settlement in Roman Britain, as the border fort of Blestium and as an important centre for ironworking. It is possible the Romans bridged the River Wye during their occupation, but the Monnow appears not to have had a crossing until after the Norman invasion. The Norman lord William FitzOsbern built a castle near the confluence of the two rivers in around 1070. The following two centuries saw the establishment of the Benedictine Priory and the development of the town as a defensive location on the Welsh Marches.
### 12th–14th centuries
The original bridge over the Monnow at Monmouth was constructed of wood in the mid-12th century. In 1988, work on flood defences revealed remains of the wooden bridge directly under the existing one, and dendrochronological analysis indicated that its timber came from trees felled between 1123 and 1169. An early account in the Flores Historiarum by Roger of Wendover may indicate that the wooden bridge and the nearby Church of St Thomas the Martyr were damaged by fire in the Battle of Monmouth in 1233, fought between supporters of Henry III and the forces of Richard Marshal, Earl of Pembroke. Both the site of the battle and the specific bridge involved are debated—the local historian Keith Kissack argued that the battle was fought on Vauxhall Fields, below Monmouth Castle and some way from Monnow Bridge, while other modern historians continue to place the battle at Overmonnow.
The stone bridge was completed in the late 13th century. It was traditionally thought to have been built in 1272, though this date has no supporting documentary evidence. The historian William Coxe incorrectly described the bridge as pre-dating the Norman Conquest and recorded that "it commanded the passage of the Monnow and was a barrier against the Welsh". In 1804, the Monmouth antiquarian Charles Heath wrote that the bridge's "foundation is so ancient that neither history or tradition afford any light respecting the date of its erection". Heath drew directly from The Antiquities of England and Wales, an earlier guide by Francis Grose, published in 1773. The archaeologist Martin Cook notes the significance of the date 1270 as the start of a period that saw increased bridge-building, as a result of the rapid growth of international trade. The civil engineer Edwyn Jervoise suggested that the absence of an evidential record was due to the destruction of the archives of the Duke of Beaufort at Raglan Castle in the 17th century. This is unlikely, as the gatehouse did not come into the possession of the duke's family, the Somersets, until the 19th century.
The gatehouse, called Monnow Gate, which gives Monnow Bridge its now unique appearance, was added at the end of the 13th or start of the 14th centuries, twenty-five to thirty years after the bridge itself was built. The siting of the gatehouse mid-channel is relatively unusual; the archaeologist David Harrison notes the more common arrangement was for the gate to be situated on the roadway at one end of the bridge. In 1297, Edward I provided a murage grant in favour of Monmouth in response to a request from his nephew, Henry of Lancaster. A murage was a medieval tax, granted specifically to allow for the raising of funds to construct or repair town walls. The grant allowed the townspeople to build the town walls and gates, including the construction of the gatehouse. By 1315, work was incomplete or required repair, as the original authority was renewed on 1 June of that year. At that time, the bridge would have been much narrower than now, with all traffic passing beneath a single arch. The arch was protected by a portcullis, whose associated grooves are still visible. The prominent arched machicolations, defensive apertures through which stones or other material could be dropped on attackers, were added at an unknown date in the medieval period, possibly in the late 14th century. The gate formed part of the town's defensive walls. The cartographer John Speed's map of 1610 shows walls only on the northern side of the town, which lies unprotected by either the Monnow or the Wye, but the archaeologist Ian Soulsby suggests it is "inconceivable" that Monnow Gate, and another gate shown by Speed leading out onto Chippenham Mead, stood alone.
As well as its defensive role, the gatehouse served as a barrier to allow for the collection of tolls from those attending markets. Tolls were authorised in the Patent Rolls of 1297 and 1315 and in subsequent town charters. Kissack gives details of the wide variety of items on which tariffs were levied in his reproduction of the charter of 1297. These included "five fat hogs, (a) horse-load of honey and a thousand (roofing) nails". In 1447 Henry VI granted the town a Charter of Incorporation which enabled further development.
Historians have debated whether defence or revenue collection was the gatehouse's primary purpose. The Victorian antiquarian Mary Ellen Bagnall-Oakeley, who wrote the first history of the bridge and gate in 1902, described the gatehouse as "a little fortress complete in itself, though of course, useless in time of war". Her account contended that the "tower was not in any way connected with the fortification walls of the town" and that the gatehouse was erected solely "for the purpose of taking tolls". The Monmouthshire antiquarian Joseph Bradney, in the first volume of his A History of Monmouthshire from the Coming of the Normans into Wales down to the Present Time, concurred; "the bridge is a curious structure which appears to have been more for the purpose of collecting tolls than anything else, though as a defence to the town outside the walls it might be of some help". Kissack follows their arguments, noting that the gatehouse was ineffective in defensive terms, as the Monnow could easily be crossed on foot upstream. More recent commentators disagree; Soulsby considered the bridge to have a clear defensive purpose, and Michael Rowlands, author of the most recent history of the bridge and gatehouse, argued that the bridge and gatehouse met the dual aims of defensive protection and the collection of tolls.
### 15th–19th centuries
Neither Monmouth nor its castle were attacked in the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr between 1400 and 1415, although nearby Abergavenny and Grosmont were burned down in the uprising. The unrest of the period had a negative impact on the development of the town. But the bridge continued its important function as a toll-gate. Philip Jones, Member of Parliament for Monmouth Boroughs in 1589, bequeathed an annual sum of about £120, the rent from his lands and houses at 'Bayliepitte', to the mayor and bailiffs of Monmouth on condition that the borough exempt those people passing through the gate or coming into Monmouth with cattle from paying tolls on fair days.
In the 16th century, the antiquarian John Leland described the bridge in one of his Itineraries: "From Monk's Gate the wall extends Westwards to the river Monnow. In the wall are four gates: Monk's Gate, East Gate and Wye Gate ... and Monnow Gate which is above the bridge crossing the river Monnow." A visual depiction of the bridge and gate is included in John Speed's work The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain, published in 1611. His map of Monmouthshire includes an inset map of the town that shows the Monnow Bridge and Gate as well as a similar gatehouse on the Wye Bridge.
In the English Civil War, the town changed hands several times, and in 1645 the bridge was seized by Royalist soldiers from Raglan in a failed attempt to retake the town from the Parliamentarian forces under Colonel Kyrle. Kissack describes the engagement as "the most resolute Royalist attack made (on) Monmouth", which saw eight of Kyrle's opponents killed and five captured. By 1705, the bridge and gatehouse required maintenance: the original battlements were replaced with solid walls, and the building was refitted to form a two-storey dwelling house with timber and lath extensions projecting over the river. The house was then leased to a resident gatekeeper, responsible for repairing and maintaining the building. Part of the gatehouse remained in use as a lock-up. Such multiple uses were not uncommon; the archaeologist C. J. Bond recorded that "gates often included chambers which could be used for lock-ups, chapels or meeting rooms". Both the bridge and the gatehouse were again repaired between 1771 and 1775. The bill for repairs included the cost of 100 gallons of ale for the workmen employed. Trade continued to be central to the importance of the bridge. The Monmouthshire writer and artist Fred Hando records that, on a single Saturday in the early 18th century, "500 horses each carrying five bushels of corn entered by way of the Monnow gate".
In 1804, Charles Heath recorded, "The interior has nothing worthy of attention and the only purpose to which it is employed is an occasional guardhouse, or powder room, for the military, when stationed at Monmouth." The gatehouse had by this point been abandoned as a dwelling. The lean-to extensions, including the guardhouse, were demolished around 1815. In 1819, a pedestrian passageway was driven through the building on the upstream side to help relieve the flow of traffic across the bridge. Before 1830, the gatehouse was owned by Monmouth Corporation, and subsequently the County Council, as inheritors of the medieval burgesses. In a lengthy transaction, begun that year but not concluded until 1835, ownership was formally transferred to the Duke of Beaufort as part of a property exchange. The gatehouse roof was reconstructed in 1832, with deeper eaves and four decorative corbels on each side. A second passageway was added on the downstream side of the arch in 1845. Since then, the structure has remained essentially unchanged, save for periodic maintenance and repair.
In 1839, at the time of the Newport Rising, the gatehouse was garrisoned as the authorities feared a Chartist attack on Monmouth. Later guidebooks suggest that the three loopholes visible on the tower were opened up at this time "for musketry in anticipation of the advance of the Chartists", but Rowlands shows that the apertures are visible in illustrations of the gatehouse long before 1839.
The gatehouse was the scene of annual battles, or "muntlings", between rival gangs from "Up-Town" – the main town of Monmouth – and Overmonnow or "Cappers' Town", so called because it was the traditional home of those who made Monmouth caps. Until the confrontations were banned in 1858, youths from both sides of the bridge would gather for these occasions on 1 and 29 May, armed with besoms or "muntles" reinforced with stones. The bridge was also used as an unofficial advertising hoarding and as a focus for significant local and national celebrations. In 1891, it was decorated with flags and lights to commemorate the coming of age of John Maclean Rolls, eldest son of Monmouthshire grandee Lord Llangattock.
### 20th–21st centuries
From 1889 to 1902, an extensive programme of conservation was carried out on the bridge and gate, directed by Monmouthshire County Council, which retained responsibility for maintenance. This began with the prevention of the potential collapse of the gatehouse by the insertion of metal tie rods to hold the two faces of the tower together; the four round plates at the ends of these two rods can still be seen. In 1892, conservation work began on the arches and piers of the bridge following the discovery that riverbed erosion had seriously undermined the piers. Maintenance was carried out on the gatehouse exterior from the mid-1890s to 1897. Roof guttering and downpipes were added, badly eroded stone was replaced with squared blocks of Old Red Sandstone, and the cruciform arrowslit on the left-hand side of the west elevation of the gatehouse was restored to make it symmetrical. Concluding the 1889–1902 renovations, improvements were made to the interior of the gatehouse, and it was opened to the public in 1902.
In 1900, ownership of the gatehouse was transferred from Henry Somerset, 9th Duke of Beaufort to Monmouthshire County Council as part of the disposal of the entirety of the Somersets' land holdings in Monmouthshire. The gift is recorded on a brass plaque attached to the gatehouse. The local antiquarian Mary Ellen Bagnall-Oakeley wrote the first history of the bridge and gatehouse, Monnow Bridge Tower, which appeared in 1903. In April 1893, the first street light was erected on the bridge by the town council. In the late 1920s, the top portion of this light was replaced by twin electric lamps. In the 1960s, the lamps were removed completely, and since 1991 the bridge has been floodlit.
In 1963, Fred Hando, who recorded points of interest and history around Monmouthshire in a series of articles for the South Wales Argus between the 1920s and the 1960s, wrote a description of the gatehouse, referencing the small museum then located in the upstairs room. Hando mentions the "beautifully executed" copies of the patent rolls issued by Edward I in 1296-7 and by Edward II in 1315 which recorded the items on which tolls could be levied to fund the fortifications for Monmouth.
In the 20th century, the greater volume of traffic using the humpbacked bridge, which had poor visibility and narrow approach roads, led to a rise in accidents and an increase in bypass proposals. The desire of local authorities to clear carriageways of obstructions to traffic led to the demolition of many similar bridge towers from as early as the 18th century. The bridge and gate were formally protected as an Ancient Monument in 1923, and proposals for a new road bridge began to be made about the same time. The new A40, built during 1965–1966, relieved the town of much through traffic, and a town centre plan, prepared by the District Council in 1981, again proposed a new bridge. Repairs had to be undertaken in 1982 following a collision on 18 May in which a double-decker bus struck the bridge, resulting in its closure for a month. Damage to the bridge and gate through accidents continued, and in the early 1990s, two drivers were prosecuted after crossing the bridge with vehicles significantly exceeding the weight and height limits.
In 1999, the engineers Ove Arup and Partners undertook a feasibility study for a bridge downstream from the Monnow Bridge, but the scheme was not progressed at that time. Both the County and Town Councils remained committed to the construction of a new crossing to support the economic development of the town, and in 2003 local authority funding of £1.3 million was secured and construction commenced. The new bridge opened on 15 March 2004 for local traffic, allowing the old bridge to become pedestrianised. The closure to traffic also enabled a significant repair programme to be undertaken, in part funded by the Welsh Government and the European Union. After further conservation and repair, the gatehouse was formally re-opened in 2014, allowing public access on one day per week.
## Depictions in art
William Gilpin, in his Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, published in 1782, generated considerable interest in the natural and man-made attractions of South Wales and heralded the development of the Wye Tour as an alternative to the Grand Tour. As a consequence, Monnow Bridge and gatehouse became a popular subject for artists. A late 18th-century watercolour by Michael Angelo Rooker is now in the Monmouth Museum. The noted architectural watercolourist Samuel Prout painted the bridge in a study dated "before 1814", now held at the Yale Center for British Art in Connecticut. In 1795, J. M. W. Turner sketched the bridge and gatehouse during one of his annual summer sketching tours.
The watercolourist and etcher John Sell Cotman sketched the bridge in the early 19th century, his drawing showing the overhanging accommodation and guardhouse that were later removed. Joshua Cristall produced a similar pencil sketch in 1803. Henry Gastineau drew the bridge in about 1819. Due to a printing error that confused his drawing of the bridge with one of the tower at Raglan Castle on the opposite page of the printed collection, Gastineau's image often appears with the title Gate and Bridge, Ragland. The artist of the American West Thomas Moran produced an undated pencil drawing of the bridge which is printed in his Field Sketches. A depiction of the bridge in stained glass by Charles Eamer Kempe can be seen in the Memorial of the Boer War window in St Mary's Priory Church in Monmouth.
## Architecture and appreciation
The bridge is 34.8 metres (110 ft) in length and 7.3 metres (20 ft) wide. The gatehouse stands 11 metres (36 ft) high above the bridge deck. It has three arches standing on piers. The two piers that stand on the bed of the Monnow form cutwaters. The undersides of the arches are ribbed for reinforcement. The bridge is constructed of seven types of stone, predominantly Old Red Sandstone, all quarried within 16 kilometres (10 mi) of Monmouth. The two passageways through the gate are 19th-century insertions. Prior to their construction, the main gateway was the sole means of entry and egress. This opening was defended by a portcullis. The gatehouse is elliptical, and its western and eastern elevations show considerable differences. The western front has three machicolations over the gate with murder holes inset. The historians Oliver Creighton and Richard Higham note their "fine architectural detailing". The dating of the machicolations is uncertain, but comparison with similar, dated, examples, such as those at Cooling Castle in Kent, suggests a construction period in the 14th century. They cannot be original to the gate, as their positioning would have obstructed the portcullis. The eastern front is less decorated and displays evidence of more substantial reconstruction. It has a centrally placed round-headed window. The pedestrian arches through the bridge also differ in design, the northern being pointed and the southern having a flat "Caernarvon" head.
Internally, the gate has a single room and a garderobe. The original internal access was by way of a stone spiral staircase, but this was subsequently destroyed and a wooden replacement was inserted. The room in the tower measures 10 metres (33 ft) long and 3 metres (9.8 ft) wide and has an attic and an 18th-century roof. The roof was reconstructed in 1832. From the upper room, the machine-cut rafters are visible. Drawings from the 18th and 19th centuries show a chimney in the roof, but the presence of a fireplace in the tower room is not mentioned in the available sources. The medieval roof was flat, with a castellated parapet and a wall-walk.
In 1996, the bridge was included on a list of potential World Heritage Bridges by the UNESCO advisory body, the International Council on Monuments and Sites. The criteria for World Heritage status required that the bridge be of "outstanding universal value" and illustrate "a significant stage in bridge engineering or technological developments".
The bridge is one of only two surviving fortified bridges in the United Kingdom, the other being in Warkworth, Northumberland. There, the gatehouse stands on land at one end of the bridge, rather than on the bridge itself, and is described by the archaeologist John Steane as "less impressive" than the "superb" Monnow Gate. A recent (2016) appreciation by the historian Richard Hayman describes the Monnow Bridge as "arguably the finest surviving medieval bridge in Britain". Such bridge towers were common across mainland Europe and, to a lesser extent, in Great Britain from medieval times. British examples included the Mardol Gate in Shrewsbury and Froome Bridge in Bristol. Continental examples include the Frias Bridge, near Burgos in Spain, and the Pont Valentré, in Cahors, France. But urban expansion, the lessening of defensive requirements, and the substantial increases in traffic and trade from the 18th century onward led to the destruction of many of what was once a common bridge type. The rarity of Monnow Bridge and Gate is reflected in its status as a potential World Heritage Site, a scheduled monument, and a Grade I listed building; its listing describing it as "an outstanding medieval fortified bridge, now unique in Britain".
## See also
- Bridge castle
## Explanatory notes
|
27,641,920 |
Persoonia levis
| 1,172,668,602 |
Shrub in the family Proteaceae native to New South Wales and Victoria in eastern Australia
|
[
"Flora of New South Wales",
"Flora of Victoria (state)",
"Persoonia",
"Plants described in 1798",
"Taxa named by Antonio José Cavanilles"
] |
Persoonia levis, commonly known as the broad-leaved geebung, is a shrub native to New South Wales and Victoria in eastern Australia. It reaches 5 m (16 ft) in height and has dark grey papery bark and bright green asymmetrical sickle-shaped leaves up to 14 cm (5.5 in) long and 8 cm (3.2 in) wide. The small yellow flowers appear in summer and autumn (December to April), followed by small green fleshy fruit, which are classified as drupes. Within the genus Persoonia, it is a member of the Lanceolata group of 58 closely related species. P. levis interbreeds with several other species where they grow together.
Found in dry sclerophyll forest on sandstone-based nutrient-deficient soils, P. levis is adapted to a fire-prone environment; the plants resprout epicormic buds from beneath their thick bark after bushfires, and can live for over 60 years. Regeneration also takes place after fire by a ground-stored seed bank. The longtongue bee Leioproctus carinatifrons is a pollinator of the flowers, and the fruit are consumed by vertebrates such as kangaroos, possums and currawongs. Despite its horticultural appeal, P. levis is rare in cultivation as it is very hard to propagate, either by seed or cuttings.
## Description
Persoonia levis grows as a tall shrub to small tree, and can reach 5 m (16 ft) in height. The flaky soft bark is dark grey on the surface, while deeper layers are reddish in colour. Within the bark are epicormic buds, which sprout new growth after bushfire. The new growth is smooth to slightly hairy. The large green leaves measure 6 to 14 cm (2.2–5.5 in) in length, and 1.3 to 8 cm (0.5–3.2 in) in width, and are oblong or sickle-shaped (falcate). The asymmetrical shape helps distinguish the species from P. lanceolata. The bright green foliage, particularly of new growth, stands out against the more subdued tones of the surrounding vegetation and the stems, which are reddish in colour. The yellow flowers appear in summer and autumn (December to April), and peak over December to February. They are arranged on short axillary racemes along the branchlets. Each individual flower consists of a cylindrical perianth, consisting of tepals fused for most of their length, within which are both male and female parts. The central style is surrounded by the anther, which splits into four segments; these curl back and resemble a cross when viewed from above. They provide a landing area for insects attending to the stigma, which is located at the tip of the style. The smooth fleshy fruit, known as a drupe, is green and more or less round, measuring 1 cm (0.4 in) by 0.8 cm (0.3 in) in diameter. It contains two seeds, and has a spike at the end. The drupe is juicy but stringy when unripe, and the seeds and skin are inedible.
## Taxonomy and classification
Persoonia levis was first collected at Botany Bay in April 1770, by Sir Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, naturalists on the British vessel HMS Endeavour during Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific Ocean. Solander coined the (unpublished) binomial name Loranthoides latifolius in Banks' Florilegium. It was formally described and given the name Linkia levis by Antonio José Cavanilles in 1798. His description was based on plant material collected by Luis Née in the vicinity of Port Jackson (Sydney) in April 1793 during the Malaspina Expedition. The species was placed in the genus Persoonia by Karel Domin in 1921. The genus names Linkia and Persoonia had been coined in 1798, but the latter was officially conserved. The species name is the Latin adjective levis, meaning "smooth", and refers to the hairless foliage. Christiaan Hendrik Persoon coined the name Persoonia salicina for it in his 1805 work Synopsis Plantarum, and queried whether Cavanilles' Linkia levis was in fact P. lanceolata. Robert Brown used Persoon's name in his 1810 work Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen, and echoed Persoon's thoughts on Cavanilles' original name and specimen. In the 1995 Flora of Australia revision of the genus, Peter Weston reviewed the mounted material of Linkia levis, and found that Cavanilles had mounted material from both P. levis and P. lanceolata. He set one specimen of the three, which was clearly P. levis, as the lectotype, which aligned the material with the description. Common names include broad-leaved geebung, willow geebung and smooth geebung. The term geebung is derived from the Dharug language word geebung.
Like most other members of the genus, Persoonia levis has seven chromosomes that are large compared to those of other Proteaceae. In 1870, George Bentham published the first infrageneric arrangement of Persoonia in Volume 5 of his landmark Flora Australiensis. He divided the genus into three sections, placing P. levis (which he called P. salicina) in P. sect. Amblyanthera. The 1995 Flora of Australia revision of the genus saw it classified in the Lanceolata group, a group of 58 closely related species with similar flowers but very different foliage. These species will often interbreed with each other where two members of the group occur, and hybrids with P. acerosa, P. lanceolata, P. linearis, P. mollis subsp. ledifolia, P. myrtilloides subsp. myrtilloides (in the Upper Blue Mountains, these plants resemble P. lanceolata), P. oxycoccoides, and P. stradbrokensis have been recorded. Robert Brown initially described the hybrid with P. linearis as a species "Persoonia lucida", which is now known as Persoonia × lucida, and has been recorded from the southeast forests of the New South Wales south coast.
## Distribution and habitat
Persoonia levis is found from the Macleay River catchment on the New South Wales mid north coast to the Cann River in far eastern Victoria. It is found in dry sclerophyll forest on sandstone-based nutrient-deficient soils, from sea level to an altitude of 1000 m (3500 ft). There it grows in sunny or lightly shaded areas in open woodland, associated with such trees as Eucalyptus piperita, E. sieberi, E. sclerophylla, E. radiata, E. smithii, Angophora costata and Corymbia gummifera, and shrubs such as Conospermum longifolium, Grevillea buxifolia, G. phylicoides, Hakea laevipes, Symphionema montanum and Telopea speciosissima, as well as Persoonia hirsuta and P. mollis. Coastal forms are smaller with broader leaves than inland forms. The annual rainfall of the area it occurs in the Sydney Basin is 900–1,400 mm (35–55 in). It is considered adequately protected in the Sydney region, and is found in Georges River, Cattai, Wollemi, Bouddi, Brisbane Water, Marramarra, Ku-ring-gai Chase, Garigal, Lane Cove, Sydney Harbour, Botany Bay and Budderoo National Parks.
## Ecology
Persoonia levis is one of several species of Persoonia that regenerate by resprouting from the trunk after bushfire, an adaptation to the fire-prone habitat in which it grows. Its thick papery bark shields the underlying epicormic buds from the flames. Plants also regenerate by seedlings that arise from a seedbank in the soil after fire, although they may take up to 12 months to germinate. One study of sclerophyll forest unburnt for thirty years showed P. levis had declined over time. P. levis plants can live for over 60 years, and their leaves have a lifespan of up to 6 years.
Vesicles indicating a mycorrhizal association have been found on the roots of Persoonia levis, the Proteaceae not previously noted for forming mycorrhizal associations. Infection by the fungal species Anthracostroma persooniae results in leaf spot disease. P. levis is the food plant of the larvae of the weevil species Eurhynchus laevior.
Colletid bees of the genus Leioproctus subgenus Cladocerapis exclusively forage on and pollinate flowers of many species of Persoonia. Bees of subgenus Filiglossa in the same genus that also specialise in feeding on Persoonia flowers do not appear to be effective pollinators. Particular species recorded on P. levis include the longtongue bee Leioproctus carinatifrons. Weighing 1700 mg (0.60 oz), the fruit are adapted to be eaten by vertebrates, such as kangaroos and possums, as well as currawongs and other large birds. The flowers of P. levis are self-incompatible—that is, they are unable to fertilise themselves and require outcrossing to another plant.
## Cultivation
Persoonia levis is rarely seen in cultivation, mainly because of difficulties in propagation; seed germination is unpredictable, and cuttings have been nearly impossible to strike. Nevertheless, its colourful bark and leaves are attractive horticultural features. Well-drained sandy soils in sun or part shade are needed for the plant in a garden situation. Once established, it tolerates moderate frosts and dry spells and grows fairly readily, albeit slowly, in suitable conditions. Plantsmen in England germinated seed as early as 1795.
|
16,855,965 |
Decipherment of rongorongo
| 1,142,389,859 |
Attempts to understand Easter Island script
|
[
"Rongorongo"
] |
There have been numerous attempts to decipher the rongorongo script of Easter Island since its discovery in the late nineteenth century. As with most undeciphered scripts, many of the proposals have been fanciful. Apart from a portion of one tablet which has been shown to deal with a lunar calendar, none of the texts are understood, and even the calendar cannot actually be read. The evidence is weak that rongorongo directly represents the Rapa Nui language – that is, that it is a true writing system – and oral accounts report that experts in one category of tablet were unable to read other tablets, suggesting either that rongorongo is not a unified system, or that it is proto-writing that requires the reader to already know the text. Assuming that rongorongo is writing, there are three serious obstacles to decipherment: the small number of remaining texts, comprising only 15,000 legible glyphs; the lack of context in which to interpret the texts, such as illustrations or parallel texts which can be read; and the fact that the modern Rapa Nui language is heavily mixed with Tahitian and is unlikely to closely reflect the language of the tablets—especially if they record a specialized register such as incantations—while the few remaining examples of the old language are heavily restricted in genre and may not correspond well to the tablets either.
Since a proposal by Butinov and Knorozov in the 1950s, the majority of philologists, linguists and cultural historians have taken the line that rongorongo was not true writing but proto-writing, that is, an ideographic- and rebus-based mnemonic device, such as the Dongba script of the Nakhi people, which would in all likelihood make it impossible to decipher. This skepticism is justified not only by the failure of the numerous attempts at decipherment, but by the extreme rarity of independent writing systems around the world. Of those who have attempted to decipher rongorongo as a true writing system, the vast majority have assumed it was logographic, a few that it was syllabic or mixed. Statistically, it appears to have been compatible with neither a pure logography nor a pure syllabary. The topic of the texts is unknown; various investigators have speculated they cover genealogy, navigation, astronomy, or agriculture. Oral history suggests that only a small elite were ever literate, and that the tablets were considered sacred.
## Accounts from Easter Island
### Jaussen
In 1868 the Bishop of Tahiti, Florentin-Étienne Jaussen, received a gift from recent converts on Easter Island: a long cord of human hair wound around a discarded rongorongo tablet. He immediately recognized the importance of the tablet, and asked Father Hippolyte Roussel on Easter Island to collect more tablets and to find islanders capable of reading them. Roussel was able to acquire only a few additional tablets, and he could find no-one to read them, but the next year in Tahiti Jaussen found a laborer from Easter Island, Metoro Tauꞌa Ure, who was said to know the inscriptions "by heart".
Almost a century later, Thomas Barthel published some of Jaussen's notes. He compared Metoro's chants with parallel passages in other tablets and discovered that Metoro had read the lines of Keiti forwards on the reverse but backwards on the obverse. Jacques Guy found that Metoro had also read the lunar calendar in Mamari backwards, and failed to recognize the "very obvious" pictogram of the full moon within it, demonstrating a lack of any understanding of the contents of the tablets.
### Thomson
William J. Thomson, paymaster on the USS Mohican, spent twelve days on Easter Island from 19 December to 30 December 1886, during which time he made an impressive number of observations, including some which are of interest for the decipherment of the rongorongo.
#### Ancient calendar
`Métraux criticizes Thomson for translating Anakena as August when in 1869 Roussel identified it as July, and Barthel restricts his work to Métraux and Englert, because they are in agreement while "Thomson's list is off by one month". However, Guy calculated the dates of the new moon for years 1885 to 1887 and showed that Thomson's list fit the phases of the moon for 1886. He concluded that the ancient Rapanui used a lunisolar calendar with kotuti as its embolismic month (its "leap month"), and that Thomson chanced to land on Easter Island in a year with a leap month.`
#### Ure Vaꞌe Iko's recitations
Thomson was told of an old man called Ure Vaꞌe Iko who "professes to have been under instructions in the art of hieroglyphic reading at the time of the Peruvian raids, and claims to understand most of the characters". He had been the steward of King Ngaꞌara, the last king said to have had knowledge of writing, and although he was not able to write himself, he knew many of the rongorongo chants and was able to read at least one memorized text. When Thomson plied him with gifts and money to read the two tablets he had purchased, Ure "declined most positively to ruin his chances for salvation by doing what his Christian instructors had forbidden" and finally fled.
{\| class="wikitable"
\|+ ! Recitation ! Corresponding tablet \|- \| Apai \| E (Keiti) \|- \| Atua Matariri \| R (Small Washington) ? \|- \| Eaha to ran ariiki Kete \| S (Great Washington) ? \|- \| Ka ihi uiga \| D (Échancrée) \|- \| Ate-a-renga-hokau iti poheraa \| C (Mamari)
The very title is a mixture of Rapanui and Tahitian: poheraꞌa is Tahitian for "death"; the Rapanui word is matenga. Ure was an unwilling informant: even with duress, Thomson was only able to gain his cooperation with "the cup that cheers" (that is, rum):
> Finally [Ure] took to the hills with the determination to remain in hiding until after the departure of the Mohican. [U]nscrupulous strategy was the only resource after fair means had failed. [When he] sought the shelter of his own home on [a] rough night [we] took charge of the establishment. When he found escape impossible he became sullen, and refused to look at or touch a tablet [but agreed to] relate some of the ancient traditions. [C]ertain stimulants which had been provided for such an emergency were produced, and [...] as the night grew old and the narrator weary, he was included as the "cup that cheers" made its occasional rounds. [A]t an auspicious moment the photographs of the tablets owned by the bishop were produced for inspection. [...] The photographs were recognized immediately, and the appropriate legend related with fluency and without hesitation from beginning to end.
`The verses of Atua Matariri are of the form X ki ꞌai ki roto Y, ka pû te Z "X, by mounting into Y, let Z come forth", `
and when taken literally, they appear to be nonsense:
"Moon, by mounting into Darkness, let Sun come forth" (verse 25),
"Killing, by mounting into Stingray, let Shark come forth" (verse 28),
"Stinging Fly, by mounting into Swarm, let Horsefly come forth" (verse 16).
These verses have generally been interpreted as creation chants, with various beings begetting additional beings. However, they do not conform to Rapanui or other Polynesian creation mythology. Guy notes that the phrasing is similar to the way compound Chinese characters are described. For example, the composition of the Chinese character 銅 tóng "copper" may be described as "add 同 tóng to 金 jīn to make 銅 tóng" (meaning "add Together to Metal to make Copper"), which is also nonsense when taken literally. He hypothesizes that the Atua Matariri chant which Ure had heard in his youth, although unconnected to the particular tablet for which he recited it, was a genuine rongorongo chant: A mnemonic which taught students how the glyphs were composed.
## Fanciful decipherments
In 1892 the Australian pediatrician Alan Carroll published a fanciful translation, based on the idea that the texts were written by an extinct "Long-Ear" population of Easter Island in a diverse mixture of Quechua and other languages of Peru and Mesoamerica. Perhaps due to the cost of casting special type for rongorongo, no method, analysis, or sound values of the individual glyphs were ever published. Carroll continued to publish short communications in Science of Man, the journal of the (Royal) Anthropological Society of Australasia until 1908. Carroll had himself founded the society, which is "nowadays seen as forming part of the 'lunatic fringe'."
In 1932 the Hungarian Vilmos Hevesy (Guillaume de Hevesy) published an article claiming a relationship between rongorongo and the Indus Valley script, based on superficial similarities of form. This was not a new idea, but was now presented to the French Academy of Inscriptions and Literature by the French Sinologist Paul Pelliot and picked up by the press. Due to the lack of an accessible rongorongo corpus for comparison, it was not apparent that several of the rongorongo glyphs illustrated in Hevesy's publications were spurious.
At least a score of decipherments have been claimed since then, none of which have been accepted by other rongorongo epigraphers. For instance, ethnographer Irina Fedorova published purported translations of the two St Petersburg tablets and portions of four others. More rigorous than most attempts, she restricts each glyph to a single logographic reading. However, the results make little sense as texts. For example, tablet P begins (with each rongorongo ligature set off with a comma in the translation):
> he cut a rangi sugarcane, a tara yam, he cut lots of taro, of stalks (?), he cut a yam, he harvested, he cut a yam, he cut, he pulled up, he cut a honui, he cut a sugarcane, he cut, he harvested, he took, a kihi, he chose a kihi, he took a kihi ...
and continues in this vein to the end:
> he harvested a yam, a poporo, a calabash, he pulled up a yam, he cut, he cut one plant, he cut one plant, a yam, he cut a banana, he harvested a sugarcane, he cut a taro, he cut a kahu yam, a yam, a yam ...
The other texts are similar. For example, the Mamari calendar makes no mention of time or the moon in Fedorova's account:
> a root, a root, a root, a root, a root, a root [that is, a lot of roots], a tuber, he took, he cut a potato tuber, he dug up yam shoots, a yam tuber, a potato tuber, a tuber ...
which even Fedorova characterized as "worthy of a maniac".
Moreover, the allographs detected by Pozdniakov are given different readings by Fedorova, so that, for example, otherwise parallel texts repeatedly substitute the purported verb maꞌu "take" for the purported noun tonga "a kind of yam". (Pozdniakov has demonstrated that these are graphic variants of the same glyph.) As it was, Fedorova's catalog consisted of only 130 glyphs; Pozdniakov's additional allography would have reduced that number and made her interpretation even more repetitive. Such extreme repetition is a problem with all attempts to read rongorongo as a logographic script.
Many recent scholars are of the opinion that, while many researchers have made modest incremental contributions to the understanding of rongorongo, notably Kudrjavtsev et al., Butinov and Knorozov, and Thomas Barthel, the attempts at actual decipherment, such as those of Fedorova here or of Fischer below, "are not accompanied by the least justification".
## Harrison
James Park Harrison, a council member of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, noticed that lines Gr3–7 of the Small Santiago tablet featured a compound glyph, 380.1.3 (a sitting figure 380 holding a rod 1 with a line of chevrons (a garland?) 3 ), repeated 31 times, each time followed by one to half a dozen glyphs before its next occurrence. He believed that this broke the text into sections containing the names of chiefs. Barthel later found this pattern on tablet K, which is a paraphrase of Gr (in many of the K sequences the compound is reduced to 380.1 ), as well as on A, where it sometimes appears as 380.1.3 and sometimes as 380.1; on C, E, and S as 380.1; and, with the variant 380.1.52 , on N. In places it appears abbreviated as 1.3 or 1.52 , without the human figure, but parallels in the texts suggest these have the same separating function.
## Kudrjavtsev et al.
Parallel texts: A short excerpt of tablets H, P, and Q
The group later noticed that tablet K was a close paraphrase of the recto of G. Kudrjavtsev wrote up their findings, which were published posthumously. Numerous other parallel, though shorter, sequences have since been identified through statistical analysis, with texts N and R found to be composed almost entirely of phrases shared with other tablets, though not in the same order.
Ligatures: Parallel texts Pr4–5 (top) and Hr5 (bottom) show that a figure (glyph 200 ) holding an object (glyphs 8 , 1 , and 9 ) in P may be fused into a ligature in H, where the object replaces either the figure's head or its hand. (Elsewhere in these texts, animal figures are reduced to a distinctive feature such as a head or arm when they fuse with a preceding glyph.) Here also are the two hand shapes (glyphs 6 and 64 ) which would later be established as allographs. Three of the four human and turtle figures at left have arm ligatures with an orb (glyph 62 ), which Pozdniakov found often marks a phrase boundary.
## Butinov and Knorozov
Now, if the repeated independent glyph 200 is a title, such as "king", and if the repeated attached glyph 76 is a patronymic marker, then this means something like:
King A, B's son, King B, C's son, King C, D's son, King D, E's son,
and the sequence is a lineage.
Although no-one has been able to confirm Butinov and Knorozov's hypothesis, it is widely considered plausible. If it is correct, then, first, we can identify other glyph sequences which constitute personal names. Second, the Santiago Staff would consist mostly of persons' names as it bears 564 occurrences of glyph 76, the putative patronymic marker, one fourth of the total of 2320 glyphs. Third, the sequence 606.76 700, translated by Fischer (below) as "all the birds copulated with the fish", would in reality mean (So-and-so) son of 606 was killed. The Santiago Staff, with 63 occurrences of glyph 700 , a rebus for îka "victim", would then be in part a kohau îka (list of war casualties).
## Barthel
German ethnologist Thomas Barthel, who first published the rongorongo corpus, identified three lines on the recto (side a) of tablet C, also known as Mamari, as a lunar calendar. Guy proposed that it was more precisely an astronomical rule for whether one or two intercalary nights should be inserted into the 28-night Rapanui month to keep it in sync with the phases of the moon, and if one night, whether this should come before or after the full moon. Berthin and Berthin propose that it is the text which follows the identified calendar that shows where the intercalary nights should appear.
{\|
\| \|- \|Heralding sequences: Two instances of the "heralding sequence" from line Ca7, one from before and one from after the full moon. The fish at the end of the latter is inverted, and (in the sequence immediately following the full moon only) the long-necked bird is reversed.
## Fischer
In 1995 independent linguist Steven Fischer, who also claims to have deciphered the enigmatic Phaistos Disc, announced that he had cracked the rongorongo "code", making him the only person in history to have deciphered two such scripts. In the decade since, this has not been accepted by other researchers, who feel that Fischer overstated the single pattern which formed the basis of his decipherment, and note that it has not led to an understanding of other patterns.
### Decipherment
Fischer identified glyph 76 as a phallus and the text of the Santiago Staff as a creation chant consisting of hundreds of repetitions of X–phallus Y Z, which he interpreted as X copulated with Y, there issued forth Z. His primary example was this one:
about half-way through line 12 of the Santiago Staff. Fischer interpreted glyph 606 as "bird"+"hand", with the phallus attached as usual at its lower right; glyph 700 as "fish"; and glyph 8 as "sun".
Fischer supported his interpretation by claiming similarities to the recitation Atua Matariri, so called from its first words, which was collected by William Thomson. This recitation is a litany where each verse has the form X, ki ꞌai ki roto ki Y, ka pû te Z, literally "X having been inside Y the Z comes forward". Here is the first verse, according to Salmon and then according to Métraux (neither of whom wrote glottal stops or long vowels):
> Atua Matariri; Ki ai Kiroto, Kia Taporo, Kapu te Poporo.
> "God Atua Matariri and goddess Taporo produced thistle."
> Atua-matariri ki ai ki roto ki a te Poro, ka pu te poporo.
> "God-of-the-angry-look by copulating with Roundness (?) produced the poporo (black nightshade, Solanum nigrum)."
Fischer proposed that the glyph sequence 606.76 700 8, literally MANU:MAꞋU.ꞋAI ÎKA RAꞋÂ "bird:hand.penis fish sun", had the analogous phonetic reading of:
> te manu mau ki ꞌai ki roto ki te îka, ka pû te raꞌâ
> "All the birds copulated with the fish; there issued forth the sun."
He claimed similar phallic triplets for several other texts. However, in the majority of texts glyph 76 is not common, and Fischer proposed that these were a later, more developed stage of the script, where the creation chants had been abbreviated to X Y Z and omit the phallus. He concluded that 85% of the rongorongo corpus consisted of such creation chants, and that it was only a matter of time before rongorongo would be fully deciphered.
### Objections
There are a number of objections to Fischer's approach:
- When Andrew Robinson checked the claimed pattern, he found that "Close inspection of the Santiago Staff reveals that only 63 out of the 113 [sic] sequences on the staff fully obey the triad structure (and 63 is the maximum figure, giving every Fischer attribution the benefit of the doubt)." Glyph 76 occurs sometimes in isolation, sometimes compounded with itself, and sometimes in the 'wrong' part (or even all parts) of the triplets. Other than on the Staff, Pozdniakov could find Fischer's triplets only in the poorly preserved text of Ta and in the single line of Gv which Butinov and Knorozov suggested might be a genealogy.
- Pozdniakov and Pozdniakov calculated that altogether the four glyphs of Fischer's primary example make up 20% of the corpus. "Hence it is easy to find examples in which, on the contrary, 'the sun copulates with the fish', and sometimes also with the birds. Fischer does not mention the resulting chaos in which everything is copulating in all manner of unlikely combinations. Furthermore, it is by no means obvious in what sense this 'breakthrough' is 'phonetic'."
- The plural marker mau does not exist in Rapanui, but is instead an element of Tahitian grammar. However, even if it did occur in Rapanui, Polynesian mau is only a plural marker when it precedes a noun; after a noun it is an adjective which means "true, genuine, proper".
- No Polynesian myth tells of birds copulating with fish to produce the sun. Fischer justifies his interpretation thus: This is very close to [verse] number 25 from Daniel Ure Vaꞌe Iko's procreation chant [Atua Matariri] "Land copulated with the fish Ruhi Paralyzer: There issued forth the sun." However, this claim depends on Salmon's English translation, which does not follow from his Rapanui transcription of
: Heima; Ki ai Kiroto Kairui Kairui-Hakamarui Kapu te Raa.
Métraux gives the following interpretation of that verse:
: He Hina [He ima?] ki ai ki roto kia Rui-haka-ma-rui, ka pu te raa.
: "Moon (?) by copulating with Darkness (?) produced Sun",
which mentions neither birds nor fish.
- Given Fischer's reading, Butinov and Knorozov's putative genealogy on tablet Gv becomes semantically odd, with several animate beings copulating with the same human figure to produce themselves:
: [turtle] copulated with [man], there issued forth [turtle]
: [shark?] copulated with [man] there issued forth [shark]
: etc.
- Cryptologist Tomi Melka deduced that Fischer's hypothesis cannot be true for the entire Staff, let alone other texts.
- Computational linguist Richard Sproat could not replicate the parallels Fischer claimed between the Santiago Staff and the other texts. He automated the search for string matches between the texts and found that the staff stood alone:
> As an attempt at a test for Fischer's "phallus omission" assumption, we computed the same string matches for a version of the corpus where glyph 76, the phallus symbol, had been removed. Presumably if many parts of the other tablets are really texts which are like the Santiago Staff, albeit sans explicit phallus, one ought to increase one's chance of finding matches between the Staff and other tablets by removing the offending member. The results were the same as for the unadulterated version of the corpus: the Santiago staff still appears as an isolate.
## Pozdniakov
In the 1950s, Butinov and Knorozov had performed a statistical analysis of several rongorongo texts and had concluded that either the language of the texts was not Polynesian, or that it was written in a condensed telegraphic style, because it contained no glyphs comparable in frequency to Polynesian grammatical particles such as the Rapanui articles te and he or the preposition ki. These findings have since been used to argue that rongorongo is not a writing system at all, but mnemonic proto-writing. However, Butinov and Knorozov had used Barthel's preliminary encoding, which Konstantin Pozdniakov, senior researcher at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg (until 1996), noted was inappropriate for statistical analysis. The problem, as Butinov and Knorozov, and Barthel himself, had admitted, was that in many cases distinct numerical codes had been assigned to ligatures and allographs, as if these were independent glyphs. The result was that while Barthel's numerical transcription of a text enabled a basic discussion of its contents for the first time, it failed to capture its linguistic structure and actually interfered with inter-text comparison.
In 2011, Pozdniakov released a pre-press publication analyzing Text E Keiti, including a glyph-by-glyph comparison of the transcription in Barthel (1958), with misidentified glyphs corrected per Horley (2010).
### Revising the glyph inventory
To resolve this deficiency, Pozdniakov (1996) reanalyzed thirteen of the better preserved texts, attempting to identify all ligatures and allographs in order to better approach a one-to-one correspondence between graphemes and their numeric representation. He observed that all these texts but I and G verso consist predominantly of shared phrases (sequences of glyphs), which occur in different orders and contexts on different tablets.
Phrasing: Variants of this twenty-glyph phrase, all missing some of these glyphs or adding others, are found twelve times, in eight of the thirteen texts Pozdniakov tabulated: lines Ab4, Cr2–3, Cv2, Cv12, Ev3, Ev6, Gr2–3, Hv12, Kr3, Ra6, Rb6, and Sa1. Among other things, such phrases have established or confirmed the reading order of some of the tablets.
These shared sequences begin and end with a notably restricted set of glyphs.
Contrasting these phrases allowed Pozdniakov to determine that some glyphs occur in apparent free variation both in isolation and as components of ligatures. Thus he proposed that the two hand shapes, 6 (three fingers and a thumb) and 64 (a four-fingered forked hand), are graphic variants of a single glyph, which also attaches to or replaces the arms of various other glyphs:
Allographs: The 'hand' allographs (left), plus some of the fifty pairs of allographic 'hand' ligatures to which Barthel had assigned distinct character codes.
The fact the two hands appear to substitute for each other in all these pairs of glyphs when the repeated phrases are compared lends credence to their identity. Similarly, Pozdniakov proposed that the heads with "gaping mouths", as in glyph 380 , are variants of the bird heads, so that the entirety of Barthel's 300 and 400 series of glyphs are seen as either ligatures or variants of the 600 series.
Despite finding that some of the forms Barthel had assumed were allographs appeared instead to be independent glyphs, such as the two orientations of his glyph 27, , the overall conflation of allographs and ligatures greatly reduced the size of Barthel's published 600-glyph inventory. By recoding the texts with these findings and then recomparing them, Pozdniakov was able to detect twice as many shared phrases, which enabled him to further consolidate the inventory of glyphs. By 2007, he and his father, a pioneer in Russian computer science, had concluded that 52 glyphs accounted for 99.7% of the corpus.
{\| class=wikitable
\|+ \|- align=center \| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|- align=center ! 01 \|\| 02 \|\| 03 \|\| 04 \|\| 05 \|\| 06 \|\| 07 \|\| 08 \|\| 09 \|\| 10 \|\| 14 \|\| 15 \|\| 16 \|- align=center \| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|- align=center ! 22 \|\| 25 \|\| 27a \|\| 28 \|\| 34 \|\| 38 \|\| 41 \|\| 44 \|\| 46 \|\| 47 \|\| 50 \|\| 52 \|\| 53 \|- align=center \| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|- align=center ! 59 \|\| 60 \|\| 61 \|\| 62 \|\| 63 \|\| 66 \|\| 67 \|\| 69 \|\| 70 \|\| 71 \|\| 74 \|\| 76 \|\| 91 \|- align=center \| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|- align=center ! 95 \|\| 99 \|\| 200 \|\| 240 \|\| 280 \|\| 380 \|\| 400 \|\| 530 \|\| 660 \|\| 700 \|\| 720 \|\| 730 \|\| 901 \|- bgcolor=white \| colspan=13\| Glyph 901 was first proposed by Pozdniakov. The inverted variant 27b in Barthel's glyph 27 () appears to be a distinct glyph. Although 99 looks like a ligature of 95 and 14 , statistically it behaves like a separate glyph, similar to how Latin Q and R do not behave as ligatures of O and P with an extra stroke, but as separate letters.
The shared repetitive nature of the phrasing of the texts, apart from Gv and I, suggests to Pozdniakov that they are not integral texts, and cannot contain the varied contents which would be expected for history or mythology. In the following table of characters in the Pozdniakov & Pozdniakov inventory, ordered by descending frequency, the first two rows of 26 characters account for 86% of the entire corpus.
{\| style="text-align: center"
\|- \| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|- \| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|- \| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|- \| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\| \|\|
|
61,824,268 |
Battle of Babylon Hill
| 1,156,313,241 |
1642 skirmish of the first English Civil War
|
[
"1642 in England",
"17th century in Dorset",
"Battles of the English Civil Wars",
"Conflicts in 1642",
"Military history of Dorset"
] |
The battle of Babylon Hill was an indecisive skirmish that took place between Royalist and Parliamentarian forces near Yeovil, in South West England, on 7 September 1642, during the early stages of the First English Civil War. The engagement occurred after a failed Parliamentarian siege of nearby Royalist-held Sherborne. After the Parliamentarians had retreated to Yeovil, a force of around 350 Royalists was sent to reconnoitre their movements. Under the command of Sir Ralph Hopton, the Royalist detachment established itself on Babylon Hill, on the outskirts of Yeovil.
Around half an hour before sunset, the Royalists decided to withdraw and began marching their infantry off the hill. As they were doing so, they spotted Parliamentarian soldiers approaching, and Hopton hurriedly recalled the infantry and set his men to meet the attack. The battle became chaotic, mostly due to the inexperience of the soldiers involved. The Parliamentarian force, which also numbered around 350, made a three-pronged cavalry attack, which the Royalists were able to repel, though sections of both forces were routed. In the confusion, they were eventually able to pull back under the cover of darkness.
Neither side suffered heavy casualties; although both sides claimed they had killed sixty or more, a modern estimate suggests that the Royalists lost around twenty, and the Parliamentarians five. The Parliamentarians subsequently withdrew from Yeovil to Dorchester to the south, while around two weeks later the Royalists retreated from the area entirely.
## Background
Tension between Parliament and King Charles escalated sharply during 1642 after the King had attempted to arrest five members of Parliament. The King appointed the Marquess of Hertford as commander of his forces in the West Country, supported by Sir Ralph Hopton, a local member of Parliament (MP) and an experienced army officer. The county of Somerset was generally more sympathetic towards Parliament than towards the King, and after the Royalists established quarters at Wells they were constantly under threat. They won a minor skirmish at Marshall's Elm, where their superior cavalry and leadership helped them defeat a much larger Parliamentarian force, but they were forced to leave Wells on 6 August when the local population rose against them, wielding makeshift weapons such as pitchforks. Hertford retreated to Sherborne in Dorset, where he garrisoned the castle, with just under 1,500 men. Dorset was split in its sympathies: most of the larger towns favoured Parliament; but in more rural areas, and to the north of the county generally, the Royalists had more support.
A Parliamentarian army of between 3,500 and 7,000, led by William Russell, 5th Earl of Bedford, besieged Sherborne on 2 September 1642. On the first day, the Royalists had the better of several skirmishes in the town itself, but were unable to prevent the Parliamentarian bombardment of the town and castle. Hopton led his dragoons in small raids on the enemy camp each night, in conjunction with retaliatory artillery attacks on the besieging army. The inexperienced Parliamentarian army suffered from numerous desertions, culminating in a reported 800 on the night of 5/6 September. Bedford's army had dwindled to between 1,200 and 1,500, and he withdrew to Yeovil, chased by a small skirmishing detachment led by Hopton.
## Prelude
The day after the siege had been lifted, Hertford sent Hopton with around 350 men—150 horse (both cavalry and dragoons) and 200 foot soldiers—to scout the enemy's movements in Yeovil. On their approach to Yeovil, Hopton established himself on Babylon Hill, which he identified as a suitable location to watch the town, due to hedge-lined gullies which allowed his troops to climb the hill unobserved. Wary of attack, Hopton set musketeers and dragoons along the approaches to the summit, where he gathered his cavalry and remaining musketeers. Bedford had posted a guard, consisting of both infantry and artillery, on Yeovil Bridge, which spanned the River Yeo. Hopton's men had a good view of this guard and for over an hour his musketeers shot down at the guards with little effect.
## Battle
As evening approached, Hopton consulted with his commanders and decided to retire to Sherborne for the night, and at 6 pm, around half an hour before sunset, began withdrawing the infantry while the cavalry and dragoons covered the rear. Before all of the infantry had left Babylon Hill a Royalist officer, Colonel Lawdy, spotted an enemy party approaching over the fields by "a secret way". Rather than climb the hill via the gullies which Hopton had defended, the Parliamentarians cut straight through the fields, avoiding Hopton's ambushes. According to a Parliamentarian account of the battle, the Royalists had set "six musketeers on each side the way to entertain us, but they missed us all." In his memoirs of the war, Hopton states that he had twenty musketeers guarding the right-hand gully, and all of his dragoons hidden in the hedges on the left-hand gully.
Hopton summoned the infantry back, and brought his cavalry into battle formation to face the approaching Parliamentarians. The historian Richard Brooks described the ensuing fight as "more muddle than battle." Hopton sent two troops to charge the approaching Parliamentarians, the first led by Captain Edward Stowell, and the second (Hopton's troop) by Captain Henry Moreton. According to Hopton, Stowell was successful in routing the approaching enemy, but his inexperienced cavalry was outnumbered and themselves routed, their flight causing panic and retreat among Moreton's men as well. The Parliamentarian account of the battle said that the first of their three cavalry troops to reach the Royalists was commanded by Captain Aiscogh, and it "charged one of the troops through and through, and charged the second, but then was glad to wheel about." The account records that when Captain Tomson's cavalry reached the fighting things got chaotic, which concurs with Hopton's recollection that "in very short time, all the horse on both sides were in confusion."
Another group of Parliamentarians had made it to the top of the hill by going up one of the gullies on the right of Hopton's forces, which had been left unguarded after the musketeers had been recalled: Hopton blamed Sir Thomas Lunsford, who commanded the infantry for "having forgotten to put a party of musketeers as before." In total, the Parliamentarians committed a similar number, around 350 men, to the fight as the Royalists. In a letter written by the prominent Royalist Sir Edward Nicholas, he described how on reaching the summit, the Parliamentarian captain—a son of William Balfour, Parliament's lieutenant-general of horse—"rode out single from his troop brandishing his sword, as if he would dare somebody to combat with him." John Stowell rode to meet the challenge, and after Balfour shot his pistol from distance, Stowell held his fire until he was close enough to be accurate; he shot Balfour in the chest and finished him off with his sword. Hopton's description of the incident differs slightly, suggesting that another Royalist soldier, James Colborne, shot Balfour with a fowling piece, simultaneous to Stowell's lone charge. In either case, Balfour was disabled and his troop routed. Royalist reports claimed that Balfour had been killed in the fight, but the Parliamentarian dispatch does not mention him, saying only that "all but one of the slain are of Captain Aiscogh's troop". In his account of the battle, the historian Robert Morris suggests that Balfour was only stunned, and was active in later engagements that year. Seizing upon the confusion, Hopton chose to withdraw his infantry again, "covered by a few gentlemen", and in the darkness, the entire Royalist detachment was able to make good their retreat.
As the Royalists made their way off the hill, Hopton records that they came across around 16 of the Parliamentarians who had earlier been routed. His men killed a few of the soldiers, but most were taken prisoner, and escorted by the Royalists back to Sherborne. It is difficult to ascertain the losses for either side; Royalist propaganda claimed that they had killed between 100 and 140 while only losing 16 men, a figure which included one officer who was taken prisoner. In contrast, the Parliamentarians suggested that only three of their men had died, and that as many as 60 of Hopton's soldiers had been killed. In his history of Somerset during the civil war, David Underdown suggests that the Parliamentarians lost five, and the Royalists around twenty. Another historian, Tim Goodwin provides higher estimates, quoting losses of 15 or 16 for the Parliamentarians, and 50 to 60 for the Royalists. Among the Royalist losses were two infantry officers; Lieutenant Hall and Captain Hussey, the latter of whom was said to have gone into the battle "clad in plush".
## Aftermath
As described by Hopton, the Earl of Bedford withdrew his army from Yeovil to Dorchester. The Royalist forces remained at Sherborne for almost two weeks after the battle, before learning that Portsmouth had been captured by the Parliamentarians. Hertford, against the advice of Hopton, decided to retreat to Minehead where they would escape by boat to Wales. The Royalists suffered heavy desertions during the long march through country predominantly sympathetic towards Parliament, during which they were chased by Bedford's army. At Minehead, they found that there were only two boats, and so Hertford sailed with the infantry and artillery to Wales, while Hopton and around 160 horse escaped through north Devon to Cornwall.
Both sides tried to claim victory in the propaganda war; on Parliament's side, a pamphlet entitled Happy newes from Sherborn said that "God cast upon the cavaliers a spirit of fearfulness, that they ran like mice into every hole." In contrast, Hopton said that after the battle "the enemy liked their bargain so ill, that they marched clear away from Yeovil". Brooks summarises the skirmish as "pretty much a draw", though he lists the Parliamentarians as winners, as does Stephen Manganiello in his encyclopedia of the war. The engagement was heartening to the Parliamentarians, showing that the Royalist cavalry could be beaten, and that their leaders were not infallible.
|
1,162,294 |
Planet Stories
| 1,077,313,341 |
20th-century American pulp science fiction magazine
|
[
"1939 establishments in the United States",
"1955 disestablishments in the United States",
"Defunct science fiction magazines published in the United States",
"Magazines disestablished in 1955",
"Magazines established in 1939",
"Planet Stories",
"Pulp magazines",
"Science fiction magazines established in the 1930s"
] |
Planet Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Fiction House between 1939 and 1955. It featured interplanetary adventures, both in space and on some other planets, and was initially focused on a young readership. Malcolm Reiss was editor or editor-in-chief for all of its 71 issues. Planet Stories was launched at the same time as Planet Comics, the success of which probably helped to fund the early issues of Planet Stories. Planet Stories did not pay well enough to regularly attract the leading science fiction writers of the day, but occasionally obtained work from well-known authors, including Isaac Asimov and Clifford D. Simak. In 1952 Planet Stories published Philip K. Dick's first sale, and printed four more of his stories over the next three years.
The two writers most identified with Planet Stories are Leigh Brackett and Ray Bradbury, both of whom set many of their stories on a romanticized version of Mars that owed much to the depiction of Barsoom in the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Bradbury's work for Planet included an early story in his Martian Chronicles sequence. Brackett's best-known work for the magazine was a series of adventures featuring Eric John Stark, which began in the summer of 1949. Brackett and Bradbury collaborated on one story, "Lorelei of the Red Mist", which appeared in 1946; it was generally well-received, although one letter to the magazine complained that the story's treatment of sex, though mild by modern standards, was too explicit. The artwork also emphasized attractive women, with a scantily clad damsel in distress or alien princess on almost every cover.
## Publication history
Although science fiction (sf) had been published before the 1920s, it did not begin to coalesce into a separately marketed genre until the appearance in 1926 of Amazing Stories, a pulp magazine published by Hugo Gernsback. By the end of the 1930s the field was undergoing its first boom. Fiction House, a major pulp publisher, had run into difficulties during the Depression, but after a relaunch in 1934 found success with detective and romance pulp titles. Fiction House's first title with sf interest was Jungle Stories, which was launched in early 1939; it was not primarily a science fiction magazine, but often featured storylines with marginally science fictional themes, such as survivors from Atlantis. At the end of 1939, Fiction House decided to add an sf magazine to its lineup; it was titled Planet Stories, and was published by Love Romances, a subsidiary company that had been created to publish Fiction House's romance titles. The first issue was dated Winter 1939. Two comics were launched at the same time: Jungle Comics and Planet Comics; both were published monthly, whereas Planet Stories was quarterly, and it is quite likely that the success of the comics funded the early issues of the pulps.
Malcolm Reiss edited Planet Stories from the beginning, and retained editorial oversight and control throughout its run, though he was not always the named editor on the masthead; when other editors were involved, his title was "managing editor". The first of these sub-editors was Wilbur S. Peacock, who took over with the Fall 1942 issue and remained until Fall 1945, after which he was replaced by Chester Whitehorn for three issues, and then by Paul L. Payne, from Fall 1946 to Spring 1950.
With the Summer 1950 issue the editorship passed to Jerome Bixby, who was already editing Jungle Stories. Soon thereafter Planet Stories switched from a quarterly to bimonthly schedule. Bixby lasted a little over a year; Malcolm Reiss took over again in September 1951, and three issues later, in March 1952, Jack O'Sullivan became editor. A contemporary market survey records that in 1953, payment rates were only one to two cents per word; this was substantially less than the leading magazines of the day. Planet Stories returned to a quarterly schedule beginning with the Summer 1954 issue, but the pulp market was collapsing, and the Summer 1955 issue was the final one.
## Contents and reception
Fiction House apparently made the decision to launch Planet Stories so quickly that there was little time for Reiss to obtain new stories, so he worked with Julius Schwartz and other authors' agents to fill the first issue. The results were unremarkable, but Reiss was energetic, and was able to improve the quality of fiction in succeeding issues, though he occasionally apologized to the readers for printing weak material. The magazine was exclusively focused on interplanetary adventures, often taking place in primitive societies that would now be regarded as "sword and sorcery" settings, and was aimed at a young readership; the result was a mixture of what became known as space opera and planetary romances—melodramatic tales of action and adventure on alien planets and in interplanetary space. Planet Stories relied on a few authors to provide the bulk of its fiction in the early years, with Nelson Bond providing eight lead stories, some of them novels. Fourteen more were written by Ray Cummings and Ross Rocklynne; and Leigh Brackett was also a regular contributor, with seventeen stories in total published over the lifetime of the magazine.
The letter column in Planet Stories was titled "The Vizigraph"; it was very active, with long letters from an engaged readership. It often printed letters from established writers, and from fans who would go on to become well known professionally: Damon Knight's letters are described by sf historian Mike Ashley as "legendary"; and Robert Silverberg commented in a letter in the Summer 1950 issue that Ray Bradbury "certainly gets some original ideas, if not good ones". The editors put a good deal of effort into keeping the letter column friendly and lively; contemporary writer and editor Robert Lowndes recalls that "Reiss was sincere and urbane; Wilbur [Peacock] enjoyed taking his coat off and being one of the crowd".
Despite the focus on melodramatic space adventure, the fiction in Planet Stories improved over the next few years, largely due to the work of Brackett and Bradbury. Both writers set many of their stories on a romanticized version of Mars that owed much to the Barsoom of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Brackett's writing improved during the 1940s from formulaic pulp adventure to a more mature style, and she became the most accomplished writer of planetary romances of her day. She wrote a well-received series of stories featuring adventurer Eric John Stark, which began in the Summer 1949 Planet Stories with "Queen of the Martian Catacombs". Her work had a strong influence on other writers, in particular Gardner F. Fox, Lin Carter and Marion Zimmer Bradley, Brackett later argued that "the so-called space opera is the folk-tale, the hero-tale of our particular niche in history". Also arguing in support of Planet Stories, science fiction critic John Clute has commented that "the content was far more sophisticated than the covers".
Bradbury's work for Planet Stories included two of the stories that he later incorporated into The Martian Chronicles, including "The Million Year Picnic"; only one other story in the series had appeared before this. He also collaborated on a story with Brackett, "Lorelei of the Red Mist", based on an idea of hers, which appeared in the Summer of 1946. His stories for Planet demonstrate his reservations about the advance of technology, in particular "The Golden Apples of the Sun" (November 1953), and "A Sound of Thunder" (January 1954, reprinted from the June 28, 1952 issue of Collier's Weekly). Bradbury's work in Planet Stories is regarded by one pulp historian, Tim de Forest, as "the magazine's most important contribution to the genre".
Several other well-known writers appeared in Planet Stories, including Isaac Asimov, Clifford Simak, James Blish, Fredric Brown and Damon Knight. Asimov's story, originally titled "Pilgrimage", appeared in 1942; Asimov had been unable to sell the piece elsewhere, and rewrote it numerous times for different editors, adding a religious element at John Campbell's request, and removing it again when Malcolm Reiss asked for further changes. Reiss bought it but changed the name to "Black Friar of the Flame".
Jerome Bixby, who took over as editor in 1950, was a published writer and was knowledgeable about sf, though he had primarily written western fiction. In his short tenure he did much to improve the magazine, persuading the established writers to produce better material and finding unusual variations on the interplanetary adventure theme such as Poul Anderson's "Duel on Syrtis" in March 1951, about an Earthman tracking an alien on Mars, and Theodore Sturgeon's "The Incubi on Planet X", about aliens who kidnap Earth women. After Bixby's departure in 1952, Planet Stories' major contribution to the genre was the discovery of Philip K. Dick, whose first sale, "Beyond Lies the Wub", appeared in the July 1952 issue. Dick went on to sell another four stories to Planet Stories over the next two years, including "James P. Crow", in which a human suffers discrimination in a world of robots.
Planet Stories clearly targeted a young readership, and the simultaneous launch in 1939 of Planet Comics may have been instrumental in attracting young readers to science fiction, but Ashley suggests that it is more likely that Planet Stories attracted experienced readers of the genre who "still yearned for the early days of sf". Critic and sf historian Thomas Clareson has commented that "Planet seemed to look backward towards the 1930s and earlier", an impression that was strengthened by the extensive use of interior artwork by Frank Paul, who had been the cover artist for the early Gernsback magazines in the 1920s. Paul's distinctive style was strongly associated with the early years of the field. The cover art was also melodramatic, with beautiful women—sometimes human, sometimes princesses from other planets—and threatening aliens. The subheading on the cover read "Strange Adventures on Other Worlds – The Universe of Future Centuries" until the end of 1946.
Although almost every story that appeared in Planet could be described as space opera, there was some variety of approach to the basic themes. Earth was sometimes threatened, but more often the action took place on other worlds, bringing Earthmen into local conflicts. This often involved beautiful native princesses, though the romantic storylines were stereotyped. Some respite from these depictions of women was provided by Leigh Brackett, who described her own heroines as "usually on the bitchy side—warm-blooded, hot-tempered, but gutty and intelligent" (with "bitchy" intended as a compliment). During World War II, it was in Planet Stories that a reader was most likely to come across a female character who could fight, instead of merely being fought over. Sex itself had long been taboo in the pulp magazines, but some stories in Planet depicted sexuality more directly than the competing magazines would. The readers were not always accepting; one reader in a letter in 1949 supported "jettisoning the taboos", but a letter writer in 1946 objected to "Lorelei of the Red Mist", saying that he needed "a pint of Listerine to wash the dirty taste out of my mouth". The cover artwork generally emphasized sex as well, with what sf author and critic Harry Harrison sardonically referred to as "sexual dimorphism in space": heavy, functional spacesuits for the men, and transparent suits through which bikinis or swimsuits could be seen for the women.
Hannes Bok contributed much of the interior artwork, and the covers were often by Allen Anderson during the early years. Later, Kelly Freas became a frequent cover artist. One of the best artists to work on Planet was Alexander Leydenfrost, whose work, according to Clareson, "epitomized much of what Planet Stories represented in the 1940s", though his cover artwork was less impressive than his black-and-white interior illustrations. Artist and sf historian David Hardy has described Leydenfrost's black and white illustrations as "almost Rembrandtian in his use of light and shade".
## Bibliographic details
The editorial succession at Planet was:
- Malcolm Reiss: Winter 1939 – Summer 1942.
- Wilbur S. Peacock: Fall 1942 – Fall 1945.
- Chester Whitehorn: Winter 1945 – Summer 1946.
- Paul L. Payne: Fall 1946 – Spring 1950.
- Jerome Bixby: Summer 1950 – July 1951.
- Malcolm Reiss: September 1951 – January 1952.
- Jack O'Sullivan: March 1952 – Summer 1955.
Planet Stories was a pulp-sized magazine for all of its 71 issues. It was 128 pages for most of its existence, and was priced at 20 cents. With the November 1950 issue the page count was cut to 112, and the price went up to 25 cents. The page count was reduced to 96 for one issue in March 1952, but then returned to 112 until Summer 1954, when it was again reduced to 96 pages for the last five issues.
Planet began as a quarterly. A brief attempt was made to switch to a bimonthly schedule in 1943; a March and May issue appeared, but the next issue was titled Fall 1943, inaugurating another quarterly period. The Fall 1950 issue was followed by November 1950, and this began a bimonthly period that lasted until May 1954, which was followed by a Summer 1954 issue. A quarterly schedule resumed until the end; unusually, the winter issue that year was dated Winter 1954/55, rather than with a single year. The volume numbering was consistent throughout the magazine's publication, with five volumes of 12 issues and a final volume of 11, but there were three errors in the volume numbering printed on the spine (though not on the masthead): issue 5/10 was given as 5/8 on the spine; issue 5/11 was given as 6/3 on the spine; and issue 6/11 was given as 6/12 on the spine.
A British reprint edition appeared between March 1950 and September 1954; the issues were numbered but not dated, and were heavily cut, with only 64 to 68 pages. There are twelve issues known; a thirteenth has been rumored but not seen by any sf bibliographers. The publisher was Pembertons, though some sources indicate that Streamline Publications was the publisher of the first issue. Issues 7 and 8 of the British edition also contained nonfiction material reprinted from Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder. A Canadian edition was published by American News Co., from Fall 1948 to March 1951 (a total of twelve issues); these were identical to the corresponding U.S. editions.
### Related publications
In the summer of 1950 Fiction House launched a companion magazine to Planet. It was titled Two Complete Science-Adventure Books; the policy was to print two novels in a single magazine. It appeared three times a year and lasted until the spring of 1954. In 1953 Fiction House launched a reprint magazine, Tops in Science Fiction, selecting the contents from the backfile of stories that had appeared in Planet. It only lasted for two issues, the second of which received almost no distribution.
A derivative anthology, The Best of Planet Stories \#1, appeared in 1975 from Ballantine Books, edited by Leigh Brackett, containing seven stories reprinted from between 1942 and 1952. It was intended to be the first of a series, but no further volumes appeared.
## See also
- History of science fiction
|
1,969 |
Apollo 15
| 1,172,570,375 |
Fourth crewed Moon landing
|
[
"1971 on the Moon",
"Alfred Worden",
"Apollo 15",
"Apollo program missions",
"Articles containing video clips",
"Crewed missions to the Moon",
"David Scott",
"Extravehicular activity",
"James Irwin",
"June 1971 events",
"Lunar rovers",
"Sample return missions",
"Soft landings on the Moon",
"Spacecraft launched by Saturn rockets",
"Spacecraft launched in 1971",
"Spacecraft which reentered in 1971"
] |
Apollo 15 (July 26 – August 7, 1971) was the ninth crewed mission in the United States' Apollo program and the fourth to land on the Moon. It was the first J mission, with a longer stay on the Moon and a greater focus on science than earlier landings. Apollo 15 saw the first use of the Lunar Roving Vehicle.
The mission began on July 26 and ended on August 7, with the lunar surface exploration taking place between July 30 and August 2. Commander David Scott and Lunar Module Pilot James Irwin landed near Hadley Rille and explored the local area using the rover, allowing them to travel further from the lunar module than had been possible on previous missions. They spent 181⁄2 hours on the Moon's surface on four extravehicular activities (EVA), and collected 170 pounds (77 kg) of surface material.
At the same time, Command Module Pilot Alfred Worden orbited the Moon, operating the sensors in the scientific instrument module (SIM) bay of the service module. This suite of instruments collected data on the Moon and its environment using a panoramic camera, a gamma-ray spectrometer, a mapping camera, a laser altimeter, a mass spectrometer, and a lunar subsatellite deployed at the end of the moonwalks. The lunar module returned safely to the command module and, at the end of Apollo 15's 74th lunar orbit, the engine was fired for the journey home. During the return trip, Worden performed the first spacewalk in deep space. The Apollo 15 mission splashed down safely on August 7 despite the loss of one of its three parachutes.
The mission accomplished its goals but was marred by negative publicity the following year when it emerged that the crew had carried unauthorized postal covers to the lunar surface, some of which were sold by a West German stamp dealer. The members of the crew were reprimanded for poor judgment, and did not fly in space again. The mission also saw the collection of the Genesis Rock, thought to be part of the Moon's early crust, and Scott's use of a hammer and a feather to validate Galileo's theory that when there is no air resistance, objects fall at the same rate due to gravity regardless of their mass.
## Background
In 1962, NASA contracted for the construction of fifteen Saturn V rockets to achieve the Apollo program's goal of a crewed landing on the Moon by 1970; at the time no one knew how many missions this would require. Since success was obtained in 1969 with the sixth Saturn V on Apollo 11, nine rockets remained available for a hoped-for total of ten landings. These plans included a heavier, extended version of the Apollo spacecraft to be used in the last five missions (Apollo 16 through 20). The revamped lunar module would be capable of up to a 75-hour stay, and would carry a Lunar Roving Vehicle to the Moon's surface. The service module would house a package of orbital experiments to gather data on the Moon. In the original plan Apollo 15 was to be the last of the non-extended missions to land in Censorinus crater. But in anticipation of budget cuts, NASA cancelled three landing missions by September 1970. Apollo 15 became the first of three extended missions, known as J missions, and the landing site was moved to Hadley Rille, originally planned for Apollo 19.
## Crew and key Mission Control personnel
### Crew
Scott was born in 1932 in San Antonio, Texas, and, after spending his freshman year at the University of Michigan on a swimming scholarship, transferred to the United States Military Academy, from which he graduated in 1954. Serving in the Air Force, Scott had received two advanced degrees from MIT in 1962 before being selected as one of the third group of astronauts the following year. He flew in Gemini 8 in 1966 alongside Neil Armstrong and as command module pilot of Apollo 9 in 1969. Worden was born in 1932 in Jackson, Michigan, and like his commander, had attended West Point (class of 1955) and served in the Air Force. Worden earned two master's degrees in engineering from Michigan in 1963. Irwin had been born in 1930 in Pittsburgh, and had attended the United States Naval Academy, graduating in 1951 and serving in the Air Force, receiving a master's degree from Michigan in 1957. Both Worden and Irwin were selected in the fifth group of astronauts (1966), and Apollo 15 would be their only spaceflight. All three future astronauts had attended Michigan, and two had taken degrees from there; it had been the first university to offer an aeronautical engineering program.
The backup crew was Richard F. Gordon Jr. as commander, Vance D. Brand as command module pilot and Harrison H. Schmitt as lunar module pilot. By the usual rotation of crews, the three would most likely have flown Apollo 18, which was canceled. Brand flew later on the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project and on STS-5, the first operational Space Shuttle mission. With NASA under intense pressure to send a professional scientist to the Moon, Schmitt, a geologist, was selected as LMP of Apollo 17 instead of Joe Engle. Apollo 15's support crew consisted of astronauts Joseph P. Allen, Robert A. Parker and Karl G. Henize. All three were scientist-astronauts, selected in 1967, as the prime crew felt they needed more assistance with the science than with the piloting. None of the support crew would fly during the Apollo program, waiting until the Space Shuttle program to go into space.
### Mission Control
The flight directors for Apollo 15 were as follows:
- Gerry Griffin, Gold team
- Milton Windler, Maroon team
- Glynn Lunney, Black team
- Gene Kranz, White team
During a mission the capsule communicators (CAPCOMs), always fellow astronauts, were the only people who normally would speak to the crew. For Apollo 15, the CAPCOMs were Allen, Brand, C. Gordon Fullerton, Gordon, Henize, Edgar D. Mitchell, Parker, Schmitt and Alan B. Shepard.
## Planning and training
Schmitt and other scientist-astronauts advocated for a greater place for science on the early Apollo missions. They were often met with disinterest from other astronauts, or found science displaced by higher priorities. Schmitt realized that what was needed was an expert teacher who could fire the astronauts' enthusiasm, and contacted Caltech geologist Lee Silver, whom Schmitt introduced to Apollo 13's commander, Jim Lovell, and to its lunar module pilot, Fred Haise, then in training for their mission. Lovell and Haise were willing to go on a field expedition with Silver, and geology became a significant part of their training. Geologist Farouk El-Baz trained the prime crew's command module pilot, Ken Mattingly to inform his planned observations from lunar orbit. The crew's newly acquired skills mostly went unused, due to the explosion that damaged the Apollo 13 spacecraft, and caused an abort of the mission. Apollo 14's CMP, Stuart Roosa, was enthusiastic about geology, but the mission commander, Shepard, less so.
Already familiar with the spacecraft as the backup crew for Apollo 12, Scott, Worden and Irwin could devote more of their training time as prime crew for Apollo 15 to geology and sampling techniques. Scott was determined that his crew bring back the maximum amount of scientific data possible, and met with Silver in April 1970 to begin planning the geological training. Schmitt's assignment as Apollo 15's backup LMP made him an insider, and allowed him to spark competition between the prime and backup crews. The cancellation of two Apollo missions in September 1970 transformed Apollo 15 into a J mission, with a longer stay on the lunar surface, and the first Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). This change was welcomed by Scott, who according to David West Reynolds in his account of the Apollo program, was "something more than a hotshot pilot. Scott had the spirit of a true explorer", one determined to get the most from the J mission. The additional need for communications, including from planned experiments and the rover, required the near-rebuilding of the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station in Australia.
Geology field trips took place about once a month throughout the crew's 20 months of training. At first, Silver would take the commanders and LMPs from the prime and backup crews to geological sites in Arizona and New Mexico as if for a normal field geology lesson, but closer to launch, these trips became more realistic. Crews began to wear mock-ups of the backpacks they would carry while hiking near the Rio Grande Gorge, and communicate using walkie-talkies to a CAPCOM in a tent. The CAPCOM was accompanied by a geologist unfamiliar with the area who would rely on the astronauts' descriptions to interpret the findings, and familiarized the crew members with describing landscapes to people who could not see them. Considering himself a serious amateur, Scott came to enjoy field geology.
The decision to land at Hadley came in September 1970. The Site Selection Committee had narrowed the field down to two sites—Hadley Rille, a deep channel on the edge of Mare Imbrium close to the Apennine mountains or the crater Marius, near which were a group of low, possibly volcanic, domes. Although not ultimately his decision, the commander of a mission always held great sway. To David Scott the choice was clear, as Hadley "had more variety. There is a certain intangible quality which drives the spirit of exploration and I felt that Hadley had it. Besides it looked beautiful and usually when things look good they are good." The selection of Hadley was made although NASA lacked high resolution images of the landing site; none had been made as the site was considered too rough to risk one of the earlier Apollo missions. The proximity of the Apennine mountains to the Hadley site required a landing approach trajectory of 26 degrees, far steeper than the 15 degrees in earlier Apollo landings.
The expanded mission meant that Worden spent much of his time at North American Rockwell's facilities at Downey, California, where the command and service module (CSM) was being built. He undertook a different kind of geology training. Working with El-Baz, he studied maps and photographs of the craters he would pass over while orbiting alone in the CSM. As El-Baz listened and gave feedback, Worden learned how to describe lunar features in a way that would be useful to the scientists who would listen to his transmissions back on Earth. Worden found El-Baz to be an enjoyable and inspiring teacher. Worden usually accompanied his crewmates on their geology field trips, though he was often in an airplane overhead, describing features of the landscape as the plane simulated the speed at which the lunar landscape would pass below the CSM.
The demands of the training strained both Worden's and Irwin's marriages; each sought Scott's advice, fearing a divorce might endanger their places on the mission as not projecting the image NASA wanted for the astronauts. Scott consulted Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton, their boss, who stated what was important was that the astronauts do their jobs. Although the Irwins overcame their marital difficulties, the Wordens divorced before the mission.
## Hardware
### Spacecraft
Apollo 15 used command and service module CSM-112, which was given the call sign Endeavour, named after HMS Endeavour, and lunar module LM-10, call sign Falcon, named after the United States Air Force Academy mascot. Scott explained the choice of the name Endeavour on the grounds that its captain, James Cook had commanded the first purely scientific sea voyage, and Apollo 15 was the first lunar landing mission on which there was a heavy emphasis on science. Apollo 15 took with it a small piece of wood from Cook's ship, while Falcon carried two falcon feathers to the Moon in recognition of the crew's service in the Air Force. Also part of the spacecraft were a Launch Escape System and a Spacecraft-Lunar Module Adapter, numbered SLA-19.
Technicians at the Kennedy Space Center had some problems with the instruments in the service module's scientific instrument module (SIM) bay. Some instruments were late in arriving, and principal investigators or representatives of NASA contractors sought further testing or to make small changes. Mechanical problems came from the fact the instruments were designed to operate in space, but had to be tested on the surface of the Earth. As such, things like the 7.5 m (24 ft) booms for the mass and gamma ray spectrometers could be tested only using equipment that tried to mimic the space environment, and, in space, the mass spectrometer boom several times did not fully retract.
On the lunar module, the fuel and oxidizer tanks were enlarged on both the descent and ascent stages, and the engine bell on the descent stage was extended. Batteries and solar cells were added for increased electrical power. In all this increased the weight of the lunar module to 36,000 pounds (16,000 kilograms), 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg) heavier than previous models.
If Apollo 15 had flown as an H mission, it would have been with CSM-111 and LM-9. That CSM was used by the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project in 1975, but the lunar module went unused and is now at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Endeavour is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, following its transfer of ownership from NASA to the Smithsonian in December 1974.
### Launch vehicle
The Saturn V that launched Apollo 15 was designated SA-510, the tenth flight-ready model of the rocket. As the payload of the rocket was greater, changes were made to the rocket and to its launch trajectory. It was launched in a more southerly direction (80–100 degrees azimuth) than previous missions, and the Earth parking orbit was lowered to 166 kilometers (90 nautical miles). These two changes meant 1,100 pounds (500 kg) more could be launched. The propellant reserves were reduced and the number of retrorockets on the S-IC first stage (used to separate the spent first stage from the S-II second stage) reduced from eight to four. The four outboard engines of the S-IC would be burned longer and the center engine would also burn longer. Changes were also made to the S-II to dampen pogo oscillations.
Once all major systems were installed in the Saturn V, it was moved from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch site, Launch Complex 39A. During late June and early July 1971, the rocket and Launch Umbilical Tower (LUT) were struck by lightning at least four times. There was no damage to the vehicle, and only minor damage to ground support equipment.
### Space suits
The Apollo 15 astronauts wore redesigned space suits. On all previous Apollo flights, including the non-lunar flights, the commander and lunar module pilot had worn suits with the life support, liquid cooling, and communications connections in two parallel rows of three. On Apollo 15, the new suits, dubbed the "A7LB", had the connectors situated in triangular pairs. This new arrangement, along with the relocation of the entry zipper (which went in an up-down motion on the old suits), to run diagonally from the right shoulder to the left hip, aided in suiting and unsuiting in the cramped confines of the spacecraft. It also allowed for a new waist joint, letting the astronauts bend completely over, and sit on the rover. Upgraded backpacks allowed for longer-duration moonwalks. As in all missions from and after Apollo 13, the commander's suit bore a red stripe on the helmet, arms and legs.
Worden wore a suit similar to those worn by the Apollo 14 astronauts, but modified to interface with Apollo 15's equipment. Gear needed only for lunar surface EVAs, such as the liquid cooling garment, was not included with Worden's suit, as the only EVA he was expected to do was one to retrieve film cartridges from the SIM bay on the flight home.
### Lunar Roving Vehicle
A vehicle that could operate on the surface of the Moon had been considered by NASA since the early 1960s. An early version was called MOLAB, which had a closed cabin and would have massed about 6,000 pounds (2,700 kg); some scaled-down prototypes were tested in Arizona. As it became clear NASA would not soon establish a lunar base, such a large vehicle seemed unnecessary. Still, a rover would enhance the J missions, which were to concentrate on science, though its mass was limited to about 500 pounds (230 kg) and it was not then clear that so light a vehicle could be useful. NASA did not decide to proceed with a rover until May 1969, as Apollo 10, the dress rehearsal for the Moon landing, made its way home from lunar orbit. Boeing received the contract for three rovers on a cost-plus basis; overruns (especially in the navigation system) meant the three vehicles eventually cost a total of \$40 million. These cost overruns gained considerable media attention at a time of greater public weariness with the space program, when NASA's budget was being cut.
The Lunar Roving Vehicle could be folded into a space 5 ft by 20 in (1.5 m by 0.5 m). Unloaded, it weighed 460 lb (209 kg) and when carrying two astronauts and their equipment, 1500 lb (700 kg). Each wheel was independently driven by a 1⁄4 horsepower (200 W) electric motor. Although it could be driven by either astronaut, the commander always drove. Travelling at speeds up to 6 to 8 mph (10 to 12 km/h), it meant that for the first time the astronauts could travel far afield from their lander and still have enough time to do some scientific experiments. The Apollo 15 rover bore a plaque, reading: "Man's First Wheels on the Moon, Delivered by Falcon, July 30, 1971". During pre-launch testing, the LRV was given additional bracing, lest it collapse if someone sat on it under Earth conditions.
### Particles and Fields Subsatellite
The Apollo 15 Particles and Fields Subsatellite (PFS-1) was a small satellite released into lunar orbit from the SIM bay just before the mission left orbit to return to Earth. Its main objectives were to study the plasma, particle, and magnetic field environment of the Moon and map the lunar gravity field. Specifically, it measured plasma and energetic particle intensities and vector magnetic fields, and facilitated tracking of the satellite velocity to high precision. A basic requirement was that the satellite acquire fields and particle data everywhere on the orbit around the Moon. As well as measuring magnetic fields, the satellite contained sensors to study the Moon's mass concentrations, or mascons. The satellite orbited the Moon and returned data from August 4, 1971, until January 1973, when, following multiple failures of the subsatellite's electronics, ground support was terminated. It is believed to have crashed into the Moon sometime thereafter.
## Mission highlights
### Launch and outbound trip
Apollo 15 was launched on July 26, 1971, at 9:34 am EDT from the Kennedy Space Center at Merritt Island, Florida. The time of launch was at the very start of the two-hour, 37-minute launch window, which would allow Apollo 15 to arrive at the Moon with the proper lighting conditions at Hadley Rille; had the mission been postponed beyond another window on July 27, it could not have been rescheduled until late August. The astronauts had been awakened five and a quarter hours before launch by Slayton, and after breakfast and suiting up, had been taken to Pad 39A, launch site of all seven attempts at crewed lunar landing, and entered the spacecraft about three hours before launch. There were no unplanned delays in the countdown.
At 000:11:36 into the mission, the S-IVB engine shut down, leaving Apollo 15 in its planned parking orbit in low Earth orbit. The mission remained there for 2 hours and 40 minutes, allowing the crew (and Houston, via telemetry) to check the spacecraft's systems. At 002:50.02.6 into the mission, the S-IVB was restarted for trans-lunar injection (TLI), placing the craft on a path to the Moon. Before TLI, the craft had completed 1.5 orbits around the Earth.
The command and service module (CSM) and the lunar module remained attached to the nearly-exhausted S-IVB booster. Once trans-lunar injection had been achieved, placing the spacecraft on a trajectory towards the Moon, explosive cords separated the CSM from the booster as Worden operated the CSM's thrusters to push it away. Worden then maneuvered the CSM to dock with the LM (mounted on the end of the S-IVB), and the combined craft was then separated from the S-IVB by explosives. After Apollo 15 separated from the booster, the S-IVB maneuvered away, and, as planned, impacted the Moon about an hour after the crewed spacecraft entered lunar orbit, though due to an error the impact was 79 nautical miles (146 km) away from the intended target. The booster's impact was detected by the seismometers left on the Moon by Apollo 12 and Apollo 14, providing useful scientific data.
There was a malfunctioning light on the craft's service propulsion system (SPS); after considerable troubleshooting, the astronauts did a test burn of the system that also served as a midcourse correction. This occurred about 028:40:00 into the mission. Fearing that the light meant the SPS might unexpectedly fire, the astronauts avoided using the control bank with the faulty light, bringing it online only for major burns, and controlling it manually. After the mission returned, the malfunction proved to be caused by a tiny bit of wire trapped within the switch.
After purging and renewing the LM's atmosphere to eliminate any contamination, the astronauts entered the LM about 34 hours into the mission, needing to check the condition of its equipment and move in items that would be required on the Moon. Much of this work was televised back to Earth, the camera operated by Worden. The crew discovered a broken outer cover on the Range/Range Rate tapemeter. This was a concern not only because an important piece of equipment, providing information on distance and rate of approach, might not work properly, but because bits of the glass cover were floating around Falcon'''s interior. The tapemeter was supposed to be in a helium atmosphere, but due to the breakage, it was in the LM's oxygen atmosphere. Testing on the ground verified the tapemeter would still work properly, and the crew removed most of the glass using a vacuum cleaner and adhesive tape.
As yet, there had been only minor problems, but at about 61:15:00 mission time (the evening of July 28 in Houston), Scott discovered a leak in the water system while preparing to chlorinate the water supply. The crew could not tell where it was coming from, and the issue had the potential to become serious. The experts in Houston found a solution, which was successfully implemented by the crew. The water was mopped up with towels, which were then put out to dry in the tunnel between the command module (CM) and lunar module—Scott stated it looked like someone's laundry.
At 073:31:14 into the mission, a second midcourse correction, with less than a second of burn, was made. Although there were four opportunities to make midcourse corrections following TLI, only two were needed. Apollo 15 approached the Moon on July 29, and the lunar orbit insertion (LOI) burn had to be made using the SPS, on the far side of the Moon, out of radio contact with Earth. If no burn occurred, Apollo 15 would emerge from the lunar shadow and come back in radio contact faster than expected; the continued lack of communication allowed Mission Control to conclude that the burn had taken place. When contact resumed, Scott did not immediately give the particulars of the burn, but spoke admiringly of the beauty of the Moon, causing Alan Shepard, the Apollo 14 commander, who was awaiting a television interview, to grumble, "To hell with that shit, give us details of the burn." The 398.36-second burn took place at 078:31:46.7 into the mission at an altitude of 86.7 nautical miles (160.6 km) above the Moon, and placed Apollo 15 in an elliptical lunar orbit of 170.1 by 57.7 nautical miles (315.0 by 106.9 km).
### Lunar orbit and landing
On Apollo 11 and 12, the lunar module decoupled from the CSM and descended to a much lower orbit from which the lunar landing attempt commenced; to save fuel in an increasingly heavy lander, beginning with Apollo 14, the SPS in the service module made that burn, known as descent orbit insertion (DOI), with the lunar module still attached to the CSM. The initial orbit Apollo 15 was in had its apocynthion, or high point, over the landing site at Hadley; a burn at the opposite point in the orbit was performed, with the result that Hadley would now be under the craft's pericynthion, or low point. The DOI burn was performed at 082:39:49.09 and took 24.53 seconds; the result was an orbit with apocynthion of 58.5 nautical miles (108.3 km; 67.3 mi) and pericynthion of 9.6 nautical miles (17.8 km; 11.0 mi). Overnight between July 29 and 30, as the crew rested, it became apparent to Mission Control that mass concentrations in the Moon were making Apollo 15's orbit increasingly elliptical—pericynthion was 7.6 nautical miles (14.1 km; 8.7 mi) by the time the crew was awakened on July 30. This, and uncertainty as to the exact altitude of the landing site, made it desirable that the orbit be modified, or trimmed. Using the craft's RCS thrusters, this took place at 095:56:44.70, lasting 30.40 seconds, and raised the pericynthion to 8.8 nautical miles (16.3 km; 10.1 mi) and the apocynthion to 60.2 nautical miles (111.5 km; 69.3 mi).
As well as preparing the lunar module for its descent, the crew continued observations of the Moon (including of the landing site at Hadley) and provided television footage of the surface. Then, Scott and Irwin entered the lunar module in preparation for the landing attempt. Undocking was planned for 100:13:56, over the far side of the Moon, but nothing happened when separation was attempted. After analyzing the problem, the crew and Houston decided the probe instrumentation umbilical was likely loose or disconnected; Worden went into the tunnel connecting the command and lunar modules and determined this was so, seating it more firmly. With the problem resolved, Falcon separated from Endeavour at 100:39:16.2, about 25 minutes late, at an altitude of 5.8 nautical miles (10.7 km; 6.7 mi). Worden in Endeavour executed a SPS burn at 101:38:58.98 to send Endeavour to an orbit of 65.2 nautical miles (120.8 km; 75.0 mi) by 54.8 nautical miles (101.5 km; 63.1 mi) in preparation for his scientific work.
Aboard Falcon, Scott and Irwin prepared for powered descent initiation (PDI), the burn that was to place them on the lunar surface, and, after Mission Control gave them permission, they initiated PDI at 104:30:09.4 at an altitude of 5.8 nautical miles (10.7 km; 6.7 mi), slightly higher than planned. During the first part of the descent, Falcon was aligned so the astronauts were on their backs and thus could not see the lunar surface below them, but after the craft made a pitchover maneuver, they were upright and could see the surface in front of them. Scott, who as commander performed the landing, was confronted with a landscape that did not at first seem to resemble what he had seen during simulations. Part of this was due to an error in the landing path of some 3,000 feet (910 m), of which CAPCOM Ed Mitchell informed the crew prior to pitchover; part because the craters Scott had relied on in the simulator were difficult to make out under lunar conditions, and he initially could not see Hadley Rille. He concluded that they were likely to overshoot the planned landing site, and, once he could see the rille, started maneuvering the vehicle to move the computer's landing target back towards the planned spot, and looked for a relatively smooth place to land.
Below about 60 feet (18 m), Scott could see nothing of the surface because of the quantities of lunar dust being displaced by Falcons exhaust. Falcon had a larger engine bell than previous LMs, in part to accommodate a heavier load, and the importance of shutting down the engine at initial contact rather than risk "blowback", the exhaust reflecting off the lunar surface and going back into the engine (possibly causing an explosion) had been impressed on the astronauts by mission planners. Thus, when Irwin called "Contact", indicating that one of the probes on the landing leg extensions had touched the surface, Scott immediately shut off the engine, letting the lander fall the remaining distance to the surface. Already moving downward at about .5 feet (0.15 m) per second, Falcon dropped from a height of 1.6 feet (0.49 m). Scott's speed resulted in what was likely the hardest lunar landing of any of the crewed missions, at about 6.8 feet (2.1 m) per second, causing a startled Irwin to yell "Bam!" Scott had landed Falcon on the rim of a small crater he could not see, and the lander settled back at an angle of 6.9 degrees and to the left of 8.6 degrees. Irwin described it in his autobiography as the hardest landing he had ever been in, and he feared that the craft would keep tipping over, forcing an immediate abort.
Falcon landed at 104:42:29.3 (22:16:29 GMT on July 30), with approximately 103 seconds of fuel remaining, about 1,800 feet (550 m) from the planned landing site. After Irwin's exclamation, Scott reported, "Okay, Houston. The Falcon is on the Plain at Hadley." Once within the planned landing zone, the increased mobility provided by the Lunar Roving Vehicle made unnecessary any further maneuvering.
### Lunar surface
#### Stand-up EVA and first EVA
With Falcon due to remain on the lunar surface for almost three days, Scott deemed it important to maintain the circadian rhythm they were used to, and as they had landed in the late afternoon, Houston time, the two astronauts were to sleep before going onto the surface. But the time schedule allowed Scott to open the lander's top hatch (usually used for docking) and spend a half hour looking at their surroundings, describing them, and taking photographs. Lee Silver had taught him the importance of going to a high place to survey a new field site, and the top hatch served that purpose. Deke Slayton and other managers were initially opposed due to the oxygen that would be lost, but Scott got his way. During the only stand-up extravehicular activity (EVA) ever performed through the LM's top hatch on the lunar surface, Scott was able to make plans for the following day's EVA. He offered Irwin a chance to look out as well, but this would have required rearranging the umbilicals connecting Irwin to Falcon'''s life support system, and he declined. After repressurizing the spacecraft, Scott and Irwin removed their space suits for sleep, becoming the first astronauts to doff their suits while on the Moon.
Throughout the sleep period Mission Control in Houston monitored a slow but steady oxygen loss. Scott and Irwin eventually were awakened an hour early, and the source of the problem was found to be an open valve on the urine transfer device. In post-mission debriefing, Scott recommended that future crews be woken at once under similar circumstances. After the problem was solved, the crew began preparation for the first Moon walk.
After donning their suits and depressurizing the cabin, Scott and Irwin began their first full EVA, becoming the seventh and eighth humans, respectively, to walk on the Moon. They began deploying the lunar rover, stored folded up in a compartment of Falcons descent stage, but this proved troublesome due to the slant of the lander. The experts in Houston suggested lifting the front end of the rover as the astronauts pulled it out, and this worked. Scott began a system checkout. One of the batteries gave a zero voltage reading, but this was only an instrumentation problem. A greater concern was that the front wheel steering would not work. However, the rear wheel steering was sufficient to maneuver the vehicle. Completing his checkout, Scott said "Okay. Out of detent; we're moving", maneuvering the rover away from Falcon in mid-sentence. These were the first words uttered by a human while driving a vehicle on the Moon. The rover carried a television camera, controlled remotely from Houston by NASA's Ed Fendell. The resolution was not high compared to the still photographs that would be taken, but the camera allowed the geologists on Earth to indirectly participate in Scott and Irwin's activities.
The rille was not visible from the landing site, but as Scott and Irwin drove over the rolling terrain, it came into view. They were able to see Elbow crater, and they began to drive in that direction. Reaching Elbow, a known location, allowed Mission Control to backtrack and get closer to pinpointing the location of the lander. The astronauts took samples there, and then drove to another crater on the flank of Mons Hadley Delta, where they took more. After concluding this stop, they returned to the lander to drop off their samples and prepare to set up the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP), the scientific instruments that would remain when they left. Scott had difficulty drilling the holes required for the heat flow experiment, and the work was not completed when they had to return to the lander. The first EVA lasted 6 hours and 32 minutes.
#### Second and third EVAs
The rover's front steering, inoperative during the first EVA, worked during the second and third ones. The target of the second EVA, on August 1, was the slope of Mons Hadley Delta, where the pair sampled boulders and craters along the Apennine Front. They spent an hour at Spur crater, during which the astronauts collected a sample dubbed the Genesis Rock. This rock, an anorthosite, is believed to be part of the early lunar crust—the hope of finding such a specimen had been one reason the Hadley area had been chosen. Once back at the landing site, Scott continued to try to drill holes for experiments at the ALSEP site, with which he had struggled the day before. After conducting soil-mechanics experiments and raising the U.S. flag, Scott and Irwin returned to the LM. EVA 2 lasted 7 hours and 12 minutes.
Although Scott had eventually been successful at drilling the holes, he and Irwin had been unable to retrieve a core sample, and this was an early order of business during EVA 3, their third and final moonwalk. Time that could have been devoted to geology ticked away as Scott and Irwin attempted to pull it out. Once it had been retrieved, more time passed as they attempted to break the core into pieces for transport to Earth. Hampered by an incorrectly mounted vise on the rover, they eventually gave up on this—the core would be transported home with one segment longer than planned. Scott wondered if the core was worth the amount of time and effort invested, and the CAPCOM, Joe Allen, assured him it was. The core proved one of the most important items brought back from the Moon, revealing much about its history, but the expended time meant the planned visit to a group of hills known as the North Complex had to be scrubbed. Instead, the crew again ventured to the edge of Hadley Rille, this time to the northwest of the immediate landing site.
Once the astronauts were beside the LM, Scott used a kit provided by the Postal Service to cancel a first day cover of two stamps being issued on August 2, the current date. Scott then performed an experiment in view of the television camera, using a falcon feather and hammer to demonstrate Galileo's theory that all objects in a given gravity field fall at the same rate, regardless of mass, in the absence of aerodynamic drag. He dropped the hammer and feather at the same time; because of the negligible lunar atmosphere, there was no drag on the feather, which hit the ground at the same time as the hammer. This was Joe Allen's idea (he also served as CAPCOM during it) and was part of an effort to find a memorable popular science experiment to do on the Moon along the lines of Shepard's hitting of golf balls. The feather was most likely from a female gyrfalcon (a type of falcon), a mascot at the United States Air Force Academy.
Scott then drove the rover to a position away from the LM, where the television camera could be used to observe the lunar liftoff. Near the rover, he left a small aluminum statuette called Fallen Astronaut, along with a plaque bearing the names of 14 known American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts who had died in the furtherance of space exploration. The memorial was left while the television camera was turned away; he told Mission Control he was doing some cleanup activities around the rover. Scott disclosed the memorial in a post-flight news conference. He also placed a Bible on the control panel of the rover before leaving it for the last time to enter the LM.
The EVA lasted 4 hours, 49 minutes and 50 seconds. In total, the two astronauts spent 181⁄2 hours outside the LM and collected approximately 170 lb (77 kg) of lunar samples.
### Command module activities
After the departure of Falcon, Worden in Endeavour executed a burn to take the CSM to a higher orbit. While Falcon was on the Moon, the mission effectively split, Worden and the CSM being assigned their own CAPCOM and flight support team.
Worden got busy with the tasks that were to occupy him for much of the time he spent in space alone: photography and operating the instruments in the SIM bay. The door to the SIM bay had been explosively jettisoned during the translunar coast. Filling previously-unused space in the service module, the SIM bay contained a gamma-ray spectrometer, mounted on the end of a boom, an X-ray spectrometer and a laser altimeter, which failed part way through the mission. Two cameras, a stellar camera and a metric camera, together comprised the mapping camera, which was complemented by a panoramic camera, derived from spy technology. The altimeter and cameras permitted the exact time and location from which pictures were taken to be determined. Also present were an alpha particle spectrometer, which could be used to detect evidence of lunar volcanism, and a mass spectrometer, also on a boom in the hope it would be unaffected by contamination from the ship. The boom would prove troublesome, as Worden would not always be able to get it to retract.
Endeavour was slated to pass over the landing site at the moment of planned landing, but Worden could not see Falcon and did not spot it until a subsequent orbit. He also exercised to avoid muscle atrophy, and Houston kept him up to date on Scott and Irwin's activities on the lunar surface. The panoramic camera did not operate perfectly, but provided enough images that no special adjustment was made. Worden took many photographs through the command module's windows, often with shots taken at regular intervals. His task was complicated by the lack of a working mission timer in the Lower Equipment Bay of the command module, as its circuit breaker had popped en route to the Moon. Worden's observations and photographs would inform the decision to send Apollo 17 to Taurus-Littrow to search for evidence of volcanic activity. There was a communications blackout when the CSM passed over the far side of the Moon from Earth; Worden greeted each resumption of contact with the words, "Hello, Earth. Greetings from Endeavour", expressed in different languages. Worden and El-Baz had come up with the idea, and the geology instructor had aided the astronaut in accumulating translations.
Results from the SIM bay experiments would include the conclusion, from data gathered by the X-ray spectrometer, that there was greater fluorescent X-ray flux than anticipated, and that the lunar highlands were richer in aluminum than were the mares. Endeavour was in a more inclined orbit than previous crewed missions, and Worden saw features that were not known previously, supplementing photographs with thorough descriptions.
By the time Scott and Irwin were ready to take off from the lunar surface and return to Endeavour, the CSM's orbit had drifted due to the rotation of the Moon, and a plane change burn was required to ensure that the CSM's orbit would be in the same plane as that of the LM once it took off from the Moon. Worden accomplished the 18-second burn with the SPS.
### Return to Earth
Falcon lifted off the Moon at 17:11:22 GMT on August 2 after 66 hours and 55 minutes on the lunar surface. Docking with the CSM took place just under two hours later. After the astronauts transferred samples and other items from the LM to the CSM, the LM was sealed off, jettisoned, and intentionally crashed into the lunar surface, an impact registered by the seismometers left by Apollo 12, 14 and 15. The jettison proved difficult because of problems getting airtight seals, requiring a delay in discarding the LM. After the jettison, Slayton came on the loop to recommend the astronauts take sleeping pills, or at least that Scott and Irwin do so. Scott as mission commander refused to allow it, feeling there was no need. During the EVAs, the doctors had noticed irregularities in both Scott's and Irwin's heartbeats, but the crew were not informed during the flight. Irwin had heart problems after retiring as an astronaut and died in 1991 of a heart attack; Scott felt that he as commander should have been informed of the biomedical readings. NASA doctors at the time theorized the heart readings were due to potassium deficiency, due to their hard work on the surface and inadequate resupply through liquids.
The crew spent the next two days working on orbital science experiments, including more observations of the Moon from orbit and releasing the subsatellite. Endeavour departed lunar orbit with another burn of the SPS engine of 2 minutes 21 seconds at 21:22:45 GMT on August 4. The next day, during the return to Earth, Worden performed a 39-minute EVA to retrieve film cassettes from the service module's scientific instrument module (SIM) bay, with assistance from Irwin who remained at the command module's hatch. At approximately 171,000 nautical miles (197,000 mi; 317,000 km) from Earth, it was the first "deep space" EVA in history, performed at great distance from any planetary body. As of , it remains one of only three such EVAs, all performed during Apollo's J missions under similar circumstances. Later that day, the crew set a record for the longest Apollo flight to that point.
On approach to Earth on August 7, the service module was jettisoned, and the command module reentered the Earth's atmosphere. Although one of the three parachutes on the CM failed after deploying, likely due to damage as the spacecraft vented fuel, only two were required for a safe landing (one extra for redundancy). Upon landing in the North Pacific Ocean, the CM and crew were recovered and taken aboard the recovery ship, USS Okinawa, after a mission lasting 12 days, 7 hours, 11 minutes and 53 seconds.
## Assessment
The mission objectives for Apollo 15 were to "perform selenological inspection, survey, and sampling of materials and surface features in a pre-selected area of the Hadley–Apennine region. Emplace and activate surface experiments. Evaluate the capability of the Apollo equipment to provide extended lunar surface stay time, increased extravehicular operations, and surface mobility. [and] Conduct inflight experiments and photographic tasks from lunar orbit." It achieved all those objectives. The mission also completed a long list of other tasks, including experiments. One of the photographic objectives, to obtain images of the gegenschein from lunar orbit, was not completed, as the camera was not pointed at the proper spot in the sky. According to the conclusions in the Apollo 15 Mission Report, the journey "was the fourth lunar landing and resulted in the collection of a wealth of scientific information. The Apollo system, in addition to providing a means of transportation, excelled as an operational scientific facility."
Apollo 15 saw an increase in public interest in the Apollo program, in part due to fascination with the LRV, as well as the attractiveness of the Hadley Rille site and the increased television coverage. According to David Woods in the Apollo Lunar Flight Journal,
> Though subsequent missions travelled further on the Moon, brought back more samples and put the lessons of Apollo 15 into practice, this feat of unalloyed exploration still stands out as a great moment of human achievement. It is remembered still for its combination of competent enthusiasm, magnificent machinery, finely honed science and the grandeur of a very special site in the cosmos beside a meandering rille and graceful, massive mountains – Hadley Base.
## Controversies
Despite the successful mission, the careers of the crew were tarnished by a deal they had made before the flight to carry postal covers to the Moon in exchange for about \$7,000 each, which they planned to set aside for their children. Walter Eiermann, who had many professional and social contacts with NASA employees and the astronaut corps, served as intermediary between the astronauts and a West German stamp dealer, Hermann Sieger, and Scott carried about 400 covers onto the spacecraft; they were subsequently transferred into Falcon and remained inside the lander during the astronauts' activities on the surface of the Moon. After the return to Earth, 100 of the covers were given to Eiermann, who passed them on to Sieger, receiving a commission. No permission had been received from Slayton to carry the covers, as required.
The 100 covers were put on sale to Sieger's customers in late 1971 at a price of about \$1,500 each. After receiving the agreed payments, the astronauts returned them, and accepted no compensation. In April 1972, Slayton learned that unauthorized covers had been carried, and removed the three as the backup crew for Apollo 17. The matter became public in June 1972 and the three astronauts were reprimanded for poor judgment; none ever flew in space again. During the investigation, the astronauts had surrendered those covers still in their possession; after Worden filed suit, they were returned in 1983, something Slate magazine deemed an exoneration.
Another controversy surrounding the Fallen Astronaut statuette that Scott had left on the Moon, arose later. Before the mission, Scott had made a verbal agreement with Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck to sculpt the statuette. Scott's intent, in keeping with NASA's strict policy against commercial exploitation of the US government's space program, was for a simple memorial with a minimum of publicity, keeping the artist anonymous, no commercial replicas being made except for a single copy for public exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum commissioned after the sculpture's public disclosure during the post-flight press conference. Van Hoeydonck claims to have had a different understanding of the agreement, by which he would have received recognition as the creator of a tribute to human space exploration, with rights to sell replicas to the public. Under pressure from NASA, Van Hoeydonck canceled a plan to publicly sell 950 signed copies.
During the congressional hearings into the postal covers and Fallen Astronaut matters, two Bulova timepieces taken on the mission by Scott were also matters of controversy. Before the mission, Scott had been introduced to Bulova's representative, General James McCormack by Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman. Bulova had been seeking to have its timepieces taken on Apollo missions, but after evaluation, NASA had selected Omega watches instead. Scott brought the Bulova timepieces on the mission, without disclosing them to Slayton. During Scott's second EVA, the crystal on his NASA standard issue Omega Speedmaster watch popped off, and, during the third EVA, he used a Bulova watch. The Bulova Chronograph Model \#88510/01 that Scott wore on the lunar surface was a prototype, given to him by the Bulova Company, and it is the only privately owned watch to have been worn while walking on the lunar surface. There are images of him wearing this watch, when he saluted the American flag on the Moon, with the Hadley Delta expanse in the background. In 2015, the watch sold for \$1.625 million, which makes it the one of the most expensive astronaut-owned artifact ever sold at auction and one of the most expensive watches sold at auction.
## Mission insignia
The Apollo 15 mission patch carries Air Force motifs, a nod to the crew's service there, just as the Apollo 12 all-Navy crew's patch had featured a sailing ship. The circular patch features stylized red, white and blue birds flying over Hadley Rille. Immediately behind the birds, a line of craters forms the Roman numeral XV. The Roman numerals were hidden in emphasized outlines of some craters after NASA insisted that the mission number be displayed in Arabic numerals. The artwork is circled in red, with a white band giving the mission and crew names and a blue border. Scott contacted fashion designer Emilio Pucci to design the patch, who came up with the basic idea of the three-bird motif on a square patch.
The crew changed the shape to round and the colors from blues and greens to a patriotic red, white and blue. Worden stated that each bird also represented an astronaut, white being his own color (and as Command Module Pilot, uppermost), Scott being the blue bird and Irwin the red. The colors matched Chevrolet Corvettes leased by the astronauts at KSC; a Florida car dealer had, since the time of Project Mercury, been leasing Chevrolets to astronauts for \$1 and later selling them to the public. The astronauts were photographed with the cars and the training LRV for the June 11, 1971, edition of Life magazine.
## Visibility from space
The halo area of the Apollo 15 landing site, created by the LM's exhaust plume, was observed by a camera aboard the Japanese lunar orbiter SELENE and confirmed by comparative analysis of photographs in May 2008. This corresponds well to photographs taken from the Apollo 15 command module showing a change in surface reflectivity due to the plume, and was the first visible trace of crewed landings on the Moon seen from space since the close of the Apollo program.
## Gallery
### Still images
### Multimedia
## See also
- List of artificial objects on the Moon
- List of spacewalks and moonwalks 1965–1999
|
19,607,049 |
The Lucy poems
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Five poems written by William Wordsworth
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[
"1800 poems",
"1807 poems",
"Poems about death",
"Poetry by William Wordsworth"
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The Lucy poems are a series of five poems composed by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770–1850) between 1798 and 1801. All but one were first published during 1800 in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads, a collaboration between Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge that was both Wordsworth's first major publication and a milestone in the early English Romantic movement. In the series, Wordsworth sought to write unaffected English verse infused with abstract ideals of beauty, nature, love, longing, and death.
The "Lucy poems" consist of "Strange fits of passion have I known", "She dwelt among the untrodden ways", "I travelled among unknown men", "Three years she grew in sun and shower", and "A slumber did my spirit seal". Although they are presented as a series in modern anthologies, Wordsworth did not conceive of them as a group, nor did he seek to publish the poems in sequence. He described the works as "experimental" in the prefaces to both the 1798 and 1800 editions of Lyrical Ballads, and revised the poems significantly—shifting their thematic emphasis—between 1798 and 1799. Only after his death in 1850 did publishers and critics begin to treat the poems as a fixed group.
The poems were written during a short period while the poet lived in Germany. Although they individually deal with a variety of themes, the idea of Lucy's death weighs heavily on the poet throughout the series, imbuing the poems with a melancholic, elegiac tone. Whether Lucy was based on a real woman or was a figment of the poet's imagination has long been a matter of debate among scholars. Generally reticent about the poems, Wordsworth never revealed the details of her origin or identity. Some scholars speculate that Lucy is based on his sister Dorothy, while others see her as a fictitious or hybrid character. Most critics agree that she is essentially a literary device upon whom he could project, meditate and reflect.
## Background
### Lyrical Ballads
In 1798, Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge jointly published Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems, a collection of verses each had written separately. The book became hugely popular and was published widely; it is generally considered a herald of the Romantic movement in English literature. In it, Wordsworth aimed to use everyday language in his compositions as set out in the preface to the 1802 edition: "The principal object, then, proposed in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of language really used by men, and at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect."
The two poets had met three years earlier in either late August or September 1795 in Bristol. The meeting laid the foundation for an intense and profoundly creative friendship, based in part on their shared disdain for the artificial diction of the poetry of the era. Beginning in 1797, the two lived within walking distance of each other in Somerset, which solidified their friendship. Wordsworth believed that his life before meeting Coleridge was sedentary and dull, and that his poetry amounted to little. Coleridge influenced Wordsworth, and his praise and encouragement inspired Wordsworth to write prolifically. Dorothy, Wordsworth's sister, related the effect Coleridge had on her brother in a March 1798 letter: "His faculties seem to expand every day, he composes with much more facility than he did, as to the mechanism [emphasis in original] of poetry, and his ideas flow faster than he can express them." With his new inspiration, Wordsworth came to believe he could write poetry rivalling that of John Milton. He and Coleridge planned to collaborate, but never moved beyond suggestions and notes for each other.
The expiration of Wordsworth's Alfoxton House lease soon provided an opportunity for the two friends to live together. They conceived a plan to settle in Germany with Dorothy and Coleridge's wife, Sara, "to pass the two ensuing years in order to acquire the German language, and to furnish ourselves with a tolerable stock of information in natural science". In September 1798, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Dorothy travelled to Germany to explore proximate living arrangements, but this proved difficult. Although they lived together in Hamburg for a short time, the city was too expensive for their budgets. Coleridge soon found accommodations in the town of Ratzeburg in Schleswig-Holstein, which was less expensive but still socially vibrant. The impoverished Wordsworth, however, could neither afford to follow Coleridge nor provide for himself and his sister in Hamburg; the siblings instead moved to moderately priced accommodations in Goslar in Lower Saxony, Germany.
### Separation from Coleridge
Between October 1798 and February 1799, Wordsworth worked on the first draft of the "Lucy poems" together with a number of other verses, including the "Matthew poems", "Lucy Gray" and The Prelude. Coleridge had yet to join the siblings in Germany, and Wordsworth's separation from his friend depressed him. In the three months following their parting, Wordsworth completed the first three of the "Lucy poems": "Strange fits", "She dwelt", and "A slumber". They first appeared in a letter to Coleridge dated December 1798, in which Wordsworth wrote that "She dwelt" and "Strange fits" were "little Rhyme poems which I hope will amuse you". Wordsworth characterised the two poems thus to mitigate any disappointment Coleridge might suffer in receiving these two poems instead of the promised three-part philosophical epic The Recluse.
In the same letter, Wordsworth complained that:
> As I have had no books I have been obliged to write in self-defense. I should have written five times as much as I have done but that I am prevented by an uneasiness at my stomach and side, with a dull pain about my heart. I have used the word pain, but uneasiness and heat are words which more accurately express my feelings. At all events it renders writing unpleasant. Reading is now become a kind of luxury to me. When I do not read I am absolutely consumed by thinking and feeling and bodily exertions of voice or of limbs, the consequence of those feelings.
Wordsworth partially blamed Dorothy for the abrupt loss of Coleridge's company. He felt that their finances—insufficient for supporting them both in Ratzeburg—would have easily supported him alone, allowing him to follow Coleridge. Wordsworth's anguish was compounded by the contrast between his life and that of his friend. Coleridge's financial means allowed him to entertain lavishly and to seek the company of nobles and intellectuals; Wordsworth's limited wealth constrained him to a quiet and modest life. Wordsworth's envy seeped into his letters when he described Coleridge and his new friends as "more favored sojourners" who may "be chattering and chatter'd to, through the whole day".
Although Wordsworth sought emotional support from his sister, their relationship remained strained throughout their time in Germany. Separated from his friend and forced to live in the sole company of his sister, Wordsworth used the "Lucy poems" as an emotional outlet.
### Identity of Lucy
Wordsworth did not reveal the inspiration for the character of Lucy, and over the years the topic has generated intense speculation among literary historians. Little biographical information can be drawn from the poems—it is difficult even to determine Lucy's age. In the mid-19th century, Thomas DeQuincey (1785–1859), author and one-time friend of Wordsworth, wrote that the poet "always preserved a mysterious silence on the subject of that 'Lucy', repeatedly alluded to or apostrophised in his poems, and I have heard, from gossiping people about Hawkshead, some snatches of tragic story, which, after all, might be an idle semi-fable, improved out of slight materials."
Critic Herbert Hartman believes Lucy's name was taken from "a neo-Arcadian commonplace", and argues she was not intended to represent any single person. In the view of one Wordsworth biographer, Mary Moorman (1906–1994), "The identity of 'Lucy' has been the problem of critics for many years. But Wordsworth is a poet before he is a biographer, and neither 'Lucy' nor her home nor his relations with her are necessarily in the strict sense historical. Nevertheless, as the Lyrical Ballads were all of them 'founded on fact' in some way, and as Wordsworth's mind was essentially factual, it would be rash to say that Lucy is entirely fictitious."
Moorman suggests that Lucy may represent Wordsworth's romantic interest Mary Hutchinson, but wonders why she would be represented as one who died. It is possible that Wordsworth was thinking of Margaret Hutchinson, Mary's sister who had died. There is no evidence, however, that the poet loved any of the Hutchinsons other than Mary. It is more likely that Margaret's death influenced but is not the foundation for Lucy.
In 1980, Hunter Davies contended that the series was written for the poet's sister Dorothy, but found the Lucy–Dorothy allusion "bizarre". Earlier, literary critic Richard Matlak tried to explain the Lucy–Dorothy connection, and wrote that Dorothy represented a financial burden to Wordsworth, which had effectively forced his separation from Coleridge. Wordsworth, depressed over the separation from his friend, in this interpretation, expresses both his love for his sister and fantasies about her loss through the poems. Throughout the poems, the narrator's mixture of mourning and antipathy is accompanied by denial and guilt; his denial of the Lucy–Dorothy relationship and the lack of narratorial responsibility for the death of Lucy allow him to escape from questioning his desires for the death of his sister. After Wordsworth began the "Lucy poems", Coleridge wrote, "Some months ago Wordsworth transmitted to me a most sublime Epitaph / whether it had any reality, I cannot say. —Most probably, in some gloomier moment he had fancied the moment in which his Sister might die." It is, however, possible that Wordsworth simply feared her death and did not wish it, even subconsciously.
Reflecting on the significance and relevance of Lucy's identity, the 19th-century poet, essayist and literary critic Frederic Myers (1843–1901) observed that:
> here it was that the memory of some emotion prompted the lines on "Lucy". Of the history of that emotion, he has told us nothing; I forbear, therefore, to inquire concerning it, or even to speculate. That it was to the poet's honour, I do not doubt; but who ever learned such secrets rightly? or who should wish to learn? It is best to leave the sanctuary of all hearts inviolate, and to respect the reserve not only of the living but of the dead. Of these poems, almost alone, Wordsworth in his autobiographical notes has said nothing whatever.
Literary scholar Karl Kroeber (1926–2009) argues that Lucy "possesses a double existence; her actual, historical existence and her idealised existence in the poet's mind. In the poem, Lucy is both actual and idealised, but her actuality is relevant only insofar as it makes manifest the significance implicit in the actual girl." Hartman holds the same view; to him Lucy is seen "entirely from within the poet, so that this modality may be the poet's own", but then he argues, "she belongs to the category of spirits who must still become human ... the poet describes her as dying at a point at which she would have been humanized." The literary historian Kenneth Johnston concludes that Lucy was created as the personification of Wordsworth's muse, and the group as a whole "is a series of invocations to a Muse feared to be dead...As epitaphs, they are not sad, a very inadequate word to describe them, but breathlessly, almost wordlessly aware of what such a loss would mean to the speaker: 'oh, the difference to me!'"
Scholar John Mahoney observes that whether Lucy is intended to represent Dorothy, Mary or another is much less important to understanding the poems than the fact that she represented "a hidden being who seems to lack flaws and is alone in the world." Furthermore, she is represented as being insignificant in the public sphere but of the utmost importance in the private sphere; in "She dwelt" this manifests through the comparison of Lucy to both a hidden flower and a shining star. Neither Lucy nor Wordsworth's other female characters "exist as independent self-conscious human beings with minds as capable of the poet's" and are "rarely allowed to speak for themselves." G. Kim Blank takes a psycho-autobiographical approach: he situates the core Lucy poems in the context of what surfaces during Wordsworth's depressive and stressful German experience in the winter of 1798–1799; he concludes that “Lucy dies at the threshold of being fully expressed as a feeling of loss,” and that, for Wordsworth, she “represents a cluster of unresolved emotions”—Wordsworth's own emotions, that is.
## The poems
The "Lucy poems" are written from the point of view of a lover who has long viewed the object of his affection from afar, and who is now affected by her death. Yet Wordsworth structured the poems so that they are not about any one person who has died; instead they were written about a figure representing the poet's lost inspiration. Lucy is Wordsworth's inspiration, and the poems as a whole are, according to Wordsworth biographer Kenneth Johnston, "invocations to a Muse feared to be dead". Lucy is represented in all five poems as sexless; it is unlikely that the poet ever realistically saw her as a possible lover. Instead, she is presented as an ideal and represents Wordsworth's frustration at his separation from Coleridge; the asexual imagery reflects the futility of his longing.
Wordsworth's voice slowly disappears from the poems as they progress, and his voice is entirely absent from the fifth poem. His love operates on the subconscious level, and he relates to Lucy more as a spirit of nature than as a human being. The poet's grief is private, and he is unable to fully explain its source. When Lucy's lover is present, he is completely immersed in human interactions and the human aspects of nature, and the death of his beloved is a total loss for the lover. The 20th-century critic Spencer Hall argues that the poet represents a "fragile kind of humanism".
### "Strange fits of passion have I known"
"Strange fits" is probably the earliest of the poems and revolves around a fantasy of Lucy's death. It describes the narrator's journey to Lucy's cottage and his thoughts along the way. Throughout, the motion of the moon is set in opposition to the motion of the speaker. The poem contains seven stanzas, a relatively elaborate structure which underscores his ambivalent attitude towards Lucy's imagined death. The constant shifts in perspective and mood reflect his conflicting emotions. The first stanza, with its use of dramatic phrases such as "fits of passion" and "dare to tell", contrasts with the subdued tone of the rest of the poem. As a lyrical ballad, "Strange fits" differs from the traditional ballad form, which emphasises abnormal action, and instead focuses on mood.
The presence of death is felt throughout the poem, although it is mentioned explicitly only in the final line. The moon, a symbol of the beloved, sinks steadily as the poem progresses, until its abrupt drop in the penultimate stanza. That the speaker links Lucy with the moon is clear, though his reasons are unclear. The moon nevertheless plays a significant role in the action of the poem: as the lover imagines the moon slowly sinking behind Lucy's cottage, he is entranced by its motion. By the fifth stanza, the speaker has been lulled into a somnambulistic trance—he sleeps while still keeping his eyes on the moon (lines 17–20).
The narrator's conscious presence is wholly absent from the next stanza, which moves forward in what literary theorist Geoffrey Hartman describes as a "motion approaching yet never quite attaining its end". When the moon abruptly drops behind the cottage, the narrator snaps out of his dream, and his thoughts turn towards death. Lucy, the beloved, is united with the landscape in death, while the image of the retreating, entrancing moon is used to portray the idea of looking beyond one's lover. The darker possibility also remains that the dream state represents the fulfilment of the lover's fantasy through the death of the beloved. In falling asleep while approaching his beloved's home, the lover betrays his own reluctance to be with Lucy.
Wordsworth made numerous revisions to each of the "Lucy poems". The earliest version of "Strange fits" appears in a December 1798 letter from Dorothy to Coleridge. This draft contains many differences in phrasing and does not include a stanza that appeared in the final published version. The new lines direct the narrative towards "the Lover's ear alone", implying that only other lovers can understand the relationship between the moon, the beloved and the beloved's death. Wordsworth also removed from the final stanza the lines:
> > I told her this; her laughter light Is ringing in my ears; And when I think upon that night My eyes are dim with tears.
This final stanza lost its significance with the completion of the later poems in the series, and the revision allowed for a sense of anticipation at the poem's close and helped draw the audience into the story of the remaining "Lucy poems". Of the other changes, only the description of the horse's movement is important: "My horse trudg'd on" becomes "With quickening pace my horse drew nigh", which heightens the narrator's vulnerability to fantasies and dreams in the revised version.
### "She dwelt among the untrodden ways"
"She dwelt among the untrodden ways" presents Lucy as having lived in solitude near the source of the River Dove. According to literary critic Geoffrey Durrant, the poem charts her "growth, perfection, and death". To convey the dignified, unaffected naturalness of his subject, Wordsworth uses simple language, mostly words of one syllable. In the opening quatrain, he describes the isolated and untouched area where Lucy lived, as well as her innocence and beauty, which he compares to that of a hidden flower in the second. The poem begins in a descriptive rather than narrative manner, and it is not until the line "When Lucy ceased to be" that the reader is made aware that the subject of the verse has died. Literary scholar Mark Jones describes this effect as finding the poem is "over before it has begun", while according to writer Margaret Oliphant (1828–1897), Lucy "is dead before we so much as heard of her".
Lucy's "untrodden ways" are symbolic of both her physical isolation and the unknown details of her thoughts and life as well as her sense of mystery. The third quatrain is written with an economy intended to capture the simplicity the narrator sees in Lucy. Her femininity is described in girlish terms. This has drawn criticism from those who see the female icon, in the words of literary scholar John Woolford, "represented in Lucy by condemning her to death while denying her the actual or symbolic fulfillment of maternity". To evoke the "loveliness of body and spirit", a pair of complementary but paradoxical images are employed in the second stanza: the solitary, hidden violet juxtaposed to the publicly visible Venus, emblem of love and first star of evening. Wondering if Lucy more resembles the violet or the star, the critic Cleanth Brooks (1906–1994) concludes that while Wordsworth likely views her as "the single star, completely dominating [his] world, not arrogantly like the sun, but sweetly and modestly", the metaphor is a conventional compliment with only vague relevance. For Wordsworth, Lucy's appeal is closer to the violet and lies in her seclusion and her perceived affinity with nature.
Wordsworth acquired a copy of the antiquarian and churchman Thomas Percy's (1729–1811) collection of British ballads Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) in Hamburg a few months before he began to compose the series. The influence of the traditional English folk ballad is evident in the metre, rhythm and structure of "She dwelt". It follows the variant ballad stanza a4–b3–a4–b3, and in keeping with ballad tradition tells a dramatic story. As Durrant observed, "To confuse the mode of the 'Lucy' poems with that of the love lyric is to overlook their structure, in which, as in the traditional ballad, a story is told as boldly and briefly as possible." Kenneth and Warren Ober compare the opening lines of "She dwelt" to the traditional ballad "Katharine Jaffray" and note similarities in rhythm and structure, as well as in theme and imagery:
The narrator of the poem is less concerned with the experience of observing Lucy than with his reflections and meditations on his observations. Throughout the poem sadness and ecstasy are intertwined, a fact emphasised by the exclamation marks in the second and third verses. The critic Carl Woodring writes that "She dwelt" and the Lucy series can be read as elegiac, as "sober meditation[s] on death". He found that they have "the economy and the general air of epitaphs in the Greek Anthology... [I]f all elegies are mitigations of death, the Lucy poems are also meditations on simple beauty, by distance made more sweet and by death preserved in distance".
An early draft of "She dwelt" contained two stanzas which had been omitted from the first edition. The revisions exclude many of the images but emphasise the grief that the narrator experienced. The original version began with floral imagery, which was later cut:
> > My hope was one, from cities far, Nursed on a lonesome heath; Her lips were red as roses are, Her hair a woodbine wreath.
A fourth stanza, also later removed, mentions Lucy's death: "But slow distemper checked her bloom / And on the Heath she died."
### "I travelled among unknown men"
The last of the "Lucy poems" to be composed, "I travelled among unknown men", was the only one not included in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads. Although Wordsworth claimed that the poem was composed while he was still in Germany, it was in fact written during April 1801. Evidence for this later date comes from a letter Wordsworth wrote to Mary Hutchinson referring to "I travelled" as a newly created poem. In 1802, he instructed his printer to place "I travelled" immediately after "A slumber did my spirit seal" in Lyrical Ballads, but the poem was omitted. It was later published in Poems, in Two Volumes in 1807.
The poem has frequently been read as a declaration of Wordsworth's love for his native England and his determination not to live abroad again:
> > 'Tis past, that melancholy dream! Nor will I quit thy shore A second time; for still I seem To love thee more and more. (lines 5–8)
The first two stanzas seem to speak of the poet's personal experience, and a patriotic reading would reflect his appreciation and pride for the English landscape. The possibility remains, however, that Wordsworth is referring to England as a physical rather than a political entity, an interpretation that gains strength from the poem's connections to the other "Lucy poems".
Lucy only appears in the second half of the poem, where she is linked with the English landscape. As such, it seems as if nature joins with the narrator in mourning for her, and the reader is drawn into this mutual sorrow.
Although "I travelled" was written two years after the other poems in the series, it echoes the earlier verses in both tone and language. Wordsworth gives no hint as to the identity of Lucy, and although he stated in the preface to Lyrical Ballads that all the poems were "founded on fact", knowing the basis for the character of Lucy is not necessary to appreciating the poem and understanding its sentiment. Similarly, no insight can be gained from determining the exact geographical location of the "springs of Dove"; in his youth, Wordsworth had visited springs of that name in Derbyshire, Patterdale and Yorkshire.
### "Three years she grew in sun and shower"
"Three years she grew in sun and shower" was composed between 6 October and 28 December 1798. The poem depicts the relationship between Lucy and nature through a complex opposition of images. Antithetical couplings of words—"sun and shower", "law and impulse", "earth and heaven", "kindle and restrain"—are used to evoke the opposing forces inherent in nature. A conflict between nature and humanity is described, as each attempts to possess Lucy. The poem contains both epithalamic and elegiac characteristics; Lucy is shown as wedded to nature, while her human lover is left alone to mourn in the knowledge that death has separated her from humanity.
### "A slumber did my spirit seal"
Written in spare language, "A slumber did my spirit seal" consists of two stanzas, each four lines long. The first stanza is built upon even, soporific movement in which figurative language conveys the nebulous image of a girl who "seemed a thing that could not feel / The touch of earthly years". The second maintains the quiet and even tone of the first but serves to undermine its sense of the eternal by revealing that Lucy has died and that the calmness of the first stanza represents death. The narrator's response to her death lacks bitterness or emptiness; instead he takes consolation from the fact that she is now beyond life's trials, and "at last ... in inanimate community with the earth's natural fixtures". The lifeless rocks and stones depicted in the concluding line convey the finality of Lucy's death.
## Grouping as a series
Although the "Lucy poems" share stylistic and thematic similarities, it was not Wordsworth but literary critics who first presented the five poems as a unified set called the "Lucy poems". The grouping was originally suggested by critic Thomas Powell in 1831 and later advocated by Margaret Oliphant in an 1871 essay. The 1861 Golden Treasury, compiled by the English historian Francis Palgrave (1788–1861), groups only four of the verses, omitting "Strange fits". The poems next appeared as a complete set of five in the collection of Wordsworth's poems by English poet and critic Matthew Arnold (1822–1888).
The grouping and sequence of the "Lucy poems" has been a matter of debate in literary circles. Various critics have sought to add poems to the group; among those proposed over the years are "Alcaeus to Sappho", "Among all lovely things", "Lucy Gray", "Surprised by joy", "Tis said, that some have died for love", "Louisa", "Nutting", "Presentiments", "She was a Phantom of delight", "The Danish Boy", "The Two April Mornings", "To a Young Lady", and "Written in Very Early Youth". None of the proposals have met with widespread acceptance. The five poems included in the Lucy "canon" focus on similar themes of nature, beauty, separation and loss, and most follow the same basic ballad form. Literary scholar Mark Jones offers a general characterisation of a Lucy poem as "an untitled lyrical ballad that either mentions Lucy or is always placed with another poem that does, that either explicitly mentions her death or is susceptible of such a reading, and that is spoken by Lucy's lover."
With the exception of "A slumber", all of the poems mention Lucy by name. The decision to include this work is based in part on Wordsworth's decision to place it in close proximity to "Strange fits" and directly after "She dwelt" within Lyrical Ballads. In addition, "I travelled" was sent to the poet's childhood friend and later wife, Mary Hutchinson, with a note that said it should be "read after 'She dwelt'". Coleridge biographer J. Dykes Campbell records that Wordsworth instructed "I travelled" to be included directly following "A slumber", an arrangement that indicates a connection between the poems. Nevertheless, the question of inclusion is further complicated by Wordsworth's eventual retraction of these instructions and his omission of "I travelled" from the two subsequent editions of Lyrical Ballads.
The 1815 edition of Lyrical Ballads organised the poems into the Poems Founded on the Affections ("Strange fits", "She dwelt", and "I travelled") and Poems of the Imagination ("Three years she grew" and "A slumber"). This arrangement allowed the two dream-based poems ("Strange fits" and "A slumber") to frame the series and to represent the speaker's different sets of experiences over the course of the longer narrative. In terms of chronology, "I travelled" was written last, and thus also served as a symbolic conclusion—both emotionally and thematically—to the "Lucy poems".
## Interpretation
### Nature
According to critic Norman Lacey, Wordsworth built his reputation as a "poet of nature". Early works, such as "Tintern Abbey", can be viewed as odes to his experience of nature. His poems can also be seen as lyrical meditations on the fundamental character of the natural world. Wordsworth said that, as a youth, nature stirred "an appetite, a feeling and a love", but by the time he wrote Lyrical Ballads, it evoked "the still sad music of humanity".
The five "Lucy poems" are often interpreted as representing Wordsworth's opposing views of nature as well as meditations on the cycle of life. They describe a variety of relationships between humanity and nature. For example, Lucy can be seen as a connection between humanity and nature, as a "boundary being, nature sprite and human, yet not quite either. She reminds us of the traditional mythical person who lives, ontologically, an intermediate life, or mediates various realms of existence." Although the poems evoke a sense of loss, they also hint at the completeness of Lucy's life—she was raised by nature and survives in the memories of others. She became, in the opinion of the American poet and writer David Ferry (b. 1924), "not so much a human being as a sort of compendium of nature", while "her death was right, after all, for by dying she was one with the natural processes that made her die, and fantastically ennobled thereby".
Cleanth Brooks writes that "Strange fits" presents "Kind Nature's gentlest boon", "Three years" its duality, and "A slumber" the clutter of natural object. Other scholars see "She dwelt", along with "I travelled", as representing nature's "rustication and disappearance". Mahoney views "Three years" as describing a masculine, benevolent nature similar to a creator deity. Although nature shapes Lucy over time and she is seen as part of nature herself, the poem shifts abruptly when she dies. Lucy appears to be eternal, like nature itself. Regardless, she becomes part of the surrounding landscape in life, and her death only verifies this connection.
The series presents nature as a force by turns benevolent and malign. It is shown at times to be oblivious to and uninterested in the safety of humanity. Hall argues, "In all of these poems, nature would seem to betray the heart that loves her". The imagery used to evoke these notions serves to separate Lucy from everyday reality. The literary theorist Frances Ferguson (b. 1947) notes that the "flower similes and metaphors become impediments rather than aids to any imaginative visualization of a woman; the flowers do not simply locate themselves in Lucy's cheeks, they expand to absorb the whole of her ... The act of describing seems to have lost touch with its goal—description of Lucy."
### Death
The poems Wordsworth wrote while in Goslar focus on the dead and dying. The "Lucy poems" follow this trend, and often fail to delineate the difference between life and death. Each creates an ambiguity between the sublime and nothingness, as they attempt to reconcile the question of how to convey the death of a girl intimately connected to nature. They describe a rite of passage from innocent childhood to corrupted maturity and, according to Hartman, "center on a death or a radical change of consciousness which is expressed in semi-mythical form; and they are, in fact, Wordsworth's nearest approach to a personal myth." The narrator is affected greatly by Lucy's death and cries out in "She dwelt" of "the difference to me!". Yet in "A slumber" he is spared from trauma by sleep.
The reader's experience of Lucy is filtered through the narrator's perception. Her death suggests that nature can bring pain to all, even to those who loved her. According to the British classical and literary scholar H. W. Garrod (1878–1960), "The truth is, as I believe, that between Lucy's perfection in Nature and her death there is, for Wordsworth, really no tragic antithesis at all." Hartman expands on this view to extend the view of death and nature to art in general: "Lucy, living, is clearly a guardian spirit, not of one place but of all English places ... while Lucy, dead, has all nature for her monument. The series is a deeply humanized version of the death of Pan, a lament on the decay of English natural feeling. Wordsworth fears that the very spirit presiding over his poetry is ephemeral, and I think he refuses to distinguish between its death in him and its historical decline."
## Critical assessment
The first mention of the poems came from Dorothy, in a letter sent to Coleridge in December 1798. Of "Strange fits", she wrote, "[this] next poem is a favorite of mine—i.e. of me Dorothy—". The first recorded mention of any of the "Lucy poems" (outside of notes by either William or Dorothy) occurred after the April 1799 death of Coleridge's son Berkeley. Coleridge was then living in Germany, and received the news through a letter from his friend Thomas Poole, who in his condolences mentioned Wordsworth's "A slumber":
> But I cannot truly say that I grieve—I am perplexed—I am sad—and a little thing, a very trifle would make me weep; but for the death of the Baby I have not wept!—Oh! this strange, strange, strange Scene-shifter, Death! that giddies one with insecurity, & so unsubstantiates the living Things that one has grasped and handled!—/ Some months ago Wordsworth transmitted to me a most sublime Epitaph / whether it had any reality, I cannot say.—Most probably, in some gloomier moment he had fancied the moment in which his sister might die.
Later, the essayist Charles Lamb (1775–1834) wrote to Wordsworth in 1801 to say that "She dwelt" was one of his favourites from Lyrical Ballads. Likewise Romantic poet John Keats (1795–1821) praised the poem. To the diarist and writer Henry Crabb Robinson (1775–1867), "She dwelt" gave "the powerful effect of the loss of a very obscure object upon one tenderly attached to it—the opposition between the apparent strength of the passion and the insignificance of the object is delightfully conceived."
Besides word of mouth and opinions in letters, there were only a few published contemporary reviews. The writer and journalist John Stoddart (1773–1856), in a review of Lyrical Ballads, described "Strange fits" and "She dwelt" as "the most singular specimens of unpretending, yet irresistible pathos". An anonymous review of Poems in Two Volumes in 1807 had a less positive opinion about "I travell'd": "Another string of flat lines about Lucy is succeeded by an ode to Duty". Critic Francis Jeffrey (1773–1850) claimed that, in "Strange fits", "Mr Wordsworth, however, has thought fit to compose a piece, illustrating this copious subject by one single thought. A lover trots away to see his mistress one fine evening, staring all the way at the moon: when he comes to her door, 'O mercy! to myself I cried, / If Lucy should be dead!' And there the poem ends!" On "A slumber did my spirit seal", Wordsworth's friend Thomas Powell wrote that the poem "stands by itself, and is without title prefixed, yet we are to know, from the penetration of Mr. Wordsworth's admirers, that it is a sequel to the other deep poems that precede it, and is about one Lucy, who is dead. From the table of contents, however, we are informed by the author that it is about 'A Slumber;' for this is the actual title which he has condescended to give it, to put us out of pain as to what it is about."
Many Victorian critics appreciated the emotion of the "Lucy poems" and focused on "Strange fits". John Wilson, a personal friend of both Wordsworth and Coleridge, described the poem in 1842 as "powerfully pathetic". In 1849, critic Rev. Francis Jacox, writing under the pseudonym "Parson Frank", remarked that "Strange fits" contained "true pathos. We are moved to our soul's centre by sorrow expressed as that is; for, without periphrasis or wordy anguish, without circumlocution of officious and obtrusive, and therefore, artificial grief; the mourner gives sorrow words... But he does it in words as few as may be: how intense their beauty!" A few years later, John Wright, an early Wordsworth commentator, described the contemporary perception that "Strange fits" had a "deep but subdued and 'silent fervour'". Other reviewers emphasised the importance of "She dwelt among the untrodden ways", including Scottish writer William Angus Knight (1836–1916), when he described the poem as an "incomparable twelve lines".
At the beginning of the 20th century, literary critic David Rannie praised the poems as a whole: "that strange little lovely group, which breathe a passion unfamiliar to Wordsworth, and about which he—so ready to talk about the genesis of his poems—has told us nothing [...] Let a poet keep some of his secrets: we need not grudge him the privacy when the poetry is as beautiful as this; when there is such celebration of girlhood, love, and death [...] The poet's sense of loss is sublime in its utter simplicity. He finds harmony rather than harshness in the contrast between the illusion of love and the fact of death." Later critics focused on the importance of the poems to Wordsworth's poetic technique. Durrant argued that "The four 'Lucy' poems which appeared in the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads are worth careful attention, because they represent the clearest examples of the success of Wordsworth's experiment." Alan Grob (1932–2007) focused less on the unity that the poems represent and believed that "the principal importance of the 'Matthew' and 'Lucy' poems, apart from their intrinsic achievement, substantial as that is, is in suggesting the presence of seeds of discontent even in a period of seemingly assured faith that makes the sequence of developments in the history of Wordsworth's thought a more orderly, evolving pattern than the chronological leaps between stages would seem to imply."
Later critics de-emphasised the significance of the poems in Wordsworth's artistic development. Hunter Davies (b. 1936) concluded that their impact relies more on their popularity than importance to Wordsworth's poetic career. Davies went on to claim, "The poems about Lucy are perhaps Wordsworth's best-known work which he did in Germany, along with 'Nutting' and the Matthew poems, but the most important work was the beginning of The Prelude" (emphasis in original). Some critics emphasised the importance behind Lucy as a figure, including Geoffrey Hartman (b. 1929), when he claimed, "It is in the Lucy poems that the notion of spirit of place, and particularly English spirit of place, reaches its purest form." Writer and poet Meena Alexander (b. 1951) believed that the character of Lucy "is the impossible object of the poet's desire, an iconic representation of the Romantic feminine."
## Parodies and allusions
The "Lucy poems" have been parodied numerous times since their first publication. These were generally intended to ridicule the simplification of textual complexities and deliberate ambiguities in poetry. They also questioned the way many 19th-century critics sought to establish definitive readings. According to Jones, such parodies commented in a "meta-critical" manner and themselves present an alternative mode of criticism. Among the more notable is the one by Samuel Taylor Coleridge's son Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849), called "On William Wordsworth" or simply "Imitation", as in the 1827 version published for The Inspector magazine ("He lived amidst th' untrodden ways / To Rydal Lake that lead; / A Bard whom there were none to praise / And very few to read" lines 1–4). Parody also appears in the 1888 murder-mystery reading of the poem by Victorian author Samuel Butler (1835–1902). Butler believed Wordsworth's use of the phrase "the difference to me!" was overly terse, and remarked that the poet was "most careful not to explain the nature of the difference which the death of Lucy will occasion him to be ... The superficial reader takes it that he is very sorry she was dead ... but he has not said this." Not every work referring to the "Lucy poems" is intended to mock, however; the novelist and essayist Mary Shelley (1797–1851) drew upon the poems to comment on and re-imagine the Romantic portrayal of femininity.
## Settings
The "Lucy poems" (omitting "I travelled among unknown men" but adding "Among all lovely things") have been set for voice and piano by the composer Nigel Dodd. The settings were first performed at St George's, Brandon Hill, Bristol, in October 1995 at a concert marking the bicentenary of the first meeting of Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Among settings of individual poems is Benjamin Britten's "Lucy" ("I travelled among unknown men") composed in 1926.
Three of the five poems were set to music and recorded by the orchestral pop band The Divine Comedy on their album Liberation.
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Welding
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Fabrication or sculptural process for joining materials
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"Articles containing video clips",
"IARC Group 1 carcinogens",
"Joining",
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"Welding"
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Welding is a fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by using high heat to melt the parts together and allowing them to cool, causing fusion. Welding is distinct from lower temperature techniques such as brazing and soldering, which do not melt the base metal (parent metal).
In addition to melting the base metal, a filler material is typically added to the joint to form a pool of molten material (the weld pool) that cools to form a joint that, based on weld configuration (butt, full penetration, fillet, etc.), can be stronger than the base material. Pressure may also be used in conjunction with heat or by itself to produce a weld. Welding also requires a form of shield to protect the filler metals or melted metals from being contaminated or oxidized.
Many different energy sources can be used for welding, including a gas flame (chemical), an electric arc (electrical), a laser, an electron beam, friction, and ultrasound. While often an industrial process, welding may be performed in many different environments, including in open air, under water, and in outer space. Welding is a hazardous undertaking and precautions are required to avoid burns, electric shock, vision damage, inhalation of poisonous gases and fumes, and exposure to intense ultraviolet radiation.
Until the end of the 19th century, the only welding process was forge welding, which blacksmiths had used for millennia to join iron and steel by heating and hammering. Arc welding and oxy-fuel welding were among the first processes to develop late in the century, and electric resistance welding followed soon after. Welding technology advanced quickly during the early 20th century as world wars drove the demand for reliable and inexpensive joining methods. Following the wars, several modern welding techniques were developed, including manual methods like shielded metal arc welding, now one of the most popular welding methods, as well as semi-automatic and automatic processes such as gas metal arc welding, submerged arc welding, flux-cored arc welding and electroslag welding. Developments continued with the invention of laser beam welding, electron beam welding, magnetic pulse welding, and friction stir welding in the latter half of the century. Today, as the science continues to advance, robot welding is commonplace in industrial settings, and researchers continue to develop new welding methods and gain greater understanding of weld quality.
## Etymology
The term weld is of English origin, with roots from Scandinavia. It is often confused with the Old English word weald, meaning 'a forested area', but this word eventually morphed into the modern version, wild. The Old English word for welding iron was samod ('to bring together') or samodwellung ('to bring together hot', with hot more relating to red-hot or a swelling rage; in contrast to samodfæst, 'to bind together with rope or fasteners'). The term weld is derived from the Middle English verb well (wæll; plural/present tense: wælle) or welling (wællen), meaning 'to heat' (to the maximum temperature possible); 'to bring to a boil'. The modern word was probably derived from the past-tense participle welled (wællende), with the addition of d for this purpose being common in the Germanic languages of the Angles and Saxons. It was first recorded in English in 1590, from a version of the Christian Bible that was originally translated into English by John Wycliffe in the fourteenth century. The original version, from Isaiah 2:4, reads, "...thei shul bete togidere their swerdes into shares..." (they shall beat together their swords into plowshares), while the 1590 version was changed to, "...thei shullen welle togidere her swerdes in-to scharris..." (they shall weld together their swords into plowshares), suggesting this particular use of the word probably became popular in English sometime between these periods.
The word is derived from the Old Swedish word valla, meaning 'to boil'. Sweden was a large exporter of iron during the Middle Ages, and many other European languages used different words but with the same meaning to refer to welding iron, such as the Illyrian (Greek) variti ('to boil'), Turkish kaynamak ('to boil'), Grison (Swiss) bulgir ('to boil'), or the Lettish (Latvian) sawdrit ('to weld or solder', derived from wdrit, 'to boil'). In Swedish, however, the word only referred to joining metals when combined with the word for iron (järn), as in valla järn (literally: 'to boil iron'). The word possibly entered English from the Swedish iron trade, or possibly was imported with the thousands of Viking settlements that arrived in England before and during the Viking Age, as more than half of the most common English words in everyday use are Scandinavian in origin.
## History
The history of joining metals goes back several millennia. The earliest examples of this come from the Bronze and Iron Ages in Europe and the Middle East. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus states in The Histories of the 5th century BC that Glaucus of Chios "was the man who single-handedly invented iron welding". Welding was used in the construction of the Iron pillar of Delhi, erected in Delhi, India about 310 AD and weighing 5.4 metric tons.
The Middle Ages brought advances in forge welding, in which blacksmiths pounded heated metal repeatedly until bonding occurred. In 1540, Vannoccio Biringuccio published De la pirotechnia, which includes descriptions of the forging operation. Renaissance craftsmen were skilled in the process, and the industry continued to grow during the following centuries.
In 1800, Sir Humphry Davy discovered the short-pulse electrical arc and presented his results in 1801. In 1802, Russian scientist Vasily Petrov created the continuous electric arc, and subsequently published "News of Galvanic-Voltaic Experiments" in 1803, in which he described experiments carried out in 1802. Of great importance in this work was the description of a stable arc discharge and the indication of its possible use for many applications, one being melting metals. In 1808, Davy, who was unaware of Petrov's work, rediscovered the continuous electric arc. In 1881–82 inventors Nikolai Benardos (Russian) and Stanisław Olszewski (Polish) created the first electric arc welding method known as carbon arc welding using carbon electrodes. The advances in arc welding continued with the invention of metal electrodes in the late 1800s by a Russian, Nikolai Slavyanov (1888), and an American, C. L. Coffin (1890). Around 1900, A. P. Strohmenger released a coated metal electrode in Britain, which gave a more stable arc. In 1905, Russian scientist Vladimir Mitkevich proposed using a three-phase electric arc for welding. Alternating current welding was invented by C. J. Holslag in 1919, but did not become popular for another decade.
Resistance welding was also developed during the final decades of the 19th century, with the first patents going to Elihu Thomson in 1885, who produced further advances over the next 15 years. Thermite welding was invented in 1893, and around that time another process, oxyfuel welding, became well established. Acetylene was discovered in 1836 by Edmund Davy, but its use was not practical in welding until about 1900, when a suitable torch was developed. At first, oxyfuel welding was one of the more popular welding methods due to its portability and relatively low cost. As the 20th century progressed, however, it fell out of favor for industrial applications. It was largely replaced with arc welding, as advances in metal coverings (known as flux) were made. Flux covering the electrode primarily shields the base material from impurities, but also stabilizes the arc and can add alloying components to the weld metal.
World War I caused a major surge in the use of welding, with the various military powers attempting to determine which of the several new welding processes would be best. The British primarily used arc welding, even constructing a ship, the "Fullagar" with an entirely welded hull. Arc welding was first applied to aircraft during the war as well, as some German airplane fuselages were constructed using the process. Also noteworthy is the first welded road bridge in the world, the Maurzyce Bridge in Poland (1928).
During the 1920s, significant advances were made in welding technology, including the introduction of automatic welding in 1920, in which electrode wire was fed continuously. Shielding gas became a subject receiving much attention, as scientists attempted to protect welds from the effects of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere. Porosity and brittleness were the primary problems, and the solutions that developed included the use of hydrogen, argon, and helium as welding atmospheres. During the following decade, further advances allowed for the welding of reactive metals like aluminum and magnesium. This in conjunction with developments in automatic welding, alternating current, and fluxes fed a major expansion of arc welding during the 1930s and then during World War II. In 1930, the first all-welded merchant vessel, M/S Carolinian, was launched.
During the middle of the century, many new welding methods were invented. In 1930, Kyle Taylor was responsible for the release of stud welding, which soon became popular in shipbuilding and construction. Submerged arc welding was invented the same year and continues to be popular today. In 1932 a Russian, Konstantin Khrenov eventually implemented the first underwater electric arc welding. Gas tungsten arc welding, after decades of development, was finally perfected in 1941, and gas metal arc welding followed in 1948, allowing for fast welding of non-ferrous materials but requiring expensive shielding gases. Shielded metal arc welding was developed during the 1950s, using a flux-coated consumable electrode, and it quickly became the most popular metal arc welding process. In 1957, the flux-cored arc welding process debuted, in which the self-shielded wire electrode could be used with automatic equipment, resulting in greatly increased welding speeds, and that same year, plasma arc welding was invented by Robert Gage. Electroslag welding was introduced in 1958, and it was followed by its cousin, electrogas welding, in 1961. In 1953, the Soviet scientist N. F. Kazakov proposed the diffusion bonding method.
Other recent developments in welding include the 1958 breakthrough of electron beam welding, making deep and narrow welding possible through the concentrated heat source. Following the invention of the laser in 1960, laser beam welding debuted several decades later, and has proved to be especially useful in high-speed, automated welding. Magnetic pulse welding (MPW) has been industrially used since 1967. Friction stir welding was invented in 1991 by Wayne Thomas at The Welding Institute (TWI, UK) and found high-quality applications all over the world. All of these four new processes continue to be quite expensive due to the high cost of the necessary equipment, and this has limited their applications.
## Processes
### Gas welding
The most common gas welding process is oxyfuel welding, also known as oxyacetylene welding. It is one of the oldest and most versatile welding processes, but in recent years it has become less popular in industrial applications. It is still widely used for welding pipes and tubes, as well as repair work.
The equipment is relatively inexpensive and simple, generally employing the combustion of acetylene in oxygen to produce a welding flame temperature of about 3100 °C (5600 °F). The flame, since it is less concentrated than an electric arc, causes slower weld cooling, which can lead to greater residual stresses and weld distortion, though it eases the welding of high alloy steels. A similar process, generally called oxyfuel cutting, is used to cut metals.
### Arc welding
These processes use a welding power supply to create and maintain an electric arc between an electrode and the base material to melt metals at the welding point. They can use either direct current (DC) or alternating current (AC), and consumable or non-consumable electrodes. The welding region is sometimes protected by some type of inert or semi-inert gas, known as a shielding gas, and filler material is sometimes used as well.
#### Arc welding processes
One of the most common types of arc welding is shielded metal arc welding (SMAW); it is also known as manual metal arc welding (MMAW) or stick welding. Electric current is used to strike an arc between the base material and consumable electrode rod, which is made of filler material (typical steel) and is covered with a flux that protects the weld area from oxidation and contamination by producing carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) gas during the welding process. The electrode core itself acts as filler material, making a separate filler unnecessary.
The process is versatile and can be performed with relatively inexpensive equipment, making it well suited to shop jobs and field work. An operator can become reasonably proficient with a modest amount of training and can achieve mastery with experience. Weld times are rather slow, since the consumable electrodes must be frequently replaced and because slag, the residue from the flux, must be chipped away after welding. Furthermore, the process is generally limited to welding ferrous materials, though special electrodes have made possible the welding of cast iron, stainless steel, aluminum, and other metals.
Gas metal arc welding (GMAW), also known as metal inert gas or MIG welding, is a semi-automatic or automatic process that uses a continuous wire feed as an electrode and an inert or semi-inert gas mixture to protect the weld from contamination. Since the electrode is continuous, welding speeds are greater for GMAW than for SMAW.
A related process, flux-cored arc welding (FCAW), uses similar equipment but uses wire consisting of a steel electrode surrounding a powder fill material. This cored wire is more expensive than the standard solid wire and can generate fumes and/or slag, but it permits even higher welding speed and greater metal penetration.
Gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW), or tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding, is a manual welding process that uses a non-consumable tungsten electrode, an inert or semi-inert gas mixture, and a separate filler material. Especially useful for welding thin materials, this method is characterized by a stable arc and high-quality welds, but it requires significant operator skill and can only be accomplished at relatively low speeds.
GTAW can be used on nearly all weldable metals, though it is most often applied to stainless steel and light metals. It is often used when quality welds are extremely important, such as in bicycle, aircraft and naval applications. A related process, plasma arc welding, also uses a tungsten electrode but uses plasma gas to make the arc. The arc is more concentrated than the GTAW arc, making transverse control more critical and thus generally restricting the technique to a mechanized process. Because of its stable current, the method can be used on a wider range of material thicknesses than can the GTAW process and it is much faster. It can be applied to all of the same materials as GTAW except magnesium, and automated welding of stainless steel is one important application of the process. A variation of the process is plasma cutting, an efficient steel cutting process.
Submerged arc welding (SAW) is a high-productivity welding method in which the arc is struck beneath a covering layer of flux. This increases arc quality since contaminants in the atmosphere are blocked by the flux. The slag that forms on the weld generally comes off by itself, and combined with the use of a continuous wire feed, the weld deposition rate is high. Working conditions are much improved over other arc welding processes, since the flux hides the arc and almost no smoke is produced. The process is commonly used in industry, especially for large products and in the manufacture of welded pressure vessels. Other arc welding processes include atomic hydrogen welding, electroslag welding (ESW), electrogas welding, and stud arc welding. ESW is a highly productive, single-pass welding process for thicker materials between 1 inch (25 mm) and 12 inches (300 mm) in a vertical or close to vertical position.
#### Arc welding power supplies
To supply the electrical power necessary for arc welding processes, a variety of different power supplies can be used. The most common welding power supplies are constant current power supplies and constant voltage power supplies. In arc welding, the length of the arc is directly related to the voltage, and the amount of heat input is related to the current. Constant current power supplies are most often used for manual welding processes such as gas tungsten arc welding and shielded metal arc welding, because they maintain a relatively constant current even as the voltage varies. This is important because in manual welding, it can be difficult to hold the electrode perfectly steady, and as a result, the arc length and thus voltage tend to fluctuate. Constant voltage power supplies hold the voltage constant and vary the current, and as a result, are most often used for automated welding processes such as gas metal arc welding, flux-cored arc welding, and submerged arc welding. In these processes, arc length is kept constant, since any fluctuation in the distance between the wire and the base material is quickly rectified by a large change in current. For example, if the wire and the base material get too close, the current will rapidly increase, which in turn causes the heat to increase and the tip of the wire to melt, returning it to its original separation distance.
The type of current used plays an important role in arc welding. Consumable electrode processes such as shielded metal arc welding and gas metal arc welding generally use direct current, but the electrode can be charged either positively or negatively. In welding, the positively charged anode will have a greater heat concentration, and as a result, changing the polarity of the electrode affects weld properties. If the electrode is positively charged, the base metal will be hotter, increasing weld penetration and welding speed. Alternatively, a negatively charged electrode results in more shallow welds. Non-consumable electrode processes, such as gas tungsten arc welding, can use either type of direct current, as well as alternating current. However, with direct current, because the electrode only creates the arc and does not provide filler material, a positively charged electrode causes shallow welds, while a negatively charged electrode makes deeper welds. Alternating current rapidly moves between these two, resulting in medium-penetration welds. One disadvantage of AC, the fact that the arc must be re-ignited after every zero crossings, has been addressed with the invention of special power units that produce a square wave pattern instead of the normal sine wave, making rapid zero crossings possible and minimizing the effects of the problem.
### Resistance welding
Resistance welding involves the generation of heat by passing current through the resistance caused by the contact between two or more metal surfaces. Small pools of molten metal are formed at the weld area as high current (1,000–100,000 A) is passed through the metal. In general, resistance welding methods are efficient and cause little pollution, but their applications are somewhat limited and the equipment cost can be high.
Spot welding is a popular resistance welding method used to join overlapping metal sheets of up to 3 mm thick. Two electrodes are simultaneously used to clamp the metal sheets together and to pass current through the sheets. The advantages of the method include efficient energy use, limited workpiece deformation, high production rates, easy automation, and no required filler materials. Weld strength is significantly lower than with other welding methods, making the process suitable for only certain applications. It is used extensively in the automotive industry—ordinary cars can have several thousand spot welds made by industrial robots. A specialized process called shot welding, can be used to spot weld stainless steel.
Like spot welding, seam welding relies on two electrodes to apply pressure and current to join metal sheets. However, instead of pointed electrodes, wheel-shaped electrodes roll along and often feed the workpiece, making it possible to make long continuous welds. In the past, this process was used in the manufacture of beverage cans, but now its uses are more limited. Other resistance welding methods include butt welding, flash welding, projection welding, and upset welding.
### Energy beam welding
Energy beam welding methods, namely laser beam welding and electron beam welding, are relatively new processes that have become quite popular in high production applications. The two processes are quite similar, differing most notably in their source of power. Laser beam welding employs a highly focused laser beam, while electron beam welding is done in a vacuum and uses an electron beam. Both have a very high energy density, making deep weld penetration possible and minimizing the size of the weld area. Both processes are extremely fast, and are easily automated, making them highly productive. The primary disadvantages are their very high equipment costs (though these are decreasing) and a susceptibility to thermal cracking. Developments in this area include laser-hybrid welding, which uses principles from both laser beam welding and arc welding for even better weld properties, laser cladding, and x-ray welding.
### Solid-state welding
Like the first welding process, forge welding, some modern welding methods do not involve the melting of the materials being joined. One of the most popular, ultrasonic welding, is used to connect thin sheets or wires made of metal or thermoplastic by vibrating them at high frequency and under high pressure. The equipment and methods involved are similar to that of resistance welding, but instead of electric current, vibration provides energy input. Welding metals with this process does not involve melting the materials; instead, the weld is formed by introducing mechanical vibrations horizontally under pressure. When welding plastics, the materials should have similar melting temperatures, and the vibrations are introduced vertically. Ultrasonic welding is commonly used for making electrical connections out of aluminum or copper, and it is also a very common polymer welding process.
Another common process, explosion welding, involves the joining of materials by pushing them together under extremely high pressure. The energy from the impact plasticizes the materials, forming a weld, even though only a limited amount of heat is generated. The process is commonly used for welding dissimilar materials, including bonding aluminum to carbon steel in ship hulls and stainless steel or titanium to carbon steel in petrochemical pressure vessels.
Other solid-state welding processes include friction welding (including friction stir welding and friction stir spot welding), magnetic pulse welding, co-extrusion welding, cold welding, diffusion bonding, exothermic welding, high frequency welding, hot pressure welding, induction welding, and roll bonding.
## Geometry
Welds can be geometrically prepared in many different ways. The five basic types of weld joints are the butt joint, lap joint, corner joint, edge joint, and T-joint (a variant of this last is the cruciform joint). Other variations exist as well—for example, double-V preparation joints are characterized by the two pieces of material each tapering to a single center point at one-half their height. Single-U and double-U preparation joints are also fairly common—instead of having straight edges like the single-V and double-V preparation joints, they are curved, forming the shape of a U. Lap joints are also commonly more than two pieces thick—depending on the process used and the thickness of the material, many pieces can be welded together in a lap joint geometry.
Many welding processes require the use of a particular joint design; for example, resistance spot welding, laser beam welding, and electron beam welding are most frequently performed on lap joints. Other welding methods, like shielded metal arc welding, are extremely versatile and can weld virtually any type of joint. Some processes can also be used to make multipass welds, in which one weld is allowed to cool, and then another weld is performed on top of it. This allows for the welding of thick sections arranged in a single-V preparation joint, for example.
After welding, a number of distinct regions can be identified in the weld area. The weld itself is called the fusion zone—more specifically, it is where the filler metal was laid during the welding process. The properties of the fusion zone depend primarily on the filler metal used, and its compatibility with the base materials. It is surrounded by the heat-affected zone, the area that had its microstructure and properties altered by the weld. These properties depend on the base material's behavior when subjected to heat. The metal in this area is often weaker than both the base material and the fusion zone, and is also where residual stresses are found.
## Quality
Many distinct factors influence the strength of welds and the material around them, including the welding method, the amount and concentration of energy input, the weldability of the base material, filler material, and flux material, the design of the joint, and the interactions between all these factors.
For example, the factor of welding position influences weld quality, that welding codes & specifications may require testing—both welding procedures and welders—using specified welding positions: 1G (flat), 2G (horizontal), 3G (vertical), 4G (overhead), 5G (horizontal fixed pipe), or 6G (inclined fixed pipe).
To test the quality of a weld, either destructive or nondestructive testing methods are commonly used to verify that welds are free of defects, have acceptable levels of residual stresses and distortion, and have acceptable heat-affected zone (HAZ) properties. Types of welding defects include cracks, distortion, gas inclusions (porosity), non-metallic inclusions, lack of fusion, incomplete penetration, lamellar tearing, and undercutting.
The metalworking industry has instituted codes and specifications to guide welders, weld inspectors, engineers, managers, and property owners in proper welding technique, design of welds, how to judge the quality of welding procedure specification, how to judge the skill of the person performing the weld, and how to ensure the quality of a welding job. Methods such as visual inspection, radiography, ultrasonic testing, phased-array ultrasonics, dye penetrant inspection, magnetic particle inspection, or industrial computed tomography can help with detection and analysis of certain defects.
### Heat-affected zone
The heat-affected zone (HAZ) is a ring surrounding the weld in which the temperature of the welding process, combined with the stresses of uneven heating and cooling, alters the heat-treatment properties of the alloy. The effects of welding on the material surrounding the weld can be detrimental—depending on the materials used and the heat input of the welding process used, the HAZ can be of varying size and strength. The thermal diffusivity of the base material plays a large role—if the diffusivity is high, the material cooling rate is high and the HAZ is relatively small. Conversely, a low diffusivity leads to slower cooling and a larger HAZ. The amount of heat injected by the welding process plays an important role as well, as processes like oxyacetylene welding have an unconcentrated heat input and increase the size of the HAZ. Processes like laser beam welding give a highly concentrated, limited amount of heat, resulting in a small HAZ. Arc welding falls between these two extremes, with the individual processes varying somewhat in heat input. To calculate the heat input for arc welding procedures, the following formula can be used:
<math>Q = \left(\frac{V \times I \times 60}{S \times 1000} \right) \times
\mathit{Efficiency}</math>
where Q = heat input (kJ/mm), V = voltage (V), I = current (A), and S = welding speed (mm/min). The efficiency is dependent on the welding process used, with shielded metal arc welding having a value of 0.75, gas metal arc welding and submerged arc welding, 0.9, and gas tungsten arc welding, 0.8. Methods of alleviating the stresses and brittleness created in the HAZ include stress relieving and tempering.
One major defect concerning the HAZ would be cracking at the toes , due to the rapid expansion (heating) and contraction (cooling) the material may not have the ability to withstand the stress and could cause cracking, one method the control these stress would be to control the heating and cooling rate, such as pre-heating and post- heating
### Lifetime extension with after treatment methods
The durability and life of dynamically loaded, welded steel structures is determined in many cases by the welds, in particular the weld transitions. Through selective treatment of the transitions by grinding (abrasive cutting), shot peening, High-frequency impact treatment, Ultrasonic impact treatment, etc. the durability of many designs increases significantly.
## Metallurgy
Most solids used are engineering materials consisting of crystalline solids in which the atoms or ions are arranged in a repetitive geometric pattern which is known as a lattice structure. The only exception is material that is made from glass which is a combination of a supercooled liquid and polymers which are aggregates of large organic molecules.
Crystalline solids cohesion is obtained by a metallic or chemical bond that is formed between the constituent atoms. Chemical bonds can be grouped into two types consisting of ionic and covalent. To form an ionic bond, either a valence or bonding electron separates from one atom and becomes attached to another atom to form oppositely charged ions. The bonding in the static position is when the ions occupy an equilibrium position where the resulting force between them is zero. When the ions are exerted in tension force, the inter-ionic spacing increases creating an electrostatic attractive force, while a repulsing force under compressive force between the atomic nuclei is dominant.
Covalent bonding takes place when one of the constituent atoms loses one or more electrons, with the other atom gaining the electrons, resulting in an electron cloud that is shared by the molecule as a whole. In both ionic and covalent bonding the location of the ions and electrons are constrained relative to each other, thereby resulting in the bond being characteristically brittle.
Metallic bonding can be classified as a type of covalent bonding for which the constituent atoms are of the same type and do not combine with one another to form a chemical bond. Atoms will lose an electron(s) forming an array of positive ions. These electrons are shared by the lattice which makes the electron cluster mobile, as the electrons are free to move as well as the ions. For this, it gives metals their relatively high thermal and electrical conductivity as well as being characteristically ductile.
Three of the most commonly used crystal lattice structures in metals are the body-centred cubic, face-centred cubic and close-packed hexagonal. Ferritic steel has a body-centred cubic structure and austenitic steel, non-ferrous metals like aluminium, copper and nickel have the face-centred cubic structure.
Ductility is an important factor in ensuring the integrity of structures by enabling them to sustain local stress concentrations without fracture. In addition, structures are required to be of an acceptable strength, which is related to a material's yield strength. In general, as the yield strength of a material increases, there is a corresponding reduction in fracture toughness.
A reduction in fracture toughness may also be attributed to the embrittlement effect of impurities, or for body-centred cubic metals, from a reduction in temperature. Metals and in particular steels have a transitional temperature range where above this range the metal has acceptable notch-ductility while below this range the material becomes brittle. Within the range, the materials behavior is unpredictable. The reduction in fracture toughness is accompanied by a change in the fracture appearance. When above the transition, the fracture is primarily due to micro-void coalescence, which results in the fracture appearing fibrous. When the temperatures falls the fracture will show signs of cleavage facets. These two appearances are visible by the naked eye. Brittle fracture in steel plates may appear as chevron markings under the microscope. These arrow-like ridges on the crack surface point towards the origin of the fracture.
Fracture toughness is measured using a notched and pre-cracked rectangular specimen, of which the dimensions are specified in standards, for example ASTM E23. There are other means of estimating or measuring fracture toughness by the following: The Charpy impact test per ASTM A370; The crack-tip opening displacement (CTOD) test per BS 7448–1; The J integral test per ASTM E1820; The Pellini drop-weight test per ASTM E208.
## Unusual conditions
While many welding applications are done in controlled environments such as factories and repair shops, some welding processes are commonly used in a wide variety of conditions, such as open air, underwater, and vacuums (such as space). In open-air applications, such as construction and outdoors repair, shielded metal arc welding is the most common process. Processes that employ inert gases to protect the weld cannot be readily used in such situations, because unpredictable atmospheric movements can result in a faulty weld. Shielded metal arc welding is also often used in underwater welding in the construction and repair of ships, offshore platforms, and pipelines, but others, such as flux cored arc welding and gas tungsten arc welding, are also common. Welding in space is also possible—it was first attempted in 1969 by Russian cosmonauts during the Soyuz 6 mission, when they performed experiments to test shielded metal arc welding, plasma arc welding, and electron beam welding in a depressurized environment. Further testing of these methods was done in the following decades, and today researchers continue to develop methods for using other welding processes in space, such as laser beam welding, resistance welding, and friction welding. Advances in these areas may be useful for future endeavours similar to the construction of the International Space Station, which could rely on welding for joining in space the parts that were manufactured on Earth.
## Safety issues
Welding can be dangerous and unhealthy if the proper precautions are not taken. However, using new technology and proper protection greatly reduces risks of injury and death associated with welding.
Since many common welding procedures involve an open electric arc or flame, the risk of burns and fire is significant; this is why it is classified as a hot work process. To prevent injury, welders wear personal protective equipment in the form of heavy leather gloves and protective long-sleeve jackets to avoid exposure to extreme heat and flames. Synthetic clothing such as polyester should not be worn since it may burn, causing injury. Additionally, the brightness of the weld area leads to a condition called arc eye or flash burns in which ultraviolet light causes inflammation of the cornea and can burn the retinas of the eyes. Goggles and welding helmets with dark UV-filtering face plates are worn to prevent this exposure. Since the 2000s, some helmets have included a face plate which instantly darkens upon exposure to the intense UV light. To protect bystanders, the welding area is often surrounded with translucent welding curtains. These curtains, made of a polyvinyl chloride plastic film, shield people outside the welding area from the UV light of the electric arc, but cannot replace the filter glass used in helmets.
Welders are often exposed to dangerous gases and particulate matter. Processes like flux-cored arc welding and shielded metal arc welding produce smoke containing particles of various types of oxides. The size of the particles in question tends to influence the toxicity of the fumes, with smaller particles presenting a greater danger. This is because smaller particles have the ability to cross the blood–brain barrier. Fumes and gases, such as carbon dioxide, ozone, and fumes containing heavy metals, can be dangerous to welders lacking proper ventilation and training. Exposure to manganese welding fumes, for example, even at low levels (\<0.2 mg/m<sup>3</sup>), may lead to neurological problems or to damage to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or central nervous system. Nano particles can become trapped in the alveolar macrophages of the lungs and induce pulmonary fibrosis. The use of compressed gases and flames in many welding processes poses an explosion and fire risk. Some common precautions include limiting the amount of oxygen in the air, and keeping combustible materials away from the workplace.
## Costs and trends
As an industrial process, the cost of welding plays a crucial role in manufacturing decisions. Many different variables affect the total cost, including equipment cost, labor cost, material cost, and energy cost. Depending on the process, equipment cost can vary, from inexpensive for methods like shielded metal arc welding and oxyfuel welding, to extremely expensive for methods like laser beam welding and electron beam welding. Because of their high cost, they are only used in high production operations. Similarly, because automation and robots increase equipment costs, they are only implemented when high production is necessary. Labor cost depends on the deposition rate (the rate of welding), the hourly wage, and the total operation time, including time spent fitting, welding, and handling the part. The cost of materials includes the cost of the base and filler material, and the cost of shielding gases. Finally, energy cost depends on arc time and welding power demand.
For manual welding methods, labor costs generally make up the vast majority of the total cost. As a result, many cost-saving measures are focused on minimizing operation time. To do this, welding procedures with high deposition rates can be selected, and weld parameters can be fine-tuned to increase welding speed. Mechanization and automation are often implemented to reduce labor costs, but this frequently increases the cost of equipment and creates additional setup time. Material costs tend to increase when special properties are necessary, and energy costs normally do not amount to more than several percent of the total welding cost.
In recent years, in order to minimize labor costs in high production manufacturing, industrial welding has become increasingly more automated, most notably with the use of robots in resistance spot welding (especially in the automotive industry) and in arc welding. In robot welding, mechanized devices both hold the material and perform the weld and at first, spot welding was its most common application, but robotic arc welding increases in popularity as technology advances. Other key areas of research and development include the welding of dissimilar materials (such as steel and aluminum, for example) and new welding processes, such as friction stir, magnetic pulse, conductive heat seam, and laser-hybrid welding. Furthermore, progress is desired in making more specialized methods like laser beam welding practical for more applications, such as in the aerospace and automotive industries. Researchers also hope to better understand the often unpredictable properties of welds, especially microstructure, residual stresses, and a weld's tendency to crack or deform.
The trend of accelerating the speed at which welds are performed in the steel erection industry comes at a risk to the integrity of the connection. Without proper fusion to the base materials provided by sufficient arc time on the weld, a project inspector cannot ensure the effective diameter of the puddle weld therefore he or she cannot guarantee the published load capacities unless they witness the actual installation. This method of puddle welding is common in the United States and Canada for attaching steel sheets to bar joist and structural steel members. Regional agencies are responsible for ensuring the proper installation of puddle welding on steel construction sites. Currently there is no standard or weld procedure which can ensure the published holding capacity of any unwitnessed connection, but this is under review by the American Welding Society.
## Glass and plastic welding
Glasses and certain types of plastics are commonly welded materials. Unlike metals, which have a specific melting point, glasses and plastics have a melting range, called the glass transition. When heating the solid material past the glass-transition temperature (T<sub>g</sub>) into this range, it will generally become softer and more pliable. When it crosses through the range, above the glass-melting temperature (T<sub>m</sub>), it will become a very thick, sluggish, viscous liquid, slowly decreasing in viscosity as temperature increases. Typically, this viscous liquid will have very little surface tension compared to metals, becoming a sticky, taffy to honey-like consistency, so welding can usually take place by simply pressing two melted surfaces together. The two liquids will generally mix and join at first contact. Upon cooling through the glass transition, the welded piece will solidify as one solid piece of amorphous material.
### Glass welding
Glass welding is a common practice during glassblowing. It is used very often in the construction of lighting, neon signs, flashtubes, scientific equipment, and the manufacture of dishes and other glassware. It is also used during glass casting for joining the halves of glass molds, making items such as bottles and jars. Welding glass is accomplished by heating the glass through the glass transition, turning it into a thick, formable, liquid mass. Heating is usually done with a gas or oxy-gas torch, or a furnace, because the temperatures for melting glass are often quite high. This temperature may vary, depending on the type of glass. For example, lead glass becomes a weldable liquid at around 1,600 °F (870 °C), and can be welded with a simple propane torch. On the other hand, quartz glass (fused silica) must be heated to over 3,000 °F (1,650 °C), but quickly loses its viscosity and formability if overheated, so an oxyhydrogen torch must be used. Sometimes a tube may be attached to the glass, allowing it to be blown into various shapes, such as bulbs, bottles, or tubes. When two pieces of liquid glass are pressed together, they will usually weld very readily. Welding a handle onto a pitcher can usually be done with relative ease. However, when welding a tube to another tube, a combination of blowing and suction, and pressing and pulling is used to ensure a good seal, to shape the glass, and to keep the surface tension from closing the tube in on itself. Sometimes a filler rod may be used, but usually not.
Because glass is very brittle in its solid state, it is often prone to cracking upon heating and cooling, especially if the heating and cooling are uneven. This is because the brittleness of glass does not allow for uneven thermal expansion. Glass that has been welded will usually need to be cooled very slowly and evenly through the glass transition, in a process called annealing, to relieve any internal stresses created by a temperature gradient.
There are many types of glass, and it is most common to weld using the same types. Different glasses often have different rates of thermal expansion, which can cause them to crack upon cooling when they contract differently. For instance, quartz has very low thermal expansion, while soda-lime glass has very high thermal expansion. When welding different glasses to each other, it is usually important to closely match their coefficients of thermal expansion, to ensure that cracking does not occur. Also, some glasses will simply not mix with others, so welding between certain types may not be possible.
Glass can also be welded to metals and ceramics, although with metals the process is usually more adhesion to the surface of the metal rather than a commingling of the two materials. However, certain glasses will typically bond only to certain metals. For example, lead glass bonds readily to copper or molybdenum, but not to aluminum. Tungsten electrodes are often used in lighting but will not bond to quartz glass, so the tungsten is often wetted with molten borosilicate glass, which bonds to both tungsten and quartz. However, care must be taken to ensure that all materials have similar coefficients of thermal expansion to prevent cracking both when the object cools and when it is heated again. Special alloys are often used for this purpose, ensuring that the coefficients of expansion match, and sometimes thin, metallic coatings may be applied to a metal to create a good bond with the glass.
### Plastic welding
Plastics are generally divided into two categories, which are "thermosets" and "thermoplastics." A thermoset is a plastic in which a chemical reaction sets the molecular bonds after first forming the plastic, and then the bonds cannot be broken again without degrading the plastic. Thermosets cannot be melted, therefore, once a thermoset has set it is impossible to weld it. Examples of thermosets include epoxies, silicone, vulcanized rubber, polyester, and polyurethane.
Thermoplastics, by contrast, form long molecular chains, which are often coiled or intertwined, forming an amorphous structure without any long-range, crystalline order. Some thermoplastics may be fully amorphous, while others have a partially crystalline/partially amorphous structure. Both amorphous and semicrystalline thermoplastics have a glass transition, above which welding can occur, but semicrystallines also have a specific melting point which is above the glass transition. Above this melting point, the viscous liquid will become a free-flowing liquid (see rheological weldability for thermoplastics). Examples of thermoplastics include polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, polyvinylchloride (PVC), and fluoroplastics like Teflon and Spectralon.
Welding thermoplastic is very similar to welding glass. The plastic first must be cleaned and then heated through the glass transition, turning the weld-interface into a thick, viscous liquid. Two heated interfaces can then be pressed together, allowing the molecules to mix through intermolecular diffusion, joining them as one. Then the plastic is cooled through the glass transition, allowing the weld to solidify. A filler rod may often be used for certain types of joints. The main differences between welding glass and plastic are the types of heating methods, the much lower melting temperatures, and the fact that plastics will burn if overheated. Many different methods have been devised for heating plastic to a weldable temperature without burning it. Ovens or electric heating tools can be used to melt the plastic. Ultrasonic, laser, or friction heating are other methods. Resistive metals may be implanted in the plastic, which respond to induction heating. Some plastics will begin to burn at temperatures lower than their glass transition, so welding can be performed by blowing a heated, inert gas onto the plastic, melting it while, at the same time, shielding it from oxygen.
Many thermoplastics can also be welded using chemical solvents. When placed in contact with the plastic, the solvent will begin to soften it, bringing the surface into a thick, liquid solution. When two melted surfaces are pressed together, the molecules in the solution mix, joining them as one. Because the solvent can permeate the plastic, the solvent evaporates out through the surface of the plastic, causing the weld to drop out of solution and solidify. A common use for solvent welding is for joining PVC or ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) pipes during plumbing, or for welding styrene and polystyrene plastics in the construction of models. Solvent welding is especially effective on plastics like PVC which burn at or below their glass transition, but may be ineffective on plastics like Teflon or polyethylene that are resistant to chemical decomposition.
## See also
- Aluminium joining
- Fasteners
- List of welding codes
- List of welding processes
- Welding Procedure Specification
- Welder certification
- Welded sculpture
|
101,883 |
Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan
| 1,166,095,458 |
Fifth Umayyad caliph (r. 685–705)
|
[
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"7th-century Umayyad caliphs",
"8th-century Umayyad caliphs",
"8th-century deaths from plague (disease)",
"Arab Muslims",
"One Thousand and One Nights characters",
"People from Medina",
"People of the Second Fitna",
"Tabi‘un",
"Umayyad governors of Palestine",
"Umayyad people of the Arab–Byzantine wars",
"Year of birth uncertain"
] |
Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan ibn al-Hakam (Arabic: عبد الملك ابن مروان ابن الحكم, romanized: ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam; July/August 644 or June/July 647 – 9 October 705) was the fifth Umayyad caliph, ruling from April 685 until his death in October 705. A member of the first generation of born Muslims, his early life in Medina was occupied with pious pursuits. He held administrative and military posts under Caliph Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680), founder of the Umayyad Caliphate, and his own father, Caliph Marwan I (r. 684–685). By the time of Abd al-Malik's accession, Umayyad authority had collapsed across the Caliphate as a result of the Second Muslim Civil War and had been reconstituted in Syria and Egypt during his father's reign.
Following a failed invasion of Iraq in 686, Abd al-Malik focused on securing Syria before making further attempts to conquer the greater part of the Caliphate from his principal rival, the Mecca-based caliph Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr. To that end, he concluded an unfavorable truce with the reinvigorated Byzantine Empire in 689, quashed a coup attempt in Damascus by his kinsman, al-Ashdaq, the following year, and reincorporated into the army the rebellious Qaysi tribes of the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia) in 691. He then conquered Zubayrid Iraq and dispatched his general, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, to Mecca where he killed Ibn al-Zubayr in late 692, thereby reuniting the Caliphate under Abd al-Malik's rule. The war with Byzantium resumed, resulting in Umayyad advances into Anatolia and Armenia, the destruction of Carthage and the recapture of Kairouan, the launchpad for the later conquests of western North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, in 698. In the east, Abd al-Malik's viceroy, al-Hajjaj, firmly established the caliph's authority in Iraq and Khurasan, stamping out opposition by the Kharijites and the Arab tribal nobility by 702. Abd al-Malik's final years were marked by a domestically peaceful and prosperous consolidation of power.
In a significant departure from his predecessors, rule over the Caliphate's provinces was centralized under Abd al-Malik, following the elimination of his rivals. Gradually, loyalist Arab troops from Syria were tasked with maintaining order in the provinces as dependence on less reliable, local Arab garrisons was reduced. Tax surpluses from the provinces were forwarded to Damascus and the traditional stipends to veterans of the early Muslim conquests and their descendants were abolished, salaries being restricted to those in active service. The most consequential of Abd al-Malik's reforms were the introduction of a single Islamic currency in place of Byzantine and Sasanian coinage and the establishment of Arabic as the language of the bureaucracy in place of Greek and Persian in Syria and Iraq, respectively. His Muslim upbringing, the conflicts with external and local Christian forces and rival claimants to Islamic leadership all influenced Abd al-Malik's efforts to prescribe a distinctly Islamic character to the Umayyad state. Another manifestation of this initiative was his founding of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the earliest archaeologically attested religious monument built by a Muslim ruler and the possessor of the earliest epigraphic proclamations of Islam and the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The foundations established by Abd al-Malik enabled his son and successor, al-Walid I (r. 705–715), who largely maintained his father's policies, to oversee the Umayyad Caliphate's territorial and economic zenith. Abd al-Malik's centralized government became the prototype of later medieval Muslim states.
## Early life
Abd al-Malik was born in July/August 644 or June/July 647 in the house of his father Marwan ibn al-Hakam in Medina in the Hejaz (western Arabia). His mother was A'isha, a daughter of Mu'awiya ibn al-Mughira. His parents belonged to the Banu Umayya, one of the strongest and wealthiest clans of the Quraysh tribe. Muhammad was a member of the Quraysh, but was ardently opposed by the tribe before they embraced Islam in 630. Not long after, the Quraysh came to dominate Muslim politics. Abd al-Malik belonged to the first generation of born-Muslims and his upbringing in Medina, Islam's political center at the time, was generally described as pious and rigorous by the traditional Muslim sources. He took a deep interest in Islam and possibly memorized the Qur'an.
Abd al-Malik's father was a senior aide of their Umayyad kinsman, Caliph Uthman (r. 644–656). In 656, Abd al-Malik witnessed Uthman's assassination in Medina, an "event [that] had a lasting effect on him" and contributed to his "distrust" of the townspeople of Medina, according to the historian A. A. Dixon. Six years later, Abd al-Malik distinguished himself in a campaign against the Byzantines as commander of a Medinese naval unit. He was appointed to the role by his distant cousin, Caliph Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680), founder of the Umayyad Caliphate. Afterward, he returned to Medina, where he operated under his father, who had become governor of the city, as the kātib (secretary) of Medina's dīwān (bureaucracy). As with the rest of the Umayyads in the Hejaz, Abd al-Malik lacked close ties with Mu'awiya, who ruled from his power base in Damascus in Syria. Mu'awiya belonged to the Sufyanid line of the Umayyad clan, while Abd al-Malik belonged to the larger Abu al-As line. When a revolt broke out in Medina in 683 against Mu'awiya's son and successor, Caliph Yazid I (r. 680–683), the Umayyads, including Abd al-Malik, were expelled from the city. The revolt was part of the wider anti-Umayyad rebellion that became known as the Second Muslim Civil War. On the way to the Umayyad capital in Syria, Abd al-Malik encountered the army of Muslim ibn Uqba, who had been sent by Yazid to subdue the rebels in Medina. He provided Ibn Uqba with intelligence about Medina's defenses. The rebels were defeated at the Battle of al-Harra in August 683, but the army withdrew to Syria after Yazid's death later that year.
The deaths of Yazid and his successor, his son Mu'awiya II, in relatively quick succession in 683–684 precipitated a leadership vacuum in Damascus and the consequent collapse of Umayyad authority across the Caliphate. Most provinces declared their allegiance to the rival Mecca-based caliph Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr. In parts of Syria, older-established Arab tribes who had secured a privileged position in the Umayyad court and military, in particular the Banu Kalb, scrambled to preserve Umayyad rule. Marwan and his family, including Abd al-Malik, had since relocated to Syria, where Marwan met the pro-Umayyad stalwart Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, who had just been expelled from his governorship in Iraq. Ibn Ziyad persuaded Marwan to forward his candidacy for the caliphate during a summit of pro-Umayyad tribes in Jabiya hosted by the Kalbite chieftain Ibn Bahdal. The tribal nobility elected Marwan as caliph and the latter became dependent on the Kalb and its allies, who collectively became known as the "Yaman" in reference to their ostensibly shared South Arabian (Yamani) roots. Their power came at the expense of the Qaysi tribes, relative newcomers who had come to dominate northern Syria and the Jazira under Mu'awiya I and had defected to Ibn al-Zubayr. The Qays were routed by Marwan and his Yamani backers at the Battle of Marj Rahit in 684, leading to a long-standing blood feud and rivalry between the two tribal coalitions. Abd al-Malik did not participate in the battle on religious grounds, according to the contemporary poems compiled in the anthology of Abu Tammam (d. 845).
## Reign
### Accession
Abd al-Malik was a close adviser of his father. He was headquartered in Damascus and became its deputy governor during Marwan's expedition to conquer Zubayrid Egypt in late 684. Upon the caliph's return in 685, he held a council in Sinnabra where he appointed Abd al-Malik governor of Palestine and designated him as his chosen successor, to be followed by Abd al-Malik's brother, Abd al-Aziz. This designation abrogated the succession arrangements reached in Jabiya, which stipulated Yazid's son Khalid would succeed Marwan, followed by another Umayyad, the former governor of Medina, Amr ibn Sa'id al-Ashdaq. Nonetheless, Marwan secured the oaths of allegiance to Abd al-Malik from the Yamani nobility. While the historian Gerald Hawting notes that Abd al-Malik was nominated despite his relative lack of political experience, Dixon maintains he was chosen "because of his political ability and his knowledge of statecraft and provincial administration", as indicated by his "gradual advance in holding important posts" from an early age. Marwan died in April 685 and Abd al-Malik's accession as caliph was peacefully managed by the Yamani nobles. He was proclaimed caliph in Jerusalem, according to a report by the 9th-century historian Khalifa ibn Khayyat, which the modern historian Amikam Elad considers to be seemingly "reliable".
At the time of his accession, critical posts were held by members of Abd al-Malik's family. His brother, Muhammad, was charged with suppressing the Qaysi tribes, while Abd al-Aziz maintained peace and stability as governor of Egypt until his death in 705. During the early years of his reign, Abd al-Malik heavily relied on the Yamani nobles of Syria, including Ibn Bahdal al-Kalbi and Rawh ibn Zinba al-Judhami, who played key roles in his administration; the latter served as the equivalent to the chief minister or wazīr of the later Abbasid caliphs. Furthermore, a Yamani always headed Abd al-Malik's shurṭa (elite security retinue). The first to hold the post was Yazid ibn Abi Kabsha al-Saksaki and he was followed by another Yamani, Ka'b ibn Hamid al-Ansi. The caliph's ḥaras (personal guard) was typically led by a mawlā (non-Arab Muslim freedman; plural: mawālī) and staffed by mawālī.
### Early challenges
Though Umayyad rule had been restored in Syria and Egypt, Abd al-Malik faced several challenges to his authority. Most provinces of the Caliphate continued to recognize Ibn al-Zubayr, while the Qaysi tribes regrouped under Zufar ibn al-Harith al-Kilabi and resisted Umayyad rule in the Jazira from al-Qarqisiya, a Euphrates river fortress strategically located at the crossroads of Syria and Iraq.
#### Failure in Iraq
Re-establishing Umayyad rule across the Caliphate was the major priority of Abd al-Malik. His initial focus was the reconquest of Iraq, the Caliphate's wealthiest province. Iraq was also home to a large population of Arab tribesmen, the group from which the Caliphate derived the bulk of its troops. In contrast, Egypt, which provided significant income to the treasury, possessed a small Arab community and was thus a meager source of troops. The demand for soldiers was pressing for the Umayyads as the backbone of their military, the Syrian army, remained fractured along Yamani and Qaysi lines. Though the roughly 6,000 Yamani soldiers of Abd al-Malik's predecessor were able to consolidate the Umayyad position in Syria, they were too few to reassert authority throughout the Caliphate. Ibn Ziyad, a key figure in the establishment of Marwanid power, set about enlarging the army by recruiting widely among the Arab tribes, including those which nominally belonged to the Qays faction.
Ibn Ziyad had been tasked by Abd al-Malik's father with the reconquest of Iraq. At the time, Iraq and its dependencies were split between the pro-Alid forces of al-Mukhtar al-Thaqafi in Kufa and the forces of Ibn al-Zubayr's brother Mus'ab in Basra. In August 686, Ibn Ziyad's 60,000-strong army was routed at the Battle of Khazir and he was slain, alongside most of his deputy commanders, at the hands of al-Mukhtar's much smaller pro-Alid force led by Ibrahim ibn al-Ashtar. The decisive defeat and the loss of Ibn Ziyad represented a major setback to Abd al-Malik's ambitions in Iraq. He refrained from further major campaigns in the province for the next five years, during which Mus'ab defeated and killed al-Mukhtar and his supporters and became Iraq's sole ruler.
Abd al-Malik shifted his focus to consolidating control of Syria. His efforts in Iraq had been undermined by the Qaysi–Yamani schism when a Qaysi general in Ibn Ziyad's army, Umayr ibn al-Hubab al-Sulami, defected with his men mid-battle to join Zufar's rebellion. Umayr's subsequent campaign against the large Christian Banu Taghlib tribe in the Jazira sparked a series of tit-for-tat raids and further deepened Arab tribal divisions, the previously neutral Taghlib throwing in its lot with the Yaman and the Umayyads. The Taghlib killed Umayr in 689 and delivered his head to Abd al-Malik.
#### Byzantine attacks and the treaty of 689
Along Syria's northern frontier, the Byzantines had been on the offensive since the failure of the First Arab Siege of Constantinople in 678. In 679, a thirty-year peace treaty was concluded, obliging the Umayyads to pay an annual tribute of 3,000 gold coins, 50 horses and 50 slaves, and withdraw their troops from the forward bases they had occupied on the Byzantine coast. The outbreak of the Muslim civil war allowed the Byzantine emperor Constantine IV (r. 668–685) to extort territorial concessions and enormous tribute from the Umayyads. In 685, the emperor led his army to Mopsuestia in Cilicia, and prepared to cross the border into Syria, where the Mardaites, an indigenous Christian group, were already causing considerable trouble. With his own position insecure, Abd al-Malik concluded a treaty whereby he would pay a tribute of 1,000 gold coins, a horse and a slave for every day of the year.
Under Justinian II (r. 685–695, 705–711), the Byzantines became more aggressive, though it is unclear whether they intervened directly as reported by the 9th-century Muslim historian al-Baladhuri or used the Mardaites to mount pressure on the Muslims: Mardaite depredations extended throughout Syria, as far south as Mount Lebanon and the Galilee uplands. These raids culminated with the short-lived Byzantine recapture of Antioch in 688. The setbacks in Iraq had weakened the Umayyads, and when a new treaty was concluded in 689, it greatly favored the Byzantines: according to the 9th-century Byzantine chronicler Theophanes the Confessor, the treaty repeated the tribute obligations of 685, but now Byzantium and the Umayyads established a condominium over Cyprus, Armenia and Caucasian Iberia (modern Georgia), the revenue from which was to be shared between the two states. In exchange, Byzantium undertook to resettle the Mardaites in its own territory. The 12th-century Syriac chronicler Michael the Syrian, however, mentions that Armenia and Adharbayjan were to come under full Byzantine control. In reality, as the latter regions were not held by the Umayyads at this point, the agreement probably indicates a carte blanche by Abd al-Malik to the Byzantines to proceed against Zubayrid forces there. This arrangement suited both sides: Abd al-Malik weakened his opponent's forces and secured his northern frontier, and the Byzantines gained territory and reduced the power of the side that was apparently winning the Muslim civil war. About 12,000 Mardaites were indeed resettled in Byzantium, but many remained behind, only submitting to the Umayyads in the reign of al-Walid I (r. 705–715). Their presence disrupted Umayyad supply lines and obliged them to permanently keep troops on standby to guard against their raids.
The Byzantine counteroffensive represented the first challenge against a Muslim power by a people defeated in the early Muslim conquests. Moreover, the Mardaite raids demonstrated to Abd al-Malik and his successors that the state could no longer depend on the quiescence of Syria's Christian majority, which until then had largely refrained from rebellion. The modern historian Khalid Yahya Blankinship described the treaty of 689 as "an onerous and completely humiliating pact" and surmised that Abd al-Malik's ability to pay the annual tribute in addition to financing his own wartime army relied on treasury funds accrued during the campaigns of his Sufyanid predecessors and revenues from Egypt.
#### Revolt of al-Ashdaq and end of the Qaysi rebellion
In 689/90, Abd al-Malik used the respite from the truce to initiate a campaign against the Zubayrids of Iraq, but was forced to return to Damascus when al-Ashdaq and his loyalists abandoned the army's camp and seized control of the city. Al-Ashdaq viewed Abd al-Malik's accession as a violation of the caliphal succession agreement reached in Jabiya. Abd al-Malik besieged his kinsman for sixteen days and promised him safety and significant political concessions if he relinquished the city. Though al-Ashdaq agreed to the terms and surrendered, Abd al-Malik remained distrustful of the former's ambitions and executed him personally.
Zufar's control of al-Qarqisiya, despite earlier attempts to dislodge him by Ibn Ziyad in 685/86 and the caliph's governor in Homs, Aban ibn al-Walid ibn Uqba, in 689/90, remained an obstacle to the caliph's ambitions in Iraq. In revenge for Umayr's slaying, Zufar had intensified his raids and inflicted heavy casualties on the caliph's tribal allies in the Jazira. Abd al-Malik resolved to command the siege of al-Qarqisiya in person in the summer of 691, and ultimately secured the defection of Zufar and the pro-Zubayrid Qays in return for privileged positions in the Umayyad court and army. The integration of the Qaysi rebels strongly reinforced the Syrian army, and Umayyad authority was restored in the Jazira. From then onward, Abd al-Malik and his immediate successors attempted to balance the interests of the Qays and Yaman in the Umayyad court and army. This represented a break from the preceding seven years, during which the Yaman, and particularly the Kalb, were the dominant force of the army.
### Defeat of the Zubayrids
With threats in Syria and the Jazira neutralized, Abd al-Malik was free to focus on the reconquest of Iraq. While Mus'ab had been bogged down fighting Kharijite rebels and contending with disaffected Arab tribesmen in Basra and Kufa, Abd al-Malik was secretly contacting and winning over these same Arab nobles. Thus, by the time Abd al-Malik led the Syrian army into Iraq in 691, the struggle to recapture the province was virtually complete. Command of the army was held by members of his family, his brother Muhammad leading the vanguard and Yazid I's sons Khalid and Abd Allah leading the right and left wings, respectively. Many Syrian nobles held reservations about the campaign and counseled Abd al-Malik not to participate in person. Nonetheless, the caliph was at the head of the army when it camped opposite Mus'ab's forces at Maskin, along the Dujayl Canal. In the ensuing Battle of Maskin, most of Mus'ab's forces, many of whom were resentful at the heavy toll he had exacted on al-Mukhtar's Kufan partisans, refused to fight and his leading commander, Ibn al-Ashtar, fell at the beginning of hostilities. Abd al-Malik invited Mus'ab to surrender in return for the governorship of Iraq or any other province of his choice, but the latter refused and was killed in action.
Following his victory, Abd al-Malik received the allegiance of Kufa's nobility and appointed governors to the Caliphate's eastern provinces. Afterward, he dispatched a 2,000-strong Syrian contingent to subdue Ibn al-Zubayr in the Hejaz. The commander of the expedition, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, had risen through the ranks and would become a highly competent and efficient supporter of the caliph. Al-Hajjaj remained encamped for several months in Ta'if, east of Mecca, and fought numerous skirmishes with Zubayrid loyalists in the plain of Arafat. Abd al-Malik sent him reinforcements led by his mawlā, Tariq ibn Amr, who had earlier captured Medina from its Zubayrid governor. In March 692, al-Hajjaj besieged Ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca and bombarded the Ka'aba, the holiest sanctuary in Islam, with catapults. Though 10,000 of Ibn al-Zubayr's supporters, including his sons, eventually surrendered and received pardons, Ibn al-Zubayr and a core of his loyalists held out in the Ka'aba and were killed by al-Hajjaj's troops in September or October. Ibn al-Zubayr's death marked the end of the civil war and the reunification of the Caliphate under Abd al-Malik. In a panegyric that the literary historian Suzanne Stetkevych asserts was intended to "declare" and "legitimize" Abd al-Malik's victory, the caliph's Christian court poet al-Akhtal eulogized him on the eve or aftermath of Ibn al-Zubayr's fall as follows:
> To a man whose gifts do not elude us, whom God has made victorious, so let him in his victory long delight!
>
> He who wades into the deep of battle, auspicious his augury, the Caliph of God through whom men pray for rain.
>
> When his soul whispers its intention to him it sends him resolutely forth, his courage and his caution like two keen blades.
>
> In him the common weal resides, and after his assurance no peril can seduce him from his pledge.
>
> — Al-Akhtal (640–708), Khaffat al-qaṭīnu ("The tribe has departed")
After his victory, Abd al-Malik aimed to reconcile with the Hejazi elite, including the Zubayrids and the Alids, the Umayyads' rivals within the Quraysh. He relied on the Banu Makhzum, another Qurayshite clan, as his intermediaries in view of the Umayyad family's absence in the region due to their exile in 683. Nevertheless, he remained wary of the Hejazi elite's ambitions and kept a vigilant eye on them through his various governors in Medina. The first of these was al-Hajjaj, who was also appointed governor of Yemen and the Yamama (central Arabia) and led the Hajj pilgrim caravans of 693 and 694. Though he maintained peace in the Hejaz, the harshness of his rule led to numerous complaints from its residents and may have played a role in his transfer from the post by Abd al-Malik. A member of the Makhzum and Abd al-Malik's father-in-law, Hisham ibn Isma'il, was ultimately appointed. During his tenure in 701–706 he was also known for brutalizing Medina's townspeople.
### Consolidation in Iraq and the east
Despite his victory, the control and governance of Iraq, a politically turbulent province from the time of the Muslim conquest in the 630s, continued to pose a major challenge for Abd al-Malik. He had withdrawn the Syrian army and entrusted to the Iraqis the defense of Basra from the Kharijite threat. Most Iraqis had become "weary of the conflict" with the Kharijites, "which had brought them little but hardship and loss", according to Gibb. Those from Kufa, in particular, had grown accustomed to the wealth and comfort of their lives at home and their reluctance to undertake lengthy campaigns far from their families was an issue that previous rulers of Iraq had consistently encountered. Initially, the caliph appointed his brother Bishr governor of Kufa and another kinsman, Khalid ibn Abdallah, to Basra before the latter too was put under Bishr's jurisdiction. Neither governor was up to the task, but the Iraqis eventually defeated the Najdiyya Kharijites in the Yamama in 692/93. The Azariqa Kharijites in Persia were more difficult to rein in, and following Bishr's death in 694, the Iraqi troops deserted the field against them at Ramhormoz.
Abd al-Malik's attempt at family rule in Iraq had proven unsuccessful, and he installed al-Hajjaj in the post instead in 694. Kufa and Basra were combined into a single province under al-Hajjaj, who, from the start of his rule, displayed a strong commitment to governing Iraq effectively. Against the Azariqa, al-Hajjaj backed al-Muhallab ibn Abi Sufra al-Azdi, a Zubayrid holdover with long experience combating the Kharijite rebels. Al-Muhallab finally defeated the Azariqa in 697. Concurrently, a Kharijite revolt led by Shabib ibn Yazid al-Shaybani flared up in the heart of Iraq, resulting in the rebel takeover of al-Mada'in and siege of Kufa. Al-Hajjaj responded to the unwillingness or inability of the war-weary Iraqis to face the Kharijites by obtaining from Abd al-Malik Syrian reinforcements led by Sufyan ibn al-Abrad al-Kalbi. A more disciplined force, the Syrians repelled the rebel attack on Kufa and killed Shabib in early 697. By 698, the Kharijite revolts had been stamped out. Abd al-Malik attached to Iraq Sistan and Khurasan, thus making al-Hajjaj responsible for a super-province encompassing the eastern half of the Caliphate. Al-Hajjaj made al-Muhallab deputy governor of Khurasan, a post he held until his death in 702, after which it was bequeathed to his son Yazid. During his term, al-Muhallab recommenced the Muslim conquests in Central Asia, though the campaign reaped few territorial gains during Abd al-Malik's reign.
Upon becoming governor, al-Hajjaj immediately threatened with death any Iraqi who refused to participate in the war efforts against the Kharijites. In an effort to reduce expenditure, he had lowered the Iraqis' pay to less than that of their Syrian counterparts in the province. By his measures, al-Hajjaj appeared "almost to have goaded the Iraqis into rebellion, as if looking for an excuse to break them", according to the historian Hugh Kennedy. Indeed, conflict with the muqātila (Arab tribal forces who formed Iraq's garrisons) came to a head beginning in 699 when al-Hajjaj ordered Ibn al-Ash'ath to lead an expedition against Zabulistan. Ibn al-Ash'ath and his commanders were wealthy and leading noblemen and bristled at al-Hajjaj's frequent rebukes and demands and the difficulties of the campaign. In response, Ibn al-Ash'ath and his army revolted in Sistan, marched back and defeated al-Hajjaj's loyalists in Tustar in 701, and entered Kufa soon after. Al-Hajjaj held out in Basra with his Banu Thaqif kinsmen and Syrian loyalists, who were numerically insufficient to counter the unified Iraqi front led by Ibn al-Ash'ath. Alarmed at events, Abd al-Malik offered the Iraqis a pay raise equal to the Syrians and the replacement of al-Hajjaj with Ibn al-Ash'ath. Due to his supporters' rejection of the terms, Ibn al-Ash'ath refused the offer, and al-Hajjaj took the initiative, routing Ibn al-Ash'ath's forces at the Battle of Dayr al-Jamajim in April. Many of the Iraqis had defected after promises of amnesty if they disarmed, while Ibn al-Ash'ath and his core supporters fled to Zabulistan, where they were dispersed in 702.
The suppression of the revolt marked the end of the Iraqi muqātila as a military force and the beginning of Syrian military domination of Iraq. Iraqi internal divisions, and the utilization of disciplined Syrian forces by Abd al-Malik and al-Hajjaj, voided the Iraqis' attempt to reassert power in the province. Determined to prevent further rebellions, al-Hajjaj founded a permanent Syrian garrison in Wasit, situated between the long-established Iraqi garrisons of Kufa and Basra, and instituted a more rigorous administration in the province. Power thereafter derived from the Syrian troops, who became Iraq's ruling class, while Iraq's Arab nobility, religious scholars and mawālī were their virtual subjects. Furthermore, the surplus taxes from the agriculturally rich Sawad lands were redirected from the muqātila to Abd al-Malik's treasury in Damascus to pay the Syrian troops in the province. This reflected a wider campaign by the caliph to institute greater control over the Caliphate.
### Renewal of Byzantine wars in Anatolia, Armenia and North Africa
Despite the ten-year truce of 689, war with Byzantium resumed following Abd al-Malik's victory against Ibn al-Zubayr in 692. The decision to resume hostilities was taken by Emperor Justinian II, ostensibly because of his refusal to accept payment of the tribute in the Muslim currency introduced that year rather than the Byzantine nomisma (see below). This is reported solely by Theophanes and issues of chronology make this suspect; not all modern scholars accept its veracity. The real casus belli, according to both Theophanes and the later Syriac sources, was Justinian's attempt to enforce his exclusive jurisdiction over Cyprus, and to move its population to Cyzicus in northwestern Anatolia, contrary to the treaty. Given the enormous advantages secured by the treaty for Byzantium, Justinian's decision has been criticized by Byzantine and modern historians alike. However, the historian Ralph-Johannes Lilie points out that with Abd al-Malik emerging victorious from the civil war, Justinian may have felt it was only a matter of time until the caliph broke the treaty, and resolved to strike first, before Abd al-Malik could consolidate his position further.
The Umayyads decisively defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Sebastopolis in 692 and parried a Byzantine counter-attack in 693/94 in the direction of Antioch. Over the following years, the Umayyads launched constant raids against the Byzantine territories in Anatolia and Armenia, led by the caliph's brother Muhammad, and his sons al-Walid, Abd Allah, and Maslama, laying the foundation for further conquests in these areas under Abd al-Malik's successors, which would culminate in the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople in 717–718. The military defeats inflicted on Justinian II contributed to the downfall of the emperor and his Heraclian dynasty in 695, ushering in a 22-year period of instability, in which the Byzantine throne changed hands seven times in violent revolutions, further aiding the Arab advance. In 698/99, Emperor Tiberios III (r. 698–705) secured a treaty with the caliph for the return of the Cypriots, both those moved by Justinian II, as well as those subsequently deported by the Arabs to Syria, to their island. Beginning in 700, Abd al-Malik's brother Muhammad subdued Armenia in a series of campaigns. The Armenians rebelled in 703 and received Byzantine aid, but Muhammad defeated them and sealed the failure of the revolt by executing the rebel princes in 705. As a result, Armenia was annexed into the Caliphate along with the principalities of Caucasian Albania and Iberia as the province of Arminiya.
Meanwhile, in North Africa, a Byzantine–Berber alliance had reconquered Ifriqiya and slain its governor, Uqba ibn Nafi, in the Battle of Vescera in 682. Abd al-Malik charged Uqba's deputy, Zuhayr ibn Qays, to reassert the Arab position in 688, but after initial gains, including the slaying of the Berber ruler Kasila at the Battle of Mams, Zuhayr was driven back to Barqa (Cyrenaica) by Kasila's partisans and slain by Byzantine naval raiders. In 695, Abd al-Malik dispatched Hassan ibn al-Nu'man with a 40,000-strong army to retake Ifriqiya. Hassan captured Byzantine-held Kairouan, Carthage and Bizerte. With the aid of naval reinforcements sent by Emperor Leontios (r. 695–698), the Byzantines recaptured Carthage by 696/97. After the Byzantines were repelled, Carthage was captured and destroyed by Hassan in 698, signaling "the final, irretrievable end of Roman power in Africa", according to Kennedy. Kairouan was firmly secured as a launchpad for later conquests, while the port town of Tunis was founded and equipped with an arsenal on the orders of Abd al-Malik, who was intent on establishing a strong Arab fleet. Hassan continued his campaign against the Berbers, defeating them and killing their leader, the warrior queen al-Kahina, between 698 and 703. Afterward, Hassan was dismissed by Abd al-Aziz, and replaced by Musa ibn Nusayr, who went on to lead the Umayyad conquests of western North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula during the reign of al-Walid.
### Final years
The last years of Abd al-Malik's reign were generally characterized by the sources as a domestically peaceful and prosperous consolidation of power. The blood feuds between the Qays and Yaman, which persisted despite the former's reconciliation with the Umayyads in 691, had dissipated toward the end of his rule. Dixon credits this to Abd al-Malik's success at "harnessing tribal feeling to the interests of the government, [while] at the same time suppressing its violent manifestations".
The remaining principal issue faced by the caliph was ensuring the succession of his eldest son, al-Walid, in place of the designated successor, Abd al-Aziz. The latter consistently refused Abd al-Malik's entreaties to step down from the line of succession, but potential conflict was avoided when Abd al-Aziz died in May 705. He was promptly replaced as governor of Egypt by the caliph's son Abd Allah. Abd al-Malik died five months later, on 9 October. The cause of his death was attributed by the historian al-Asma'i (d. 828) to the 'Plague of the Maidens', so-called because it originated with the young women of Basra before spreading across Iraq and Syria. He was buried outside of the Bab al-Jabiya gate of Damascus.
## Legacy
Abd al-Malik is considered the most "celebrated" Umayyad caliph by the historian Julius Wellhausen. "His reign had been a period of hard-won successes", in the words of Kennedy. The 9th-century historian al-Yaqubi described Abd al-Malik as "courageous, shrewd and sagacious, but also ... miserly". His successor, al-Walid, continued his father's policies and his rule likely marked the peak of Umayyad power and prosperity. Abd al-Malik's key administrative reforms, reunification of the Caliphate and suppression of all active domestic opposition enabled the major territorial expansion of the Caliphate during al-Walid's reign. Three other sons of Abd al-Malik, Sulayman, Yazid II and Hisham, would rule in succession until 743, interrupted only by the rule of Abd al-Aziz's son, Umar II (r. 717–720). With the exceptions of the latter and Marwan II (r. 744–750), all the Umayyad caliphs who came after Abd al-Malik were directly descended from him, hence the references to him as the "father of kings" in the traditional Muslim sources. The Umayyad emirs and caliphs who ruled in the Iberian Peninsula between 756 and 1031 were also his direct descendants. In the assessment of his biographer Chase F. Robinson, "Mu'awiya may have introduced the principle of dynastic succession into the ruling tradition of early Islam, but Abd al-Malik made it work".
Abd al-Malik's concentration of power into the hands of his family was unprecedented; at one point, his brothers or sons held nearly all governorships of the provinces and Syria's districts. Likewise, his court in Damascus was filled with far more Umayyads than under his Sufyanid predecessors, a result of the clan's exile to the city from Medina in 683. He maintained close ties with the Sufyanids through marital relations and official appointments, such as according Yazid I's son Khalid a prominent role in the court and army and wedding to him his daughter A'isha. Abd al-Malik also married Khalid's sister Atika, who became his favorite and most influential wife.
After his victory in the civil war, Abd al-Malik embarked on a far-reaching campaign to consolidate Umayyad rule over the Caliphate. The collapse of Umayyad authority precipitated by Mu'awiya I's death made it apparent to Abd al-Malik that the decentralized Sufyanid system was unsustainable. Moreover, despite the defeat of his Muslim rivals, his dynasty remained domestically and externally insecure, prompting a need to legitimize its existence, according to Blankinship. Abd al-Malik's solution to the fractious tribalism which defined his predecessors' caliphate was to centralize power. At the same time, his response to the Byzantine–Christian resurgence and the criticism of Muslim religious circles, which dated from the beginning of Umayyad rule and culminated with the outbreak of the civil war, was to implement Islamization measures. The centralized administration he established became the prototype of later medieval Muslim states. In Kennedy's assessment, Abd al-Malik's "centralized, bureaucratic empire ... was in many ways an impressive achievement", but the political, economic and social divisions that developed within the Islamic community during his reign "was to prove something of a difficult inheritance for the later Umayyads".
According to Wellhausen, government "evidently became more technical and hierarchical" under Abd al-Malik, though not nearly to the extent of the later Abbasid caliphs. As opposed to the freewheeling governing style of the Sufyanids, Abd al-Malik ruled strictly over his officials and kept interactions with them largely formal. He put an end to the provinces' retention of the lion's share of surplus tax revenues, as had been the case under the Sufyanids, and had them redirected to the caliphal treasury in Damascus. He supported al-Hajjaj's policy of collecting the poll tax, traditionally imposed on the Caliphate's non-Muslim subjects, from the mawālī of Iraq and instructed Abd al-Aziz to implement this measure in Egypt, though the latter allegedly disregarded the order. Abd al-Malik may have inaugurated several high-ranking offices, and Muslim tradition generally credits him with the organization of the barīd (postal service), whose principal purpose was to efficiently inform the caliph of developments outside of Damascus. He built and repaired roads that connected Damascus with Palestine and linked Jerusalem to its eastern and western hinterlands, as evidenced by seven milestones found throughout the region, the oldest of which dates to May 692 and the latest to September 704. The road project formed part of Abd al-Malik's centralization drive, special attention being paid to Palestine due to its critical position as a transit zone between Syria and Egypt and Jerusalem's religious centrality to the caliph.
### Institution of Islamic currency and Arabization of the bureaucracy
A major component of Abd al-Malik's centralization and Islamization measures was the institution of an Islamic currency. The Byzantine gold solidus was discontinued in Syria and Egypt, the likely impetus being the Byzantines' addition of an image of Christ on their coins in 691/92, which violated Muslim prohibitions on images of prophets. To replace the Byzantine coins, he introduced an Islamic gold currency, the dinar, in 693. Initially, the new coinage contained depictions of the caliph as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community and its supreme military commander. Historian Peter Frankopan claims this was potentially an image of Muhammad himself, possibly designed to counteract Byzantine coins then in circulation featuring images of Jesus. This image proved no more acceptable to Muslim officialdom and was replaced in 696 or 697 with image-less coinage inscribed with Qur'anic quotes and other Muslim religious formulas. In 698/99, similar changes were made to the silver dirhams issued by the Muslims in the former Sasanian Persian lands in the eastern Caliphate. Depictions of the Sasanian king were consequently removed from the coinage, though Abd al-Malik's new dirham retained its characteristically Sasanian silver fabric and wide flan.
Shortly after the overhaul of the Caliphate's currency, in circa 700, Abd al-Malik is generally credited with the replacement of Greek with Arabic as the language of the dīwān in Syria. The transition was carried out by his scribe Sulayman ibn Sa'd. Al-Hajjaj had initiated the Arabization of the Persian dīwān in Iraq, three years before. Though the official language was changed, Greek and Persian-speaking bureaucrats who were versed in Arabic kept their posts. The Arabization of the bureaucracy and currency was the most consequential administrative reform undertaken by the caliph. Arabic ultimately became the sole official language of the Umayyad state, but the transition in faraway provinces, such as Khurasan, did not occur until the 740s. According to Gibb, the decree was the "first step towards the reorganization and unification of the diverse tax-systems in the provinces, and also a step towards a more definitely Muslim administration". Indeed, it formed an important part of the Islamization measures that lent the Umayyad Caliphate "a more ideological and programmatic coloring it had previously lacked", according to Blankinship. In tandem, Abd al-Malik began the export of papyri containing the Muslim statement of belief in Greek to spread Islamic teachings in the Byzantine realm. This was a further testament to the ideological expansion of the Byzantine–Muslim struggle.
The increasingly Muslim character of the state under Abd al-Malik was partly a reflection of Islam's influence in the lives of the caliph and the chief enforcer of his policies, al-Hajjaj, both of whom belonged to the first generation of rulers born and raised as Muslims. Having spent most of their lives in the Hejaz, the theological and legal center of Islam where Arabic was spoken exclusively and administrative offices were held solely by Arab Muslims, Abd al-Malik and his viceroy only understood Arabic and were unfamiliar with the Syrian and Greek Christian and Persian Zoroastrian officials of the dīwān. They stood in stark contrast to the Sufyanid caliphs and their governors in Iraq, who had entered these regions as youths and whose children were as acquainted with the native majority as with the Arab Muslim newcomers. According to Wellhausen, Abd al-Malik was careful not to offend his pious subjects "in the careless fashion of [Caliph] Yazid", but from the time of his accession "he subordinated everything to policy, and even exposed the Ka'ba to the danger of destruction", despite the piety of his upbringing and early career. Dixon challenges this view, attributing the Abbasid-era Muslim sources' portrayal of Abd al-Malik's transformation in character after his accession and the consequent abandonment of his piety to their general hostility to Abd al-Malik, whom they variously "accused of being a mean, treacherous and blood-thirsty person". Dixon nonetheless concedes that the caliph disregarded his early Muslim ideals when he felt political circumstances necessitated it.
### Reorganization of the army
Abd al-Malik shifted away from his predecessors' use of Arab tribal masses in favor of an organized army. Likewise, Arab noblemen who had derived their power solely through their tribal standing and personal relations with a caliph were gradually replaced with military men who had risen through the ranks. These developments have been partially obscured by the medieval sources due to their continued usage of Arab tribal terminology when referencing the army, such as the names of the tribal confederations Mudar, Rabi'a, Qays and Yaman. According to Hawting, these do not represent the "tribes in arms" utilized by earlier caliphs; rather, they denote army factions whose membership was often (but not exclusively) determined by tribal origin. Abd al-Malik also established a Berber-dominated private militia called al-Waḍḍāḥiya after their original commander, the caliph's mawlā al-Waddah, which helped enforce the authority of Umayyad caliphs through the reign of Marwan II.
Under Abd al-Malik, loyalist Syrian troops began to be deployed throughout the Caliphate to keep order, which came largely at the expense of the tribal nobility of Iraq. The latter's revolt under Ibn al-Ash'ath demonstrated to Abd al-Malik the unreliability of the Iraqi muqātila in securing the central government's interests in the province and its eastern dependencies. It was following the revolt's suppression that the military became primarily composed of the Syrian army. Consecrating this transformation was a fundamental change to the system of military pay, whereby salaries were restricted to those in active service. This marked an end to the system established by Caliph Umar (r. 634–644), which paid stipends to veterans of the earlier Muslim conquests and their descendants. While the Iraqi tribal nobility viewed the stipends as their traditional right, al-Hajjaj viewed them as a handicap restricting his and Abd al-Malik's executive authority and financial ability to reward loyalists in the army. Stipends were similarly stopped to the inhabitants of the Hejaz, including the Quraysh. Thus, a professional army was established during Abd al-Malik's reign whose salaries derived from tax proceeds. The dependence on the Syrian army of his successors, especially Hisham (r. 724–743), scattered the army among the Caliphate's multiple and isolated war fronts, most of them distant from Syria. The growing strain and heavy losses inflicted on the Syrians by the Caliphate's external enemies and increasing factional divisions within the army contributed to the weakening and downfall of Umayyad rule in 750.
### Foundation of the Dome of the Rock
In 685/86 or 688, Abd al-Malik began planning the construction of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Its dedication inscription mentions the year 691/92, which most scholars agree is the completion date of the building. It is the earliest archaeologically attested religious structure to be built by a Muslim ruler and the building's inscriptions contain the earliest epigraphic proclamations of Islam and of Muhammad. The inscriptions proved to be a milestone, as afterward they became a common feature in Islamic structures and almost always mention Muhammad. The Dome of the Rock remains a "unique monument of Islamic culture in almost all respects", including as a "work of art and as a cultural and pious document", according to historian Oleg Grabar.
Narratives by the medieval sources about Abd al-Malik's motivations in building the Dome of the Rock vary. At the time of its construction, the caliph was engaged in war with Christian Byzantium and its Syrian Christian allies on the one hand and with the rival caliph Ibn al-Zubayr, who controlled Mecca, the annual destination of Muslim pilgrimage, on the other hand. Thus, one series of explanations was that Abd al-Malik intended for the Dome of the Rock to be a religious monument of victory over the Christians that would distinguish Islam's uniqueness within the common Abrahamic religious setting of Jerusalem, home of the two older Abrahamic faiths, Judaism and Christianity. The other main explanation holds that Abd al-Malik, in the heat of the war with Ibn al-Zubayr, sought to build the structure to divert the focus of the Muslims in his realm from the Ka'aba in Mecca, where Ibn al-Zubayr would publicly condemn the Umayyads during the annual pilgrimage to the sanctuary. Though most modern historians dismiss the latter account as a product of anti-Umayyad propaganda in the traditional Muslim sources and doubt that Abd al-Malik would attempt to alter the sacred Muslim requirement of fulfilling the pilgrimage to the Ka'aba, other historians concede this cannot be conclusively dismissed. A last explanation has been to interpret the creation of the Haram al-Sharif complex as a monumental profession of faith, intended to proclaim the role of intercessor that Muhammad was supposed to play on the day of the resurrection. The site was presented as the scene of the Last Judgement. The Dome of the Chain featured the divine courthouse, before which the deceased would appear before entering Heaven, represented by the Dome of the Rock.
While his sons commissioned numerous architectural works, Abd al-Malik's known building activities were limited to Jerusalem. As well as the Dome of the Rock, he is credited with constructing the adjacent Dome of the Chain, expanding the boundaries of the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif) to include the Foundation Stone around which the Dome of the Rock was built and building two gates of the Temple Mount (possibly the Mercy Gate and the Prophet's Gate). Theophanes, possibly conserving an original Syro-Palestinian Melkite source, reports that Abd al-Malik sought to remove some columns from a Christian shrine at Gethsemane to rebuild the Ka'aba, but he was dissuaded by his Christian treasurer, Sarjun ibn Mansur (the father of John of Damascus), and another leading Christian, called Patrikios, from Palestine, who successfully petitioned Emperor Justinian II to supply other columns instead.
## Family and residences
Abd al-Malik had children with several wives and ummahāt awlād (slave concubines; singular: umm walad). He was married to Wallada bint al-Abbas ibn al-Jaz, a fourth-generation descendant of the prominent Banu Abs chieftain Zuhayr ibn Jadhima. She bore Abd al-Malik the sons al-Walid I, Sulayman, Marwan al-Akbar and a daughter, A'isha. From Caliph Yazid I's daughter Atika, he had his sons Yazid II, Marwan al-Asghar, Mu'awiya and a daughter, Umm Kulthum. His wife A'isha bint Hisham ibn Isma'il, whom he divorced, belonged to the Makhzum clan and mothered Abd al-Malik's son Hisham. He had a second wife from the Makhzum, Umm al-Mughira bint al-Mughira ibn Khalid, a great-granddaughter of the pre-Islamic leader of the Quraysh, Hisham ibn al-Mughira. From this marriage, Abd al-Malik had his daughter Fatima, who was wed to Umar II.
From his marriage to Umm Ayyub bint Amr, a granddaughter of Caliph Uthman, Abd al-Malik had his son al-Hakam, who, according to the medieval Arab genealogists, died at a young age, contradicting a number of contemporary Arabic poems which suggest he lived into adulthood. Abd al-Malik also married A'isha bint Musa, a granddaughter of one of Muhammad's leading companions, Talha ibn Ubayd Allah, and together they had a son, Bakkar, who was also known as Abu Bakr. Abd al-Malik married and divorced during his caliphate Umm Abiha, a granddaughter of Ja'far ibn Abi Talib, and Shaqra bint Salama ibn Halbas, a woman of the Banu Tayy. Abd al-Malik's sons from his ummahāt awlād were Abd Allah, Maslama, Sa'id al-Khayr, al-Mundhir, Anbasa, Muhammad and al-Hajjaj, the last named after the caliph's viceroy. At the time of his death, fourteen of Abd al-Malik's sons had survived him, according to al-Yaqubi.
Abd al-Malik divided his time between Damascus and seasonal residences in its general vicinity. He spent the winter mostly in Damascus and Sinnabra near Lake Tiberias, then to Jabiya in the Golan Heights and Dayr Murran, a monastery village on the slopes of Mount Qasyoun overlooking the Ghouta orchards of Damascus. He would typically return to the city in March and leave again in the heat of summer to Baalbek in the Beqaa Valley before heading back to Damascus in early autumn. His Damascus residence was the Khadra Palace commissioned by Mu'awiya I and purchased by Abd al-Malik from Khalid ibn Yazid at the beginning of his reign.
|
4,652,664 |
Eye (cyclone)
| 1,170,896,920 |
Central area of calm weather in a tropical cyclone
|
[
"Articles containing video clips",
"Tropical cyclone meteorology",
"Vortices"
] |
The eye is a region of mostly calm weather at the center of a tropical cyclone. The eye of a storm is a roughly circular area, typically 30–65 kilometers (19–40 miles) in diameter. It is surrounded by the eyewall, a ring of towering thunderstorms where the most severe weather and highest winds of the cyclone occur. The cyclone's lowest barometric pressure occurs in the eye and can be as much as 15 percent lower than the pressure outside the storm.
In strong tropical cyclones, the eye is characterized by light winds and clear skies, surrounded on all sides by a towering, symmetric eyewall. In weaker tropical cyclones, the eye is less well defined and can be covered by the central dense overcast, an area of high, thick clouds that show up brightly on satellite imagery. Weaker or disorganized storms may also feature an eyewall that does not completely encircle the eye or have an eye that features heavy rain. In all storms, however, the eye is where the barometer reading is lowest.
## Structure
A typical tropical cyclone has an eye approximately 30–65 km (20–40 mi) across at the geometric center of the storm. The eye may be clear or have spotty low clouds (a clear eye), it may be filled with low- and mid-level clouds (a filled eye), or it may be obscured by the central dense overcast. There is, however, very little wind and rain, especially near the center. This is in stark contrast to conditions in the eyewall, which contains the storm's strongest winds. Due to the mechanics of a tropical cyclone, the eye and the air directly above it are warmer than their surroundings.
While normally quite symmetric, eyes can be oblong and irregular, especially in weakening storms. A large ragged eye is a non-circular eye which appears fragmented, and is an indicator of a weak or weakening tropical cyclone. An open eye is an eye which can be circular, but the eyewall does not completely encircle the eye, also indicating a weakening, moisture-deprived cyclone or a weak but strengthening one. Both of these observations are used to estimate the intensity of tropical cyclones via Dvorak analysis. Eyewalls are typically circular; however, distinctly polygonal shapes ranging from triangles to hexagons occasionally occur.
While typical mature storms have eyes that are a few dozen miles across, rapidly intensifying storms can develop an extremely small, clear, and circular eye, sometimes referred to as a pinhole eye. Storms with pinhole eyes are prone to large fluctuations in intensity, and provide difficulties and frustrations for forecasters.
Small/minuscule eyes – those less than ten nautical miles (19 km, 12 mi) across – often trigger eyewall replacement cycles, where a new eyewall begins to form outside the original eyewall. This can take place anywhere from fifteen to hundreds of kilometers (ten to a few hundred miles) outside the inner eye. The storm then develops two concentric eyewalls, or an "eye within an eye". In most cases, the outer eyewall begins to contract soon after its formation, which chokes off the inner eye and leaves a much larger but more stable eye. While the replacement cycle tends to weaken storms as it occurs, the new eyewall can contract fairly quickly after the old eyewall dissipates, allowing the storm to re-strengthen. This may trigger another re-strengthening cycle of eyewall replacement.
Eyes can range in size from 370 km (230 mi) (Typhoon Carmen) to a mere 3.7 km (2.3 mi) (Hurricane Wilma) across. While it is uncommon for storms with large eyes to become very intense, it does occur, especially in annular hurricanes. Hurricane Isabel was the eleventh most powerful North Atlantic hurricane in recorded history, and sustained a wide – 65–80 km (40–50 mi) – eye for a period of several days.
## Formation and detection
Tropical cyclones typically form from large, disorganized areas of disturbed weather in tropical regions. As more thunderstorms form and gather, the storm develops rainbands which start rotating around a common center. As the storm gains strength, a ring of stronger convection forms at a certain distance from the rotational center of the developing storm. Since stronger thunderstorms and heavier rain mark areas of stronger updrafts, the barometric pressure at the surface begins to drop, and air begins to build up in the upper levels of the cyclone. This results in the formation of an upper level anticyclone, or an area of high atmospheric pressure above the central dense overcast. Consequently, most of this built up air flows outward anticyclonically above the tropical cyclone. Outside the forming eye, the anticyclone at the upper levels of the atmosphere enhances the flow towards the center of the cyclone, pushing air towards the eyewall and causing a positive feedback loop.
However, a small portion of the built-up air, instead of flowing outward, flows inward towards the center of the storm. This causes air pressure to build even further, to the point where the weight of the air counteracts the strength of the updrafts in the center of the storm. Air begins to descend in the center of the storm, creating a mostly rain-free area – a newly formed eye.
Many aspects of this process remain a mystery. Scientists do not know why a ring of convection forms around the center of circulation instead of on top of it, or why the upper-level anticyclone ejects only a portion of the excess air above the storm. Many theories exist as to the exact process by which the eye forms: all that is known for sure is that the eye is necessary for tropical cyclones to achieve high wind speeds.
The formation of an eye is almost always an indicator of increasing tropical cyclone organisation and strength. Because of this, forecasters watch developing storms closely for signs of eye formation.
For storms with a clear eye, detection of the eye is as simple as looking at pictures from a weather satellite. However, for storms with a filled eye, or an eye completely covered by the central dense overcast, other detection methods must be used. Observations from ships and hurricane hunters can pinpoint an eye visually, by looking for a drop in wind speed or lack of rainfall in the storm's center. In the United States, South Korea, and a few other countries, a network of NEXRAD Doppler weather radar stations can detect eyes near the coast. Weather satellites also carry equipment for measuring atmospheric water vapor and cloud temperatures, which can be used to spot a forming eye. In addition, scientists have recently discovered that the amount of ozone in the eye is much higher than the amount in the eyewall, due to air sinking from the ozone-rich stratosphere. Instruments sensitive to ozone perform measurements, which are used to observe rising and sinking columns of air, and provide indication of the formation of an eye, even before satellite imagery can determine its formation.
One satellite study found eyes detected on average for 30 hours per storm.
## Associated phenomena
### Eyewall replacement cycles
Eyewall replacement cycles, also called concentric eyewall cycles, naturally occur in intense tropical cyclones, generally with winds greater than 185 km/h (115 mph), or major hurricanes (Category 3 or higher on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale). When tropical cyclones reach this intensity, and the eyewall contracts or is already sufficiently small (see above), some of the outer rainbands may strengthen and organize into a ring of thunderstorms – an outer eyewall – that slowly moves inward and robs the inner eyewall of its needed moisture and angular momentum. Since the strongest winds are located in a cyclone's eyewall, the tropical cyclone usually weakens during this phase, as the inner wall is "choked" by the outer wall. Eventually the outer eyewall replaces the inner one completely, and the storm can re-intensify.
The discovery of this process was partially responsible for the end of the U.S. government's hurricane modification experiment Project Stormfury. This project set out to seed clouds outside the eyewall, causing a new eyewall to form and weakening the storm. When it was discovered that this was a natural process due to hurricane dynamics, the project was quickly abandoned.
Research shows that 53 per cent of intense hurricanes undergo at least one of these cycles during its existence. Hurricane Allen in 1980 went through repeated eyewall replacement cycles, fluctuating between Category 5 and Category 4 status on the Saffir–Simpson scale several times, while Hurricane Juliette (2001) is a documented case of triple eyewalls.
### Moats
A moat in a tropical cyclone is a clear ring outside the eyewall, or between concentric eyewalls, characterized by subsidence (slowly sinking air) and little or no precipitation. The air flow in the moat is dominated by the cumulative effects of stretching and shearing. The moat between eyewalls is an area in the storm where the rotational speed of the air changes greatly in proportion to the distance from the storm's center; these areas are also known as rapid filamentation zones. Such areas can potentially be found near any vortex of sufficient strength, but are most pronounced in strong tropical cyclones.
### Eyewall mesovortices
Eyewall mesovortices are small scale rotational features found in the eyewalls of intense tropical cyclones. They are similar, in principle, to small "suction vortices" often observed in multiple-vortex tornadoes. In these vortices, wind speeds may be greater than anywhere else in the eyewall. Eyewall mesovortices are most common during periods of intensification in tropical cyclones.
Eyewall mesovortices often exhibit unusual behavior in tropical cyclones. They usually revolve around the low pressure center, but sometimes they remain stationary. Eyewall mesovortices have even been documented to cross the eye of a storm. These phenomena have been documented observationally, experimentally, and theoretically.
Eyewall mesovortices are a significant factor in the formation of tornadoes after tropical cyclone landfall. Mesovortices can spawn rotation in individual convective cells or updrafts (a mesocyclone), which leads to tornadic activity. At landfall, friction is generated between the circulation of the tropical cyclone and land. This can allow the mesovortices to descend to the surface, causing tornadoes. These tornadic circulations in the boundary layer may be prevalent in the inner eyewalls of intense tropical cyclones but with short duration and small size they are not frequently observed.
### Stadium effect
The stadium effect is a phenomenon observed in strong tropical cyclones. It is a fairly common event, where the clouds of the eyewall curve outward from the surface with height. This gives the eye an appearance resembling a sports stadium from the air. An eye is always larger at the top of the storm, and smallest at the bottom of the storm because the rising air in the eyewall follows isolines of equal angular momentum, which also slope outward with height.
### Eye-like features
An eye-like structure is often found in intensifying tropical cyclones. Similar to the eye seen in hurricanes or typhoons, it is a circular area at the circulation center of the storm in which convection is absent. These eye-like features are most normally found in intensifying tropical storms and hurricanes of Category 1 strength on the Saffir-Simpson scale. For example, an eye-like feature was found in Hurricane Beta when the storm had maximum wind speeds of only 80 km/h (50 mph), well below hurricane force. The features are typically not visible on visible wavelengths or infrared wavelengths from space, although they are easily seen on microwave satellite imagery. Their development at the middle levels of the atmosphere is similar to the formation of a complete eye, but the features might be horizontally displaced due to vertical wind shear.
## Hazards
Though the eye is by far the calmest part of the storm (at least on land), with no wind at the center and typically clear skies, on the ocean it is possibly the most hazardous area. In the eyewall, wind-driven waves all travel in the same direction. In the center of the eye, however, the waves converge from all directions, creating erratic crests that can build on each other to become rogue waves. The maximum height of hurricane waves is unknown, but measurements during Hurricane Ivan when it was a Category 4 hurricane estimated that waves near the eyewall exceeded 40 m (130 ft) from peak to trough.
A common mistake, especially in areas where hurricanes are uncommon, is for residents to exit their homes to inspect the damage while the calm eye passes over, only to be caught off guard by the violent winds in the opposite eyewall.
## Other cyclones
Though only tropical cyclones have structures officially termed "eyes", there are other weather systems that can exhibit eye-like features.
### Polar lows
Polar lows are mesoscale weather systems, typically smaller than 1,000 km (600 mi) across, found near the poles. Like tropical cyclones, they form over relatively warm water and can feature deep convection and winds of gale force or greater. Unlike storms of tropical nature, however, they thrive in much colder temperatures and at much higher latitudes. They are also smaller and last for shorter durations, with few lasting longer than a day or so. Despite these differences, they can be very similar in structure to tropical cyclones, featuring a clear eye surrounded by an eyewall and bands of rain and snow.
### Extratropical cyclones
Extratropical cyclones are areas of low pressure which exist at the boundary of different air masses. Almost all storms found at mid-latitudes are extratropical in nature, including classic North American nor'easters and European windstorms. The most severe of these can have a clear "eye" at the site of lowest barometric pressure, though it is usually surrounded by lower, non-convective clouds and is found near the back end of the storm.
### Subtropical cyclones
Subtropical cyclones are low-pressure systems with some extratropical characteristics and some tropical characteristics. As such, they may have an eye while not being truly tropical in nature. Subtropical cyclones can be very hazardous, generating high winds and seas, and often evolve into fully tropical cyclones. For this reason, the National Hurricane Center began including subtropical storms in its naming scheme in 2002.
### Tornadoes
Tornadoes are destructive, small-scale storms, which produce the fastest winds on earth. There are two main types: single-vortex tornadoes, which consist of a single spinning column of air, and multiple-vortex tornadoes, which consist of small "suction vortices," resembling mini-tornadoes themselves, all rotating around a common center. Both of these types of tornadoes are theorized to have calm eyes. These theories are supported by doppler velocity observations by weather radar and eyewitness accounts.
## Extraterrestrial vortices
NASA reported in November 2006 that the Cassini spacecraft observed a "hurricane-like" storm locked to the south pole of Saturn with a clearly defined eyewall. The observation was particularly notable as eyewall clouds had not previously been seen on any planet other than Earth (including a failure to observe an eyewall in the Great Red Spot of Jupiter by the Galileo spacecraft). In 2007, very large vortices on both poles of Venus were observed by the Venus Express mission of the European Space Agency to have a dipole eye structure.
## See also
- Outline of tropical cyclones
- Radius of maximum wind
- RAINEX
- Storm surge
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Levantine Arabic
| 1,172,205,203 |
Arabic variety spoken in the Levant
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[
"Articles containing video clips",
"Levantine Arabic"
] |
Levantine Arabic, also called Shami (autonym: šāmi or اللهجة الشامية il-lahje š-šāmiyye), is an Arabic variety spoken in the Levant, in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Turkey (historically in Adana, Mersin and Hatay only). With over 44 million speakers, Levantine is, alongside Egyptian, one of the two prestige varieties of spoken Arabic comprehensible all over the Arab world.
Levantine is not officially recognized in any state or territory. Although it is the majority language in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, it is predominantly used as a spoken vernacular in daily communication, whereas most written and official documents and media in these countries use the official Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), a form of literary Arabic only acquired through formal education that does not function as a native language. In Israel and Turkey, Levantine is a minority language.
The Palestinian dialect is the closest vernacular Arabic variety to MSA, with about 50% of common words. Nevertheless, Levantine and MSA are not mutually intelligible. Levantine speakers therefore often call their language al-ʿāmmiyya , 'slang', 'dialect', or 'colloquial'. However, with the emergence of social media, attitudes toward Levantine have improved. The amount of written Levantine has significantly increased, especially online, where Levantine is written using Arabic, Latin, or Hebrew characters. Levantine pronunciation varies greatly along social, ethnic, and geographical lines. Its grammar is similar to that shared by most vernacular varieties of Arabic. Its lexicon is overwhelmingly Arabic, with a significant Aramaic influence.
The lack of written sources in Levantine makes it impossible to determine its history before the modern period. Aramaic was the dominant language in the Levant starting in the 1st millennium BCE; it coexisted with other languages, including many Arabic dialects spoken by various Arab tribes. With the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century, new Arabic speakers from the Arabian Peninsula settled in the area, and a lengthy language shift from Aramaic to vernacular Arabic occurred.
## Naming and classification
Scholars use "Levantine Arabic" to describe the continuum of mutually intelligible dialects spoken across the Levant. Other terms include "Syro-Palestinian", "Eastern Arabic", "East Mediterranean Arabic", "Syro-Lebanese" (as a broad term covering Jordan and Palestine as well), "Greater Syrian", or "Syrian Arabic" (in a broad meaning, referring to all the dialects of Greater Syria, which corresponds to the Levant). Most authors only include sedentary dialects, excluding Bedouin dialects of the Syrian Desert and the Negev, which belong to the dialects of the Arabian peninsula. Mesopotamian dialects from northeast Syria are also excluded. Other authors include Bedouin varieties.
The term "Levantine Arabic" is not indigenous and, according to linguists Kristen Brustad and Emilie Zuniga, "it is likely that many speakers would resist the grouping on the basis that the rich phonological, morphological and lexical variation within the Levant carries important social meanings and distinctions." Levantine speakers often call their language al-ʿāmmiyya, 'slang', 'dialect', or 'colloquial' (lit. 'the language of common people'), to contrast it to Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Classical Arabic ( al-fuṣḥā, lit. 'the eloquent'). They also call their spoken language ʿarabiyy, 'Arabic'. Alternatively, they identify their language by the name of their country. šāmi can refer to Damascus Arabic, Syrian Arabic, or Levantine as a whole. Lebanese literary figure Said Akl led a movement to recognize the "Lebanese language" as a distinct prestigious language instead of MSA.
Levantine is a variety of Arabic, a Semitic language. There is no consensus regarding the genealogical position of Arabic within the Semitic languages. The position of Levantine and other Arabic vernaculars in the Arabic macrolanguage family has also been contested. According to the Arabic tradition, Classical Arabic was the spoken language of the pre-Islamic and Early Islamic periods and remained stable until today's MSA. According to this view, all Arabic vernaculars, including Levantine, descend from Classical Arabic and were corrupted by contacts with other languages. Several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars are not a modified version of the Classical language, which is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Classical Arabic and vernacular varieties all developed from an unattested common ancestor, Proto-Arabic. The ISO 639-3 standard classifies Levantine as a language, member of the macrolanguage Arabic.
Sedentary vernaculars (also called dialects) are traditionally classified into five groups according to shared features: Peninsular, Mesopotamian, Levantine, Egyptian, and Maghrebi. The linguistic distance between these vernaculars is at least as large as between Germanic languages or Romance languages. It is, for instance, extremely difficult for Moroccans and Iraqis, each speaking their own variety, to understand each other. Levantine and Egyptian are the two prestige varieties of spoken Arabic; they are also the most widely understood dialects in the Arab world and the most commonly taught to non-native speakers outside the Arab world.
## Geographical distribution and varieties
### Dialects
Levantine is spoken in the fertile strip on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean: from the Turkish coastal provinces of Adana, Hatay, and Mersin in the north to the Negev, passing through Lebanon, the coastal regions of Syria (Latakia and Tartus governorates) as well as around Aleppo and Damascus, the Hauran in Syria and Jordan, the rest of western Jordan, Palestine and Israel. Other Arabic varieties border it: Mesopotamian and North Mesopotamian Arabic to the north and north-east; Najdi Arabic to the east and south-east; and Northwest Arabian Arabic to the south and south-west.
The similarity among Levantine dialects transcends geographical location and political boundaries. The urban dialects of the main cities (such as Damascus, Beirut, and Jerusalem) have much more in common with each other than they do with the rural dialects of their respective countries. The sociolects of two different social or religious groups within the same country may also show more dissimilarity with each other than when compared with their counterparts in another country.
The process of linguistic homogenization within each country of the Levant makes a classification of dialects by country possible today. Linguist Kees Versteegh classifies Levantine into three groups: Lebanese/Central Syrian (including Beirut, Damascus, Druze Arabic, Cypriot Maronite), North Syrian (including Aleppo), and Palestinian/Jordanian. He writes that distinctions between these groups are unclear, and isoglosses cannot determine the exact boundary. Mutual intelligibility between these varieties is high.
The dialect of Aleppo shows Mesopotamian influence. The prestige dialect of Damascus is the most documented Levantine dialect. A "common Syrian Arabic" is emerging. Similarly, a "Standard Lebanese Arabic" is emerging, combining features of Beiruti Arabic (which is not prestigious) and Jabale Arabic, the language of Mount Lebanon. In Çukurova, Turkey, the local dialect is endangered. Bedouin varieties are spoken in the Negev and the Sinai Peninsula, areas of transition between Levantine and Egyptian. The dialect of Arish, Egypt, is classified by Linguasphere as Levantine. The Amman dialect is emerging as an urban standard in Jordanian Arabic, while other Jordanian and Palestinian Arabic dialects include Fellahi (rural) and Madani (urban). The Gaza dialect contains features of both urban Palestinian and Bedouin Arabic.
### Ethnicity and religion
The Levant is characterized by ethnic diversity and religious pluralism. Levantine dialects vary along sectarian lines. Religious groups include Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Alawites, Christians, Druze, and Jews. Differences between Muslim and Christian dialects are minimal, mainly involving some religious vocabulary. A minority of features are perceived as typically associated with one group. For example, in Beirut, the exponent tēʕ is only used by Muslims and never by Christians who use tabaʕ. Contrary to others, Druze and Alawite dialects retained the phoneme . MSA influences Sunni dialects more. Jewish dialects diverge more from Muslim dialects and often show influences from other towns due to trade networks and contacts with other Jewish communities. For instance, the Jewish dialect of Hatay is very similar to the Aleppo dialect, particularly the dialect of the Jews of Aleppo. It shows traits otherwise not found in any dialect of Hatay. Koineization in cities such as Damascus leads to a homogenization of the language among religious groups. In contrast, the marginalization of Christians in Jordan intensifies linguistic differences between Christian Arabs and Muslims.
Levantine is primarily spoken by Arabs. It is also spoken as a first or second language by several ethnic minorities. In particular, it is spoken natively by Samaritans and by most Circassians in Jordan, Armenians in Jordan and Israel, Assyrians in Israel, Turkmen in Syria and Lebanon, Kurds in Lebanon, and Dom people in Jerusalem. Most Christian and Muslim Lebanese people in Israel speak Lebanese Arabic. Syrian Jews, Lebanese Jews, and Turkish Jews from Çukurova are native Levantine speakers; however, most moved to Israel after 1948. Levantine was spoken natively by most Jews in Jerusalem, but the community shifted to Modern Hebrew after the establishment of Israel. Levantine is the second language of Dom people across the Levant, Circassians in Israel, Armenians in Lebanon, Chechens in Jordan, Assyrians in Syria and Lebanon, and most Kurds in Syria.
### Speakers by country
In addition to the Levant, where it is indigenous, Levantine is spoken among diaspora communities from the region, especially among the Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian diasporas. The language has fallen into disuse among subsequent diaspora generations, such as the 7 million Lebanese Brazilians.
## History
### Pre-Islamic antiquity
Starting in the 1st millennium BCE, Aramaic was the dominant spoken language and the language of writing and administration in the Levant. Greek was the language of administration of the Seleucid Empire (in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE) and was maintained by the Roman (64 BCE–475 CE), then Byzantine (476–640) empires. From the early 1st millennium BCE until the 6th century CE, there was a continuum of Central Semitic languages in the Arabian Peninsula, and Central Arabia was home to languages quite distinct from Arabic.
Because there are no written sources, the history of Levantine before the modern period is unknown. Old Arabic was a dialect continuum stretching from the southern Levant (where Northern Old Arabic was spoken) to the northern Hijaz, in the Arabian Peninsula, where Old Hijazi was spoken. In the early 1st century CE, a great variety of Arabic dialects were already spoken by various nomadic or semi-nomadic Arabic tribes in the Levant, such as the Nabataeans—who used Aramaic for official purposes, the Tanukhids, and the Ghassanids. These dialects were local, coming from the Hauran—and not from the Arabian peninsula— and related to later Classical Arabic. Initially restricted to the steppe, Arabic-speaking nomads started to settle in cities and fertile areas after the Plague of Justinian in 542 CE. These Arab communities stretched from the southern extremities of the Syrian Desert to central Syria, the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, and the Beqaa Valley.
### Muslim conquest of the Levant
The Muslim conquest of the Levant (634–640) brought Arabic speakers from the Arabian Peninsula who settled in the Levant. Arabic became the language of trade and public life in cities, while Aramaic continued to be spoken at home and in the countryside. Arabic gradually replaced Greek as the language of administration in 700 by order of the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik. The language shift from Aramaic to vernacular Arabic was a long process over several generations, with an extended period of bilingualism, especially among non-Muslims. Christians continued to speak Syriac for about two centuries, and Syriac remained their literary language until the 14th century. In its spoken form, Aramaic nearly disappeared, except for a few Aramaic-speaking villages, but it has left substrate influences on Levantine.
Different Peninsular Arabic dialects competed for prestige, including the Hijazi vernacular of the Umayyad elites. In the Levant, these Peninsular dialects mixed with ancient forms of Arabic, such as the northern Old Arabic dialect. By the mid-6th century CE, the Petra papyri show that the onset of the article and its vowel seem to have weakened. The article is sometimes written as /el-/ or simply /l-/. A similar, but not identical, situation is found in the texts from the Islamic period. Unlike the pre-Islamic attestations, the coda of the article in 'conquest Arabic' assimilates to a following coronal consonant. According to Pr. Simon Hopkins, this document shows that there is "a very impressive continuity in colloquial Arabic usage, and the roots of the modern vernaculars are thus seen to lie very deep".
### Medieval and early modern era
The Damascus Psalm Fragment, dated to the 9th century but possibly earlier, sheds light on the Damascus dialect of that period. Because its Arabic text is written in Greek characters, it reveals the pronunciation of the time; it features many examples of imāla (the fronting and raising of toward ). It also features a pre-grammarian standard of Arabic and the dialect from which it sprung, likely Old Hijazi. Scholars disagree on the dates of phonological changes. The shift of interdental spirants to dental stops dates to the 9th to 10th centuries or earlier. The shift from to a glottal stop is dated between the 11th and 15th centuries. Imāla seems already important in pre-Islamic times.
Swedish orientalist Carlo Landberg [sv] writes about the vulgarisms encountered in Damascene poet Usama ibn Munqidh's Memoirs: "All of them are found in today's spoken language of Syria and it is very interesting to note that that language is, on the whole, not very different from the language of ˀUsāma's days", in the 12th century. Lucas Caballero's Compendio (1709) describes spoken Damascene Arabic in the early 1700s. It corresponds to modern Damascene in some respects, such as the allomorphic variation between -a/-e in the feminine suffix. On the contrary, the insertion and deletion of vowels differ from the modern dialect.
From 1516 to 1918, the Ottoman Empire dominated the Levant. Many Western words entered Arabic through Ottoman Turkish as it was the main language for transmitting Western ideas into the Arab world.
### 20th and 21st centuries
The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century reduced the use of Turkish words due to Arabization and the negative perception of the Ottoman era among Arabs. With the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (1920–1946), the British protectorate over Jordan (1921–1946), and the British Mandate for Palestine (1923–1948), French and English words gradually entered Levantine Arabic. Similarly, Modern Hebrew has significantly influenced the Palestinian dialect of Arab Israelis since the establishment of Israel in 1948. In the 1960s, Said Akl—inspired by the Maltese and Turkish alphabets— designed a new Latin alphabet for Lebanese and promoted the official use of Lebanese instead of MSA, but this movement was unsuccessful.
Although Levantine dialects have remained stable over the past two centuries, in cities such as Amman and Damascus, language standardization occurs through variant reduction and linguistic homogenization among the various religious groups and neighborhoods. Urbanization and the increasing proportion of youth constitute the causes of dialect change. Urban forms are considered more prestigious, and prestige dialects of the capitals are replacing the rural varieties. With the emergence of social media, the amount of written Levantine has also significantly increased online.
## Status and usage
### Diglossia and code-switching
Levantine is not recognized in any state or territory. MSA is the sole official language in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria; it has a "special status" in Israel under the Basic Law. French is also recognized in Lebanon. In Turkey, the only official language is Turkish. Any variation from MSA is considered a "dialect" of Arabic. As in the rest of the Arab world, this linguistic situation has been described as diglossia: MSA is nobody's first acquired language; it is learned through formal instruction rather than transmission from parent to child. This diglossia has been compared to the use of Latin as the sole written, official, liturgical, and literary language in Europe during the medieval period, while Romance languages were the spoken languages. Levantine and MSA are mutually unintelligible. They differ significantly in their phonology, morphology, lexicon and syntax.
MSA is the language of literature, official documents, and formal written media (newspapers, instruction leaflets, school books). In spoken form, MSA is mostly used when reading from a scripted text (e.g., news bulletins) and for prayer and sermons in the mosque or church. In Israel, Hebrew is the language used in the public sphere, except internally among the Arab communities. Levantine is the usual medium of communication in all other domains.
Traditionally in the Arab world, colloquial varieties, such as Levantine, have been regarded as corrupt forms of MSA, less eloquent and not fit for literature, and thus looked upon with disdain. Because the French and the British emphasized vernaculars when they colonized the Arab world, dialects were also seen as a tool of colonialism and imperialism. Writing in the vernacular has been controversial because pan-Arab nationalists consider that this might divide the Arab people into different nations. On the other hand, Classical Arabic is seen as "the language of the Quran" and revered by Muslims who form the majority of the population. It is believed to be pure and everlasting, and Islamic religious ideology considers vernaculars to be inferior. Until recently, the use of Levantine in formal settings or written form was often ideologically motivated, for instance in opposition to pan-Arabism. Language attitudes are shifting, and using Levantine became de-ideologized for most speakers by the late 2010s. Levantine is now regarded in a more positive light, and its use in informal modes of writing is acknowledged, thanks to its recent widespread use online in both written and spoken forms.
Code-switching between Levantine, MSA, English, French (in Lebanon and among Arab Christians in Syria), and Hebrew (in Israel) is frequent among Levantine speakers, in both informal and formal settings (such as on television). Gordon cites two Lebanese examples: "Bonjour, ya habibti, how are you?" ("Hello, my love, how are you?") and "Oui, but leish?" ("Yes, but why?"). Code-switching also happens in politics. For instance, not all politicians master MSA in Lebanon, so they rely on Lebanese. Many public and formal speeches and most political talk shows are in Lebanese instead of MSA. In Israel, Arabic and Hebrew are allowed in the Knesset, but Arabic is rarely used. MK Ahmad Tibi often adds Palestinian Arabic sentences to his Hebrew speech but only gives partial speeches in Arabic.
### Education
In the Levant, MSA is the only variety authorized for use in schools, although in practice, lessons are often taught in a mix of MSA and Levantine with, for instance, the lesson read out in MSA and explained in Levantine. In Lebanon, about 50% of school students study in French. In most Arab universities, the medium of instruction is MSA in social sciences and humanities, and English or French in the applied and medical sciences. In Syria, only MSA is used. In Turkey, article 42.9 of the Constitution prohibits languages other than Turkish from being taught as a mother tongue and almost all Arabic speakers are illiterate in Arabic unless they have learned MSA for religious purposes.
In Israel, MSA is the only language of instruction in Arab schools. Hebrew is studied as a second language by all Palestinian students from at least the second grade and English from the third grade. In Jewish schools, in 2012, 23,000 pupils were studying spoken Palestinian in 800 elementary schools. Palestinian Arabic is compulsory in Jewish elementary schools in the Northern District; otherwise, Jewish schools teach MSA. Junior high schools must teach all students MSA, but only two-thirds meet this obligation. At all stages in 2012, 141,000 Jewish students were learning Arabic. In 2020, 3.7% of Jewish students took the Bagrut exam in MSA.
### Films and music
Most films and songs are in vernacular Arabic. Egypt was the most influential center of Arab media productions (movies, drama, TV series) during the 20th century, but Levantine is now competing with Egyptian. As of 2013, about 40% of all music production in the Arab world was in Lebanese. Lebanese television is the oldest and largest private Arab broadcast industry. Most big-budget pan-Arab entertainment shows are filmed in the Lebanese dialect in the studios of Beirut. Moreover, the Syrian dialect dominates in Syrian TV series (such as Bab Al-Hara) and in the dubbing of Turkish television dramas (such as Noor), famous across the Arab world.
As of 2009, most Arabic satellite television networks use colloquial varieties in their programs, except news bulletins in MSA. The use of vernacular in broadcasting started in Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War and expanded to the rest of the Arab world. In 2009, Al Jazeera used MSA only and Al Arabiya and Al-Manar used MSA or a hybrid between MSA and colloquial for talk shows. On the popular Lebanese satellite channel Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International (LBCI), Arab and international news bulletins are only in MSA, while the Lebanese national news broadcast is in a mix of MSA and Lebanese Arabic.
### Written media
Levantine is seldom written, except for some novels, plays, and humorous writings. Most Arab critics do not acknowledge the literary dignity of prose in dialect. Prose written in Lebanese goes back to at least 1892 when Tannus al-Hurr published Riwāyat aš-šābb as-sikkīr ʾay Qiṣṣat Naṣṣūr as-Sikrī, 'The tale of the drunken youth, or The story of Nassur the Drunkard'. In the 1960s, Said Akl led a movement in Lebanon to replace MSA as the national and literary language, and a handful of writers wrote in Lebanese. Foreign works, such as La Fontaine's Fables, were translated into Lebanese using Akl's alphabet. The Gospel of Mark was published in Palestinian in 1940, followed by the Gospel of Matthew and the Letter of James in 1946. The four gospels were translated in Lebanese using Akl's alphabet in 1996 by Gilbert Khalifé. Muris 'Awwad translated the four gospels and The Little Prince in 2001 in Lebanese in Arabic script. The Little Prince was also translated into Palestinian and published in two biscriptal editions (one Arabic/Hebrew script, one Arabic/Latin script).
Newspapers usually use MSA and reserve Levantine for sarcastic commentaries and caricatures. Headlines in Levantine are common. The letter to the editor section often includes entire paragraphs in Levantine. Many newspapers also regularly publish personal columns in Levantine, such as خرم إبرة xurm ʾibra, lit. '[through the] needle's eye' in the weekend edition of Al-Ayyam. From 1983 to 1990, Said Akl's newspaper Lebnaan was published in Lebanese written in the Latin alphabet. Levantine is also commonly used in zajal and other forms of oral poetry. Zajal written in vernacular was published in Lebanese newspapers such as Al-Mashriq ("The Levant", from 1898) and Ad-Dabbur ("The Hornet", from 1925). In the 1940s, five reviews in Beirut were dedicated exclusively to poetry in Lebanese. In a 2013 study, Abuhakema investigated 270 written commercial ads in two Jordanian (Al Ghad and Ad-Dustour) and two Palestinian (Al-Quds and Al-Ayyam) daily newspapers. The study concluded that MSA is still the most used variety in ads, although both varieties are acceptable and Levantine is increasingly used.
Most comedies are written in Levantine. In Syria, plays became more common and popular in the 1980s by using Levantine instead of Classical Arabic. Saadallah Wannous, the most renowned Syrian playwright, used Syrian Arabic in his later plays. Comic books, like the Syrian comic strip Kūktīl, are often written in Levantine instead of MSA. In novels and short stories, most authors, such as Arab Israelis Riyad Baydas [ar] and Odeh Bisharat [ar], write the dialogues in their Levantine dialect, while the rest of the text is in MSA. Lebanese authors Elias Khoury (especially in his recent works) and Kahlil Gibran wrote the main narrative in Levantine. Some collections of short stories and anthologies of Palestinian folktales (turāṯ, 'heritage literature') display full texts in dialect. On the other hand, Palestinian children's literature is almost exclusively written in MSA.
Internet users in the Arab world communicate with their dialect language (such as Levantine) more than MSA on social media (such as Twitter, Facebook, or in the comments of online newspapers). According to one study, between 12% and 23% of all dialectal Arabic content online was written in Levantine depending on the platform.
## Phonology
Levantine phonology is characterized by rich socio-phonetic variations along socio-cultural (gender; religion; urban, rural or Bedouin) and geographical lines. For instance, in urban varieties, interdentals , , and tend to merge to stops or fricatives \~ ; \~ ; and \~ respectively. The Classical Arabic voiceless uvular plosive is pronounced (among Druze), (in most urban centers, especially Beirut, Damascus, and Jerusalem, and in Amman among women), (in Amman among men, in most other Jordanian dialects and in Gaza), or even (in rural Palestinian).
Vowel length is phonemic in Levantine. Vowels often show dialectal or allophonic variations that are socially, geographically, and phonologically conditioned. Diphthongs and are found in some Lebanese dialects, they respectively correspond to long vowels and in other dialects. One of the most distinctive features of Levantine is word-final imāla, a process by which the vowel corresponding to ة tāʼ marbūṭah is raised from to , , or even in some dialects. The difference between the short vowel pairs and as well as and is not always phonemic. The vowel quality is usually and in stressed syllables. Vowels in word-final position are shortened. As a result, more short vowels are distinguished.
In the north, stressed and merge. They usually become , but might also be near emphatic consonants. Syrians and Beirutis tend to pronounce both of them as schwa . The long vowel "ā" is pronounced similar to "ē" or even merges with "ē", when it is not near an emphatic or guttural consonant.
Syllabification and phonotactics are complex, even within a single dialect. Speakers often add a short vowel, called helping vowel or epenthetic vowel, sounding like a short schwa right before a word-initial consonant cluster to break it, as in ktiːr <sup>ǝ</sup>mniːħ, 'very good/well'. They are not considered part of the word and are never stressed. This process of anaptyxis is subject to social and regional variation. They are usually not written. A helping vowel is inserted:
- Before the word, if this word starts with two consonants and is at the beginning of a sentence,
- Between two words, when a word ending in a consonant is followed by a word that starts with two consonants,
- Between two consonants in the same word, if this word ends with two consonants and either is followed by a consonant or is at the end of a sentence.
In the Damascus dialect, word stress falls on the last superheavy syllable (CVːC or CVCC). In the absence of a superheavy syllable:
- if the word is bisyllabic, stress falls on the penultimate,
- if the word contains three or more syllables and none of them is superheavy, then stress falls:
- on the penultimate, if it is heavy (CVː or CVC),
- on the antepenult, if the penultimate is light (CV).
## Orthography and writing systems
Until recently, Levantine was rarely written. Brustad and Zuniga report that in 1988, they did not find anything published in Levantine in Syria. By the late 2010s, written Levantine was used in many public venues and on the internet, especially social media. There is no standard Levantine orthography. There have been failed attempts to Latinize Levantine, especially Lebanese. For instance, Said Akl promoted a modified Latin alphabet. Akl used this alphabet to write books and publish a newspaper, Lebnaan.
Written communication takes place using a variety of orthographies and writing systems, including Arabic (right-to-left script), Hebrew (right-to-left, used in Israel, especially online among Bedouin, Arab Christians, and Druze), Latin (Arabizi, left-to-right), and a mixture of the three. Arabizi is a non-standard romanization used by Levantine speakers in social media and discussion forums, SMS messaging, and online chat. Arabizi initially developed because the Arabic script was not available or not easy to use on most computers and smartphones; its usage declined after Arabic software became widespread. According to a 2020 survey done in Nazareth, Arabizi "emerged" as a "'bottom-up' orthography" and there is now "a high degree of normativization or standardisation in Arabizi orthography." Among consonants, only five (ج ,ذ ,ض ,ظ ,ق) revealed variability in their Arabizi representation.
A 2012 study found that on the Jordanian forum Mahjoob about one-third of messages were written in Levantine in the Arabic script, one-third in Arabizi, and one-third in English. Another 2012 study found that on Facebook, the Arabic script was dominant in Syria, while the Latin script dominated in Lebanon. Both scripts were used in Palestine, Israel, and Jordan. Several factors affect script choice: formality (the Arabic script is more formal), ethnicity and religion (Muslims use the Arabic script more while Israeli Druze and Bedouins prefer Hebrew characters), age (young use Latin more), education (educated people write more in Latin), and script congruence (the tendency to reply to a post in the same script).
The Arabic alphabet is always cursive, and letters vary in shape depending on their position within a word. Letters exhibit up to four distinct forms corresponding to an initial, medial (middle), final, or isolated position (IMFI). Only the isolated form is shown in the tables below. In the Arabic script, short vowels are not represented by letters but by diacritics above or below the letters. When Levantine is written with the Arabic script, short vowels are usually only indicated if a word is ambiguous. In the Arabic script, a shadda above a consonant doubles it. In Latin alphabet, the consonant is written twice: , mudarrise, 'a female teacher' / , madrase, 'a school'. Said Akl's Latin alphabet uses non-standard characters.
## Grammar
VSO and SVO word orders are possible in Levantine. In both cases, the verb precedes the object. SVO is more common in Levantine, while Classical Arabic prefers VSO. Subject-initial order indicates topic-prominent sentences, while verb-initial order indicates subject-prominent sentences. In interrogative sentences, the interrogative particle comes first.
### Nouns and noun phrases
Nouns are either masculine or feminine and singular, dual or plural. The dual is formed with the suffix ين- -ēn. Most feminine singular nouns end with ـة tāʼ marbūṭah, pronounced as –a or -e depending on the preceding consonant: -a after guttural (ح خ ع غ ق ه ء) and emphatic consonants (ر ص ض ط ظ), -e after other consonants. Unlike Classical Arabic, Levantine lacks case marking.
Levantine lacks an indefinite article; nouns (except proper nouns) are marked indefinite by the absence of the definite article. The Arabic definite article ال il precedes the noun or adjective and has multiple pronunciations. Its vowel is dropped when the preceding word ends in a vowel. A helping vowel "e" is inserted if the following word begins with a consonant cluster. It assimilates with "sun letters" (consonants that are pronounced with the tip of the tongue). The letter Jeem (ج) is a sun letter for speakers pronouncing it as [] but not for those pronouncing it as [].
For nouns referring to humans, the regular (also called sound) masculine plural is formed with the suffix -īn. The regular feminine plural is formed with -āt. The masculine plural is used to refer to a group with both genders. There are many broken plurals (also called internal plurals), in which the consonantal root of the singular is changed. These plural patterns are shared with other varieties of Arabic and may also be applied to foreign borrowings. Several patterns of broken plurals exist, and it is impossible to predict them exactly. One common pattern is for instance CvCvC =\> CuCaCa (e.g.: singular: mudīr, 'manager'; plural: mudara, 'managers'). Inanimate objects take feminine singular agreement in the plural, for verbs, attached pronouns, and adjectives.
The genitive is formed by putting the nouns next to each other in a construct called iḍāfah, lit. 'addition'. The first noun is always indefinite. If an indefinite noun is added to a definite noun, it results in a new definite compound noun: كتاب الإستاذ ktāb il-ʾistāz , 'the book of the teacher'. Besides possessiveness, the iḍāfah can also specify or define the first term. Although there is no limit to the number of nouns in an iḍāfah, it is rare to have three or more. The first term must be in the construct state: if it ends in the feminine marker (/-ah/, or /-ih/), it changes to (/-at/, /-it/) in pronunciation (i.e. ة pronounced as /t/): مدينة نيويورك madīnet nyū-yōrk , 'New York City'.
Adjectives typically have three forms: a masculine singular, a feminine singular, and a plural. In most adjectives, the feminine is formed through the addition of -a/e. Many adjectives have the pattern فعيل (fʕīl / CCīC or faʕīl / CaCīC), but other patterns exist. Adjectives derived from nouns using the suffix ـي -i are called nisba adjectives. Their feminine form ends in ـية -iyye and their plural in ـيين -iyyīn. Nouns in dual have adjectives in plural. The plural of adjectives is either regular ending in ـين -īn or is an irregular "broken" plural. It is used with nouns referring to people. For non-human, inanimate, or abstract nouns, adjectives use either the plural or the singular feminine form regardless of gender.
Adjectives follow the noun they modify and agree with it in definiteness. Adjectives without an article after a definite noun express a clause with the invisible copula "to be":
- بيت كبير bēt kbīr , 'a big house'
- البيت الكبير il-bēt le-kbīr , 'the big house'
- البيت كبير il-bēt kbīr , 'the house is big'
There are no separate comparative and superlative forms: the elative is used instead. The elative is formed by adding a hamza at the beginning of the adjective and replacing the vowels by "a" (pattern: أفعل ʾafʕal / aCCaC, e.g.: kbīr, 'big'; ʾakbar, 'bigger/biggest'). Adjective endings in (i) and (u) are changed into (a). If the second and third consonant in the root are the same, they are geminated (pattern: أفلّ ʾafall / ʾaCaCC). When an elative modifies a noun, it precedes the noun, and no definite article is used.
Levantine does not distinguish between adverbs and adjectives in adverbial function. Almost any adjective can be used as an adverb: mnīḥ, 'good' vs. نمتي منيح؟ nimti mnīḥ? , 'Did you sleep well?'. MSA adverbs, with the suffix -an, are often used, e.g., ʾabadan, 'at all'. Adverbs often appear after the verb or the adjective. ktīr, 'very' can be positioned after or before the adjective. Adverbs of manner can usually be formed using bi- followed by the nominal form: b-sirʿa, 'fast, quickly', lit. 'with speed'.
`miš or in Syrian Arabic mū negate adjectives (including active participles), demonstratives, and nominal phrases:`
- أنا مش فلسطيني. ʾana miš falasṭīni. , 'I'm not Palestinian.'
- مش عارفة. miš ʕārfe. , 'She doesn't know.'
- هادا مش منيح. hāda miš mnīḥ. / هاد مو منيح. hād mū mnīḥ., 'That's not good.'
### Pronouns
Levantine has eight persons and eight pronouns. Contrary to MSA, dual pronouns do not exist in Levantine; the plural is used instead. Because conjugated verbs indicate the subject with a prefix or a suffix, independent subject pronouns are usually unnecessary and mainly used for emphasis. Feminine plural forms modifying human females are found primarily in rural and Bedouin areas. They are not mentioned below.
Direct object pronouns are indicated by suffixes attached to the conjugated verb. Their form depends on whether the verb ends with a consonant or a vowel. Suffixed to nouns, these pronouns express possessive. Levantine does not have the verb "to have". Instead, possession is expressed using the prepositions ʕind, lit. 'at' (meaning "to possess") and maʕ, lit. 'with' (meaning "to have on oneself"), followed by personal pronoun suffixes.
Indirect object pronouns (dative) are suffixed to the conjugated verb. They are formed by adding an ل (-l) and then the possessive suffix to the verb. They precede object pronouns if present:
- جاب الجريدة لأبوي jāb il-jarīde la-ʔabūy , 'he brought the newspaper to my father',
- جابها لأبوي jāb-ha la-ʔabūy , 'he brought it to my father',
- جابله الجريدة jab-lo il-jarīde , 'he brought him the newspaper',
- جابله ياها jab-lo yyā-ha , 'he brought it to him'.
Demonstrative pronouns have three referential types: immediate, proximal, and distal. The distinction between proximal and distal demonstratives is of physical, temporal, or metaphorical distance. The genderless and numberless immediate demonstrative article ha is translated by "this/the", to designate something immediately visible or accessible.
### Verbs and verb phrases
#### Root and verb forms
Most Levantine verbs are based on a triliteral root (also called radical or Semitic root) made of three consonants. The set of consonants communicates the basic meaning of a verb, e.g. k-t-b ('write'), q-r- ('read'), -k-l ('eat'). Changes to the vowels in between the consonants, along with prefixes or suffixes, specify grammatical functions such as tense, person, and number, in addition to changes in the meaning of the verb that embody grammatical concepts such as mood (e.g., indicative, subjunctive, imperative), voice (active or passive), and functions such as causative, intensive, or reflexive. Quadriliteral roots are less common but often used to coin new vocabulary or Arabicize foreign words. The base form is the third-person masculine singular of the perfect (also called past) tense.
Almost all Levantine verbs belong to one of ten verb forms (also called verb measures, stems, patterns, or types). Form I, the most common one, serves as a base for the other nine forms. Each form carries a different verbal idea relative to the meaning of its root. Technically, ten verbs can be constructed from any given triconsonantal root, although not all of these forms are used. After Form I, Forms II, V, VII, and X are the most common. Some irregular verbs do not fit into any of the verb forms.
In addition to its form, each verb has a "quality":
- Sound (or regular): 3 distinct radicals, neither the second nor the third is 'w' or 'y',
- Verbs containing the radicals 'w' or 'y' are called weak. They are either:
- Hollow: verbs with 'w' or 'y' as the second radical, which becomes a long 'a' in some forms, or
- Defective: verbs with 'w' or 'y' as the third radical, treated as a vowel,
- Geminate (or doubled): the second and third radicals are identical, remaining together as a double consonant.
#### Regular verb conjugation
The Levantine verb has only two tenses: past (perfect) and present (also called imperfect, b-imperfect, or bi-imperfect). The present tense is formed by adding the prefix b- or m- to the verb root. The future tense is an extension of the present tense. The negative imperative is the same as the negative present with helping verb (imperfect). Various prefixes and suffixes designate the grammatical person and number as well as the mood. The following table shows the paradigm of a sound Form I verb, katab, 'to write'. There is no copula in the present tense in Levantine. In other tenses, the verb kān is used. Its present tense form is used in the future tense.
The b-imperfect is usually used for the indicative mood (non-past present, habitual/general present, narrative present, planned future actions, or potential). The prefix b- is deleted in the subjunctive mood, usually after modal verbs, auxiliary verbs, pseudo-verbs, prepositions, and particles. The future can also be expressed by the imperfect preceded by the particle raḥ or by the prefixed particle ḥa-. The present continuous is formed with the progressive particle ʕam followed by the imperfect, with or without the initial b/m depending on the speaker.
The active participle, also called present participle, is grammatically an adjective derived from a verb. Depending on the context, it can express the present or present continuous (with verbs of motion, location, or mental state), the near future, or the present perfect (past action with a present result). It can also serve as a noun or an adjective. The passive participle, also called past participle, has a similar meaning as in English (i.e., sent, written). It is mainly used as an adjective and sometimes as a noun. It is inflected from the verb based on its verb form. However, passive participles are largely limited to verb forms I (CvCvC) and II (CvCCvC), becoming maCCūC for the former and mCaCCaC for the latter.
#### Compound tenses
The verb kān, followed by another verb, forms compound tenses. Both verbs are conjugated with their subject.
#### Passive voice
Form I verbs often correspond to an equivalent passive form VII verb, with the prefix n-. Form II and form III verbs usually correspond to an equivalent passive in forms V and VI, respectively, with the prefix t-. While the verb forms V, VI and VII are common in the simple past and compound tenses, the passive participle (past participle) is preferred in the present tense.
#### Negation
Verbs and prepositional phrases are negated by the particle mā / ma either on its own or, in the south, together with the suffix -iš at the end of the verb or prepositional phrase. In Palestinian, it is also common to negate verbs by the suffix -iš only.
## Vocabulary
The lexicon of Levantine is overwhelmingly Arabic, and a large number of Levantine words are shared with at least another vernacular Arabic variety outside the Levant, especially with Egyptian. Many words, such as verbal nouns (also called gerunds or masdar), are derived from a Semitic root. For instance, dars, 'a lesson' is derived from daras, 'to study, to learn'. Levantine also includes layers of ancient languages: Aramaic (mainly Western Aramaic), Canaanite, classical Hebrew (Biblical and Mishnaic), Persian, Greek, and Latin.
Aramaic influence is significant, especially in vocabulary and in rural areas. Aramaic words underwent morphophonemic adaptation when they entered Levantine. Over time, it has become difficult to identify them. They belong to different fields of everyday life such as seasonal agriculture, housekeeping, tools and utensils, and Christian religious terms. Aramaic is still spoken in the Syrian villages of Maaloula, al-Sarkha, and Jubb'adin; near them, Aramaic borrowings are more frequent.
Since the early modern period, Levantine has borrowed from Turkish and European languages, mainly English (particularly in technology and entertainment), French (especially in Lebanese due to the French Mandate), German, and Italian. Modern Hebrew significantly influences the Palestinian dialect spoken by Arab Israelis. Loanwords are gradually replaced with words of Arabic root. For instance, borrowings from Ottoman Turkish that were common in the 20th century have been largely replaced by Arabic words after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Arabic-speaking minorities in Turkey (mainly in Hatay) are still influenced by Turkish.
With about 50% of common words, Levantine (especially Palestinian) is the closest colloquial variety to MSA in terms of lexical similarity. In the vocabulary of five-year-old native Palestinians: 40% of the words are not present in MSA, 40% are related to MSA but phonologically different (sound change, addition, or deletion), and 20% are identical to MSA. In terms of morphemes, 20% are identical between MSA and Palestinian Arabic, 30% are strongly overlapping (slightly different forms, same function), 20% are partially overlapping (different forms, same function), and 30% are unique to Palestinian Arabic.
## Sample text
|
37,534 |
Hyderabad
| 1,173,674,948 |
Capital of Telangana, India
|
[
"1590s establishments in India",
"1591 establishments in Asia",
"Capitals of former nations",
"Cities and towns in Hyderabad district, India",
"Cities in Telangana",
"Former capital cities in India",
"Former national capitals",
"High-technology business districts in India",
"Historic districts",
"Hyderabad, India",
"Indian capital cities",
"Metropolitan cities in India",
"Populated places established in 1591"
] |
Hyderabad (/ˈhaɪdərəbæd/ HY-dər-ə-bad; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies 650 km<sup>2</sup> (250 sq mi) on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of 542 m (1,778 ft), much of Hyderabad is situated on hilly terrain around artificial lakes, including the Hussain Sagar lake, predating the city's founding, in the north of the city centre. According to the 2011 Census of India, Hyderabad is the fourth-most populous city in India with a population of 6.9 million residents within the city limits, and has a population of 9.7 million residents in the metropolitan region, making it the sixth-most populous metropolitan area in India. With an output of US\$74 billion, Hyderabad has the fifth-largest urban economy in India.
The Qutb Shahi dynasty's Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah established Hyderabad in 1591 to extend the capital beyond the fortified Golconda. In 1687, the city was annexed by the Mughals. In 1724, Asaf Jah I, the Mughal viceroy, declared his sovereignty and founded the Asaf Jahi dynasty, also known as the Nizams. Hyderabad served as the imperial capital of the Asaf Jahi's from 1769 to 1948. As capital of the princely state of Hyderabad, the city housed the British Residency and cantonment until Indian independence in 1947. Hyderabad was annexed by the Indian Union in 1948 and continued as a capital of Hyderabad State from 1948 to 1956. After the introduction of the States Reorganisation Act of 1956, Hyderabad was made the capital of the newly formed Andhra Pradesh. In 2014, Andhra Pradesh was split to form the state of Telangana, and Hyderabad became the joint capital of the two states with a transitional arrangement scheduled to end in 2024. Since 1956, the city has housed the Rashtrapati Nilayam, the winter office of the president of India.
Relics of the Qutb Shahi and Nizam eras remain visible today; the Charminar has come to symbolise the city. By the end of the early modern era, the Mughal Empire had declined in the Deccan, and the Nizam's patronage attracted men of letters from various parts of the world. A distinctive culture arose from the amalgamation of local and migrated artisans, with Painting, handicraft, jewellery, literature, dialect and clothing are prominent still today. Through its cuisine, the city is listed as a creative city of gastronomy by UNESCO. The Telugu film industry based in the city is the highest-grossing film industry in India as of 2021.
Until the 19th century Hyderabad was known for the pearl industry and was nicknamed the "City of Pearls", and was the only trading centre for Golconda diamonds in the world. Many of the city's historical and traditional bazaars remain open. Hyderabad's central location between the Deccan Plateau and the Western Ghats, and industrialisation throughout the 20th century attracted major Indian research, manufacturing, educational and financial institutions. Since the 1990s, the city has emerged as an Indian hub of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. The formation of the special economic zones of Hardware Park and HITEC City, dedicated to information technology, has encouraged leading multinationals to set up operations in Hyderabad.
## History
### Toponymy
The name Hyderabad means "Haydar's city" or "lion city", from haydar 'lion' and ābād 'city', after Caliph Ali Ibn Abi Talib, also known as Haydar because of his lion-like valour in battle.
The city was originally called Baghnagar ("city of gardens"), and later acquired the name Hyderabad. The European travelers von Poser and Thévenot found both names in use in the 17th century.
One popular legend suggests that the founder of the city, Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, named it Bhagya-nagar ("fortunate city") after Bhagmati, a local nautch (dancing) girl whom he married. She converted to Islam and adopted the title Hyder Mahal. The city would have been named Hyderabad in her honour.
### Early and medieval history
The discovery of Megalithic burial sites and cairn circles in the suburbs of Hyderabad, in 1851 by Philip Meadows Taylor, a polymath in the service of the Nizam, had provided evidence that the region in which the city stands has been inhabited from the Stone Age. In 2008, Archaeologists excavating near the city have unearthed Iron Age sites that may date from 500 BCE. The region comprising modern Hyderabad and its surroundings was ruled by the Chalukya dynasty from 624 CE to 1075 CE. Following the dissolution of the Chalukya empire into four parts in the 11th century, Golconda—now part of Hyderabad—came under the control of the Kakatiya dynasty from 1158, whose seat of power was at Warangal—148 km (92 mi) northeast of modern Hyderabad. The Kakatiya ruler Ganapatideva 1199–1262 built a hilltop outpost—later known as Golconda Fort—to defend their western region.
The Kakatiya dynasty was reduced to a vassal of the Khalji dynasty in 1310 after its defeat by Sultan Alauddin Khalji of the Delhi Sultanate. This lasted until 1321, when the Kakatiya dynasty was annexed by Malik Kafur, Allaudin Khalji's general. During this period, Alauddin Khalji took the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which is said to have been mined from the Kollur Mines of Golconda, to Delhi. Muhammad bin Tughluq succeeded to the Delhi sultanate in 1325, bringing Warangal under the rule of the Tughlaq dynasty, Malik Maqbul Tilangani was appointed its governor. In 1336 the regional chieftains Musunuri Nayakas—who revolted against the Delhi sultanate in 1333—took Warangal under their direct control and declared it as their capital. In 1347 when Ala-ud-Din Bahman Shah, a governor under bin Tughluq, rebelled against Delhi and established the Bahmani Sultanate in the Deccan Plateau, with Gulbarga—200 km (124 mi) west of Hyderabad—as its capital, both the neighboring rulers Musunuri Nayakas of Warangal and Bahmani Sultans of Gulbarga engaged in many wars until 1364–65 when a peace treaty was signed and the Musunuri Nayakas ceded Golconda Fort to the Bahmani Sultan. The Bahmani Sultans ruled the region until 1518 and were the first independent Muslim rulers of the Deccan.
In 1496 Sultan Quli was appointed as a Bahmani governor of Telangana, he rebuilt, expanded and fortified the old mud-fort of Golconda and named the city "Muhammad nagar". In 1518, he revolted against the Bahmani Sultanate and established the Qutb Shahi dynasty. The fifth Qutb Shahi sultan, Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, established Hyderabad on the banks of the Musi River in 1591, to avoid water shortages experienced at Golconda. During his rule, he had the Charminar and Mecca Masjid built in the city. On 21 September 1687, the Golconda Sultanate came under the rule of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb after a year-long siege of the Golconda Fort. The annexed city "Hyderabad" was renamed Darul Jihad (House of War), whereas the main territories of the Golconda Sultanate were incorporated into the Mughal empire as the province Hyderabad Subah. Mughal rule in Hyderabad was administered by three main governors: Jan Sipar Khan (1688–1700), his son Rustam Dil Khan (1700–13) and Mubariz Khan (1713–24).
### Modern history
In 1713, Mughal emperor Farrukhsiyar appointed Mubariz Khan as Governor of Hyderabad. During his tenure, he fortified the city and controlled the internal and neighbouring threats. In 1714 Farrukhsiyar appointed Asaf Jah I as Viceroy of the Deccan—(administrator of six Mughal governorates) with the title Nizam-ul-Mulk (Administrator of the Realm). In 1721, he was appointed as Prime Minister of the Mughal Empire. His differences with the court nobles led him to resign from all the imperial responsibilities in 1723 and leave for Deccan. Under the influence of Asaf Jah I's opponents, Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah issued a decree to Mubariz Khan, to stop Asaf Jah I which resulted in the Battle of Shakar Kheda. In 1724, Asaf Jah I defeated Mubariz Khan to establish autonomy over the Deccan, named the region Hyderabad Deccan, and started what came to be known as the Asaf Jahi dynasty. Subsequent rulers retained the title Nizam ul-Mulk and were referred to as Asaf Jahi Nizams, or Nizams of Hyderabad. The death of Asaf Jah I in 1748 resulted in a period of political unrest as his sons and grandson—Nasir Jung (1748–1750), Muzaffar Jang (1750–1751) and Salabat Jung (1751–1762)—contended for the throne backed by opportunistic neighbouring states and colonial foreign forces. The accession of Asaf Jah II, who reigned from 1762 to 1803, ended the instability. In 1768 he signed the Treaty of Masulipatam—by which the East India Company in return for a fixed annual rent, got the right to control and collect the taxes at Coromandel Coast.
In 1769 Hyderabad city became the formal capital of the Asaf Jahi Nizams. In response to regular threats from Hyder Ali (Dalwai of Mysore), Baji Rao I (Peshwa of the Maratha Empire), and Basalath Jung (Asaf Jah II's elder brother, who was supported by French General the Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau), the Nizam signed a subsidiary alliance with the East India Company in 1798, allowing the British Indian Army to be stationed at Bolarum (modern Secunderabad) to protect the state's capital, for which the Nizams paid an annual maintenance to the British.
Until 1874 there were no modern industries in Hyderabad. With the introduction of railways in the 1880s, four factories were built to the south and east of Hussain Sagar lake, and during the early 20th century, Hyderabad was transformed into a modern city with the establishment of transport services, underground drainage, running water, electricity, telecommunications, universities, industries, and Begumpet Airport. The Nizams ruled the princely state of Hyderabad during the British Raj.
#### Post-Independence
After India gained independence, the Nizam declared his intention to remain independent rather than become part of the Indian Union or newly formed Dominion of Pakistan. The Hyderabad State Congress, with the support of the Indian National Congress and the Communist Party of India, began agitating against Nizam VII in 1948. On 17 September that year, the Indian Army took control of Hyderabad State after an invasion codenamed Operation Polo. With the defeat of his forces, Nizam VII capitulated to the Indian Union by signing an Instrument of Accession, which made him the Rajpramukh (Princely Governor) of the state until it was abolished on 31 October 1956.
Between 1946 and 1951, the Communist Party of India fomented the Telangana uprising against the feudal lords of the Telangana region. The Constitution of India, which became effective on 26 January 1950, made Hyderabad State one of the part B states of India, with Hyderabad city continuing to be the capital. In his 1955 report Thoughts on Linguistic States, B. R. Ambedkar, then chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution, proposed designating the city of Hyderabad as the second capital of India because of its amenities and strategic central location.
On 1 November 1956 the states of India were reorganised by language. Hyderabad state was split into three parts, which were merged with neighbouring states to form Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The nine Telugu- and Urdu-speaking districts of Hyderabad State in the Telangana region were merged with the Telugu-speaking Andhra State to create Andhra Pradesh, with Hyderabad as its capital. Several protests, known collectively as the Telangana movement, attempted to invalidate the merger and demanded the creation of a new Telangana state. Major actions took place in 1969 and 1972, and a third began in 2010. The city suffered several explosions: one at Dilsukhnagar in 2002 claimed two lives; terrorist bombs in May and August 2007 caused communal tension and riots; and two bombs exploded in February 2013. On 30 July 2013 the government of India declared that part of Andhra Pradesh would be split off to form a new Telangana state and that Hyderabad city would be the capital city and part of Telangana, while the city would also remain the capital of Andhra Pradesh for no more than ten years. On 3 October 2013 the Union Cabinet approved the proposal, and in February 2014 both houses of Parliament passed the Telangana Bill. With the final assent of the President of India, Telangana state was formed on 2 June 2014.
## Geography
Hyderabad is 1,566 km (973 mi) south of Delhi, 699 km (434 mi) southeast of Mumbai, and 570 km (350 mi) north of Bangalore by road. It is situated in the southern part of Telangana in southeastern India, along the banks of the Musi River, a tributary of Krishna River located on the Deccan Plateau in the northern part of South India. Greater Hyderabad covers 650 km<sup>2</sup> (250 sq mi), making it one of the largest metropolitan areas in India. With an average altitude of 542 m (1,778 ft), Hyderabad lies on predominantly sloping terrain of grey and pink granite, dotted with small hills, the highest being Banjara Hills at 672 m (2,205 ft). The city has numerous lakes sometime referred to as sagar, meaning "sea". Examples include artificial lakes created by dams on the Musi, such as Hussain Sagar (built in 1562 near the city centre), Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar. As of 1996, the city had 140 lakes and 834 water tanks (ponds).
### Climate
Hyderabad has a tropical wet and dry climate (Köppen Aw) bordering on a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen BSh). The annual mean temperature is 26.6 °C (79.9 °F); monthly mean temperatures are 21–33 °C (70–91 °F). Summers (March–June) are hot and dry, with average highs in the mid-to-high 30s Celsius; maximum temperatures often exceed 40 °C (104 °F) between April and June. The coolest temperatures occur in December and January, when the lowest temperature occasionally dips to 10 °C (50 °F). May is the hottest month, when daily temperatures range from 26–39 °C (79–102 °F); December, the coldest, has temperatures varying from 14.5–28 °C (58.1–82.4 °F).
Heavy rain from the south-west summer monsoon falls between June and October, supplying Hyderabad with most of its mean annual rainfall. Since records began in November 1891, the heaviest rainfall recorded in a 24-hour period was 241.5 mm (10 in) on 24 August 2000. The highest temperature ever recorded was 45.5 °C (114 °F) on 2 June 1966, and the lowest was 6.1 °C (43 °F) on 8 January 1946. The city receives 2,731 hours of sunshine per year; maximum daily sunlight exposure occurs in February.
### Conservation
Hyderabad's lakes and the sloping terrain of its low-lying hills provide habitat for an assortment of flora and fauna. As of 2016, the tree cover is 1.7% of the total city area, a decrease from 2.7% in 1996. The forest region in and around the city encompasses areas of ecological and biological importance, which are preserved in the form of national parks, zoos, mini-zoos and a wildlife sanctuary. Nehru Zoological Park, the city's one large zoo, is the first in India to have a lion and tiger safari park. Hyderabad has three national parks (Mrugavani National Park, Mahavir Harina Vanasthali National Park and Kasu Brahmananda Reddy National Park), and the Manjira Wildlife Sanctuary is about 50 km (31 mi) from the city. Hyderabad's other environmental reserves are: Kotla Vijayabhaskara Reddy Botanical Gardens, Ameenpur Lake, Shamirpet Lake, Hussain Sagar, Fox Sagar Lake, Mir Alam Tank and Patancheru Lake, which is home to regional birds and attracts seasonal migratory birds from different parts of the world. Organisations engaged in environmental and wildlife preservation include the Telangana Forest Department, Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), the Animal Welfare Board of India, the Blue Cross of Hyderabad and the University of Hyderabad.
## Administration
### Common capital status
According to the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 part 2 Section 5: "(1) On and from the appointed day, Hyderabad in the existing State of Andhra Pradesh, shall be the common capital of the State of Telangana and the State of Andhra Pradesh for such period not exceeding ten years. (2) After the expiry of the period referred to in sub-section (1), Hyderabad shall be the capital of the State of Telangana and there shall be a new capital for the State of Andhra Pradesh."
The same sections also define that the common capital includes the existing area designated as the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation under the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act, 1955. As stipulated in sections 3 and 18(1) of the Reorganisation Act, city MLAs are members of the Telangana state assembly.
### Local government
The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) oversees the civic infrastructure of the city, there are six administrative zones of GHMC: South Zone–(Charminar), East Zone–(L. B. Nagar), West Zone–(Serilingampally), North Zone–(Kukatpally), Northeast Zone–(Secunderabad) and Central Zone–(Khairatabad); these zones consist of 30 "circles", which together encompass 150 municipal wards. Each ward is represented by a corporator, elected by popular vote, as of 2020 the city has 7,400,000 voters of which 3,850,000 are male and 3,500,000 are female. The corporators elect the Mayor, who is the titular head of GHMC; executive powers rest with the Municipal Commissioner, appointed by the state government. The GHMC carries out the city's infrastructural work such as building and maintenance of roads and drains, town planning including construction regulation, maintenance of municipal markets and parks, solid waste management, the issuing of birth and death certificates, the issuing of trade licenses, collection of property tax, and community welfare services such as mother and child healthcare, and pre-school and non-formal education. The GHMC was formed in April 2007 by merging the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) with 12 municipalities of the Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy and Medak districts covering a total area of 650 km<sup>2</sup> (250 sq mi). The Secunderabad Cantonment Board is a civic administration agency overseeing an area of 40.1 km<sup>2</sup> (15.5 sq mi), where there are several military camps. The Osmania University campus is administered independently by the university authority. Appointed in February 2021, Gadwal Vijayalakshmi of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) is serving as the Mayor of GHMC.
In Hyderabad police jurisdiction is divided into three commissionerates: Hyderabad (established in 1847 AD, an oldest police commissionerate in India ), Cyberabad, and Rachakonda, each headed by a commissioner of police, who are Indian Police Service (IPS) officers. The Hyderabad police is a division of the Telangana Police, under the state Home Ministry.
The jurisdictions of the city's administrative agencies are, in ascending order of size: the Hyderabad Police area, Hyderabad district, the GHMC area ("Hyderabad city"), and the area under the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA). The HMDA is an apolitical urban planning agency that covers the GHMC and its suburbs, extending to 54 mandals in five districts encircling the city. It coordinates the development activities of GHMC and suburban municipalities and manages the administration of bodies such as the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB).
Hyderabad is the seat of the Government of Telangana, Government of Andhra Pradesh and the President of India's winter retreat Rashtrapati Nilayam, as well as the Telangana High Court and various local government agencies. The Lower City Civil Court and the Metropolitan Criminal Court are under the jurisdiction of the High Court. The GHMC area contains 24 State Legislative Assembly constituencies, which form five constituencies of the Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Parliament of India).
### Utility services
The HMWSSB (Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply & Sewage Board) regulates rainwater harvesting, sewerage services, and water supply. In 2005, the HMWSSB started operating a 116 km-long (72 mi) water supply pipeline from Nagarjuna Sagar Dam to meet increasing demand. The Telangana Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (TSPDCL) manages electricity supply. As of 2014, there were 15 fire stations in the city, operated by the Telangana State Disaster and Fire Response Department. The government-owned India Post has five head post offices and many sub-post offices in Hyderabad, which are complemented by private courier services.
### Pollution control
Hyderabad produces around 4,500 tonnes of solid waste daily, which is transported from collection units in Imlibun, Yousufguda and Lower Tank Bund to the dumpsite in Jawaharnagar. Disposal is managed by the Integrated Solid Waste Management project which was started by the GHMC in 2010. Rapid urbanisation and increased economic activity has led to increased industrial waste, air, noise and water pollution, which is regulated by the Telangana Pollution Control Board (TPCB). The contribution of different sources to air pollution in 2006 was: 20–50% from vehicles, 40–70% from a combination of vehicle discharge and road dust, 10–30% from industrial discharges and 3–10% from the burning of household rubbish. Deaths resulting from atmospheric particulate matter are estimated at 1,700–3,000 each year. The city's "VIP areas", the Assembly building, Secretariat, and Telangana chief minister's office, have particularly low air quality index ratings, suffering from high levels of PM2.5's. Ground water around Hyderabad, which has a hardness of up to 1000 ppm, around three times higher than is desirable, is the main source of drinking water but the increasing population and consequent increase in demand has led to a decline in not only ground water but also river and lake levels. This shortage is further exacerbated by inadequately treated effluent discharged from industrial treatment plants polluting the water sources of the city.
### Healthcare
The Commissionerate of Health and Family Welfare is responsible for planning, implementation and monitoring of all facilities related to health and preventive services. As of 2010–11, the city had 50 government hospitals, 300 private and charity hospitals and 194 nursing homes providing around 12,000 hospital beds, fewer than half the required 25,000. For every 10,000 people in the city, there are 17.6 hospital beds, 9 specialist doctors, 14 nurses and 6 physicians. The city has about 4,000 individual clinics. Private clinics are preferred by many residents because of the distance to, poor quality of care at and long waiting times in government facilities, despite the high proportion of the city's residents being covered by government health insurance: 24% according to a National Family Health Survey in 2005. As of 2012, many new private hospitals of various sizes were opened or being built. Hyderabad has outpatient and inpatient facilities that use Unani, homoeopathic and Ayurvedic treatments.
In the 2005 National Family Health Survey, it was reported that the city's total fertility rate is 1.8, which is below the replacement rate. Only 61% of children had been provided with all basic vaccines (BCG, measles and full courses of polio and DPT), fewer than in all other surveyed cities except Meerut. The infant mortality rate was 35 per 1,000 live births, and the mortality rate for children under five was 41 per 1,000 live births. The survey also reported that a third of women and a quarter of men are overweight or obese, 49% of children below 5 years are anaemic, and up to 20% of children are underweight, while more than 2% of women and 3% of men suffer from diabetes.
## Demographics
When the GHMC was created in 2007, the area occupied by the municipality increased from 175 km<sup>2</sup> (68 sq mi) to 650 km<sup>2</sup> (250 sq mi). Consequently, the population increased by 87%, from 3,637,483 as of 2001 census to 6,809,970 as of 2011 census, 24% of which are migrants from elsewhere in India, making Hyderabad the nation's fourth most populous city. As of 2011, the population density is 18,480/km<sup>2</sup> (47,900/sq mi) and the Hyderabad urban agglomeration had a population of 7,749,334 making it the sixth most populous urban agglomeration in the country. as of 2011 census, there are 3,500,802 male and 3,309,168 female citizens—a sex ratio of 945 females per 1000 males, higher than the national average of 926 per 1000. Among children aged 0–6 years, 373,794 are boys and 352,022 are girls—a ratio of 942 per 1000. Literacy stands at 83% (male 86%; female 80%), higher than the national average of 74.04%. The socio-economic strata consist of 20% upper class, 50% middle class and 30% working class.
### Ethnicity
Referred to as "Hyderabadi", the residents of Hyderabad are predominantly Telugu and Urdu speaking people, with minority Arab, Marathi, Marwari, and Pathan communities.
Hyderabadi Muslims are a unique community who owe much of their history, language, cuisine, and culture to Hyderabad, and the various dynasties who previously ruled. Hadhrami Arabs, African Arabs, Armenians, Abyssinians, Iranians, Pathans and Turkish people were present before 1948; these communities, of which the Hadhrami Arabs are the largest, declined after Hyderabad State became part of the Indian Union, as they lost the patronage of the Asaf Jahi Nizams.
### Religion
Hindus are in the majority. Muslims form a very large minority, and are present throughout the city and predominate in and around the Old City of Hyderabad. There are also Christian, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and Parsi communities and iconic churches, mosques and temples. According to the 2011 census, the religious make-up of Greater Hyderabad was: Hindus (64.9%), Muslims (30.1%), Christians (2.8%), Jains (0.3%), Sikhs (0.3%) and Buddhists (0.1%); 1.5% did not state any religion.
### Languages
Telugu and Urdu are both official languages of the city, and most Hyderabadis are bilingual. The Telugu dialect spoken in Hyderabad is called Telangana Mandalika, and the Urdu spoken is called Deccani. English is a "Secondary official language" is pervasive in business and administration, and it is an important medium of instruction in education and publications. A significant minority speak other languages, including Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Marwari, Odia, Punjabi and Tamil.
### Slums
As of 2012, in the greater metropolitan area, 13% of the population live below the poverty line. According to a 2012 report submitted by GHMC to the World Bank, Hyderabad has 1,476 slums with a total population of 1.7 million, of whom 66% live in 985 slums in the "core" of the city (the part that formed Hyderabad before the April 2007 expansion) and the remaining 34% live in 491 suburban tenements. About 22% of the slum-dwelling households had migrated from different parts of India in the last decade of the 20th century, and 63% claimed to have lived in the slums for more than 10 years. Overall literacy in the slums is 60–80% and female literacy is 52–73%. A third of the slums have basic service connections, and the remainder depends on general public services provided by the government. There are 405 government schools, 267 government-aided schools, 175 private schools, and 528 community halls in the slum areas. According to a 2008 survey by the Centre for Good Governance, 87.6% of the slum-dwelling households are nuclear families, 18% are very poor, with an income up to per annum, 73% live below the poverty line (a standard poverty line recognised by the Andhra Pradesh Government is per annum), 27% of the chief wage earners (CWE) are casual labour and 38% of the CWE are illiterate. About 3.7% of the slum children aged 5–14 do not go to school and 3.2% work as child labour, of whom 64% are boys and 36% are girls. The largest employers of child labour are street shops and construction sites. Among the working children, 35% are engaged in hazardous jobs.
## Cityscape
### Neighbourhoods
The historic city established by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah on the southern side of the Musi River forms the heritage region of Hyderabad called the Purana Shahar (Old City), while the "New City" encompasses the urbanised area on the northern banks. The two are connected by many bridges across the river, the oldest of which is Purana Pul—("old bridge") built in 1578 AD. Hyderabad is twinned with neighbouring Secunderabad, to which it is connected by Hussain Sagar.
Many historic and heritage sites lie in south central Hyderabad, such as the Charminar, Mecca Masjid, Salar Jung Museum, Nizam Museum, Telangana High Court, Falaknuma Palace, Chowmahalla Palace and the traditional retail corridor comprising the Pearl Market, Laad Bazaar and Madina Circle. North of the river are hospitals, colleges, major railway stations and business areas such as Begum Bazaar, Koti, Abids, Sultan Bazar and Moazzam Jahi Market, along with administrative and recreational establishments such as the Reserve Bank of India, the Telangana Secretariat, the India Government Mint, the Telangana Legislature, the Public Gardens, Shahi Masjid, the Nizam Club, the Ravindra Bharathi, the State Museum, the Birla Temple and the Birla Planetarium.
North of central Hyderabad lie Hussain Sagar, Tank Bund Road, Rani Gunj and the Secunderabad railway station. Most of the city's parks and recreational centres, such as Sanjeevaiah Park, Indira Park, Lumbini Park, NTR Gardens, the Buddha statue and Tankbund Park are located here. In the northwest part of the city there are upscale residential and commercial areas such as Banjara Hills, Jubilee Hills, Begumpet, Khairtabad, Tolichowki, Jagannath Temple and Miyapur. The northern end contains industrial areas such as Kukatpally, Sanathnagar, Moosapet, Balanagar, Patancheru and Chanda Nagar. The northeast end is dotted with residential areas such as Malkajgiri, Neredmet, A. S. Rao Nagar and Uppal. In the eastern part of the city lie many defence research centres and Ramoji Film City. The "Cyberabad" area in the southwest and west of the city, consisting of Madhapur and Gachibowli has grown rapidly since the 1990s. It is home to information technology and bio-pharmaceutical companies and to landmarks such as Hyderabad Airport, Osman Sagar, Himayath Sagar and Kasu Brahmananda Reddy National Park.
### Landmarks
Heritage buildings constructed during the Qutb Shahi and Nizam eras showcase Indo-Islamic architecture influenced by Medieval, Mughal and European styles. After the 1908 flooding of the Musi River, the city was expanded and civic monuments constructed, particularly during the rule of Mir Osman Ali Khan (the VIIth Nizam), whose patronage of architecture led to him being referred to as the maker of modern Hyderabad. In 2012, the government of India declared Hyderabad the first "Best heritage city of India".
Qutb Shahi architecture of the 16th and early 17th centuries followed classical Persian architecture featuring domes and colossal arches. The oldest surviving Qutb Shahi structure in Hyderabad is the ruins of the Golconda Fort built in the 16th century. Most of the historical bazaars that still exist were constructed on the street north of Charminar towards the fort. The Charminar has become an icon of the city; located in the centre of old Hyderabad, it is a square structure with sides 20 m (66 ft) long and four grand arches each facing a road. At each corner stands a 56 m (184 ft)-high minaret. The Charminar, Golconda Fort and the Qutb Shahi tombs are considered to be monuments of national importance in India; in 2010 the Indian government proposed that the sites be listed for UNESCO World Heritage status.
Among the oldest surviving examples of Nizam architecture in Hyderabad is the Chowmahalla Palace, which was the seat of royal power. It showcases a diverse array of architectural styles, from the Baroque Harem to its Neoclassical royal court. The other palaces include Falaknuma Palace (inspired by the style of Andrea Palladio), Purani Haveli, King Kothi Palace and Bella Vista Palace all of which were built at the peak of Nizam rule in the 19th century. During Mir Osman Ali Khan's rule, European styles, along with Indo-Islamic, became prominent. These styles are reflected in the Indo-Saracenic style of architecture seen in many civic monuments such as the Hyderabad High Court, Osmania Hospital, City College and the Kacheguda railway station, all designed by Vincent Esch. Other landmark structures of the city constructed during his regin are the State Central Library, the Telangana Legislature, the State Archaeology Museum, Jubilee Hall, and Hyderabad railway station. Other landmarks of note are Paigah Palace, Asman Garh Palace, Basheer Bagh Palace, Errum Manzil and the Spanish Mosque, all constructed by the Paigah family.
## Economy
Recent estimates of the economy of Hyderabad's metropolitan area have ranged from US\$40-US\$74 billion (PPP GDP), and have ranked it either fifth- or sixth- most productive metro area of India. Hyderabad is the largest contributor to the gross domestic product (GDP), tax and other revenues, of Telangana, and the sixth largest deposit centre and fourth largest credit centre nationwide, as ranked by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in June 2012. Its per capita annual income in 2011 was . As of 2006, the largest employers in the city were the state government (113,098 employees) and central government (85,155). According to a 2005 survey, 77% of males and 19% of females in the city were employed. The service industry remains dominant in the city, and 90% of the employed workforce is engaged in this sector.
Hyderabad's role in the pearl trade has given it the name "City of Pearls" and up until the 18th century, the city was the only global trading centre for diamonds known as Golconda Diamonds. Industrialisation began under the Nizams in the late 19th century, helped by railway expansion that connected the city with major ports. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Indian enterprises, such as Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC), National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), Bharat Electronics (BEL), Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH) and Andhra Bank (AB) were established in the city. The city is home to Hyderabad Securities formerly known as Hyderabad Stock Exchange (HSE), and houses the regional office of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). In 2013, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) facility in Hyderabad was forecast to provide operations and transactions services to BSE-Mumbai by the end of 2014. The growth of the financial services sector has helped Hyderabad evolve from a traditional manufacturing city to a cosmopolitan industrial service centre. Since the 1990s, the growth of information technology (IT), IT-enabled services (ITES), insurance and financial institutions has expanded the service sector, and these primary economic activities have boosted the ancillary sectors of trade and commerce, transport, storage, communication, real estate and retail. As of 2021, the IT exports from Hyderabad were ₹1,45,522 crore (US\$19.66 billion), the city houses 1500 IT and ITES companies that provide 628,615 jobs.
Hyderabad's commercial markets are divided into four sectors: central business districts, sub-central business centres, neighbourhood business centres and local business centres. Many traditional and historic bazaars are located throughout the city, Laad Bazaar being the prominent among all is popular for selling a variety of traditional and cultural antique wares, along with gems and pearls.
The establishment of Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited (IDPL), a public sector undertaking, in 1961 was followed over the decades by many national and global companies opening manufacturing and research facilities in the city. As of 2010, the city manufactured one third of India's bulk drugs and 16% of biotechnology products, contributing to its reputation as "India's pharmaceutical capital" and the "Genome Valley of India". Hyderabad is a global centre of information technology, for which it is known as Cyberabad (Cyber City). As of 2013, it contributed 15% of India's and 98% of Andhra Pradesh's exports in IT and ITES sectors and 22% of NASSCOM's total membership is from the city. The development of HITEC City, a township with extensive technological infrastructure, prompted multinational companies to establish facilities in Hyderabad. The city is home to more than 1300 IT and ITES firms that provide employment for 407,000 individuals; the global conglomerates include Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, IBM, Yahoo!, Oracle Corporation, Dell, Facebook, CISCO, and major Indian firms including Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Polaris, Cyient and Wipro. In 2009 the World Bank Group ranked the city as the second best Indian city for doing business. The city and its suburbs contain the highest number of special economic zones of any Indian city.
The Automotive industry in Hyderabad is also emerging and making it an automobile hub. Automobile companies including as Hyundai, Hyderabad Allwyn, Praga Tools, HMT Bearings, Ordnance Factory Medak, Deccan Auto and Mahindra & Mahindra have units in the Hyderabad economic zone. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Maruti Suzuki and Triton Energy will invest in Hyderabad.
Like the rest of India, Hyderabad has a large informal economy that employs 30% of the labour force. According to a survey published in 2007, it had 40–50,000 street vendors, and their numbers were increasing. Among the street vendors, 84% are male and 16% female, and four fifths are "stationary vendors" operating from a fixed pitch, often with their own stall. Most are financed through personal savings; only 8% borrow from moneylenders. Vendor earnings vary from to per day. Other unorganised economic sectors include dairy, poultry farming, brick manufacturing, casual labour and domestic help. Those involved in the informal economy constitute a major portion of urban poor.
## Culture
Hyderabad emerged as the foremost centre of culture in India with the decline of the Mughal Empire. After the fall of Delhi in 1857, the migration of performing artists to the city particularly from the north and west of the Indian subcontinent, under the patronage of the Nizam, enriched the cultural milieu. This migration resulted in a mingling of North and South Indian languages, cultures and religions, which has since led to a co-existence of Hindu and Muslim traditions, for which the city has become noted. A further consequence of this north–south mix is that both Telugu and Urdu are official languages of Telangana. The mixing of religions has resulted in many festivals being celebrated in Hyderabad such as Ganesh Chaturthi, Diwali and Bonalu of Hindu tradition and Eid ul-Fitr and Eid al-Adha by Muslims.
Traditional Hyderabadi garb reveals a mix of Muslim and Hindu influences with men wearing sherwani and kurta–paijama and women wearing khara dupatta and salwar kameez. Most Muslim women wear burqa and hijab outdoors. In addition to the traditional Hindu and Muslim garments, increasing exposure to western cultures has led to a rise in the wearing of western style clothing among youths.
### Literature
In the past, Qutb Shahi rulers and Asaf Jahi Nizams attracted artists, architects, and men of letters from different parts of the world through patronage. The resulting ethnic mix popularised cultural events such as mushairas (poetic symposia), Qawwali (devotional songs) and Dholak ke Geet (traditional folk songs). The Qutb Shahi dynasty particularly encouraged the growth of Deccani literature leading to works such as the Deccani Masnavi and Diwan poetry, which are among the earliest available manuscripts in Urdu. Lazzat Un Nisa, a book compiled in the 15th century at Qutb Shahi courts, contains erotic paintings with diagrams for secret medicines and stimulants in the eastern form of ancient sexual arts. The reign of the Asaf Jahi Nizams saw many literary reforms and the introduction of Urdu as a language of court, administration and education. In 1824, a collection of Urdu Ghazal poetry, named Gulzar-e-Mahlaqa, authored by Mah Laqa Bai—the first female Urdu poet to produce a Diwan—was published in Hyderabad. Hyderabad has continued with these traditions in its annual Hyderabad Literary Festival, held since 2010, showcasing the city's literary and cultural creativity. Organisations engaged in the advancement of literature include the Sahitya Akademi, the Urdu Academy, the Telugu Academy, the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, the Comparative Literature Association of India, and the Andhra Saraswata Parishad. Literary development is further aided by state institutions such as the State Central Library, the largest public library in the state which was established in 1891, and other major libraries including the Sri Krishna Devaraya Andhra Bhasha Nilayam, the British Library and the Sundarayya Vignana Kendram.
### Music and films
South Indian music and dances such as the Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam styles are popular in the Deccan region. As a result of their culture policies, North Indian music and dance gained popularity during the rule of the Mughals and Nizams, and it was also during their reign that it became a tradition among the nobility to associate themselves with tawaif (courtesans). These courtesans were revered as the epitome of etiquette and culture, and were appointed to teach singing, poetry, and classical dance to many children of the aristocracy. This gave rise to certain styles of court music, dance and poetry. Besides western and Indian popular music genres such as filmi music, the residents of Hyderabad play city-based marfa music, Dholak ke Geet (household songs based on local folklore), and qawwali, especially at weddings, festivals and other celebratory events. The state government organises the Golconda Music and Dance Festival, the Taramati Music Festival and the Premavathi Dance Festival to further encourage the development of music.
Although the city is not particularly noted for theatre and drama, the state government promotes theatre with multiple programmes and festivals in such venues as the Ravindra Bharati, Shilpakala Vedika, Lalithakala Thoranam and Lamakaan. Although not a purely music oriented event, Numaish, a popular annual exhibition of local and national consumer products, does feature some musical performances.
The city is home to the Telugu film industry, popularly known as Tollywood—as of 2021 it is the highest-grossing Indian film industry. In the 1970s, Deccani language realist films by globally acclaimed Shyam Benegal started a movement of coming of age art films in India, which came to be known as parallel cinema. The Deccani film industry ("Dollywood") produces films in the local Hyderabadi dialect, which have gained regional popularity since 2005. The city has hosted international film festivals such as the International Children's Film Festival and the Hyderabad International Film Festival. In 2005, Guinness World Records declared Ramoji Film City to be the world's largest film studio.
### Art and handicrafts
The region is well known for its Golconda and Hyderabad painting styles which are branches of Deccan painting. Developed during the 16th century, the Golconda style is a native style blending foreign techniques and bears some similarity to the Vijayanagara paintings of neighbouring Mysore. A significant use of luminous gold and white colours is generally found in the Golconda style. The Hyderabad style originated in the 17th century under the Nizams. Highly influenced by Mughal painting, this style makes use of bright colours and mostly depicts regional landscape, culture, costumes, and jewellery.
Although not a centre for handicrafts itself, the patronage of the arts by the Mughals and Nizams attracted artisans from the region to Hyderabad. Such crafts include: Wootz steel, Filigree work, Bidriware, a metalwork handicraft from neighbouring Karnataka, which was popularised during the 18th century and has since been granted a Geographical Indication (GI) tag under the auspices of the WTO act; and Zari and Zardozi, embroidery works on textile that involve making elaborate designs using gold, silver and other metal threads. Chintz—a glazed calico textiles was originated in Golconda in 16th century. and another example of a handicraft drawn to Hyderabad is Kalamkari, a hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile that comes from cities in Andhra Pradesh. This craft is distinguished in having both a Hindu style, known as Srikalahasti and entirely done by hand, and an Islamic style, known as Machilipatnam which uses both hand and block techniques. Examples of Hyderabad's arts and crafts are housed in various museums including the Salar Jung Museum (housing "one of the largest one-man-collections in the world"), the Telangana State Archaeology Museum, the Nizam Museum, the City Museum and the Birla Science Museum.
### Cuisine
Hyderabadi cuisine comprises a broad repertoire of rice, wheat and meat dishes and the skilled use of various spices. Hyderabad is listed by UNESCO as a creative city of gastronomy. Hyderabadi biryani and Hyderabadi haleem, with their blend of Mughlai and Arab cuisines, carry the national Geographical Indications tag. Hyderabadi cuisine is influenced to some extent by French, but more by Arabic, Turkish, Iranian and native Telugu and Marathwada cuisines. Popular native dishes include nihari, chakna, baghara baingan and the desserts qubani ka meetha, double ka meetha and kaddu ki kheer (a sweet porridge made with sweet gourd).
## Media
One of Hyderabad's earliest newspapers, The Deccan Times, was established in the 1780s. Major Telugu dailies published in Hyderabad are Eenadu, Sakshi and Namasthe Telangana, while major English papers are The Times of India, The Hindu and Deccan Chronicle. The major Urdu papers include The Siasat Daily, The Munsif Daily and Etemaad. The Secunderabad Cantonment Board established the first radio station in Hyderabad State around 1919. Deccan Radio was the first radio public broadcast station in the city starting on 3 February 1935, with FM broadcasting beginning in 2000. The available channels in Hyderabad include All India Radio, Radio Mirchi, Radio City, Red FM, Big FM and Fever FM.
Television broadcasting in Hyderabad began in 1974 with the launch of Doordarshan, the government of India's public service broadcaster, which transmits two free-to-air terrestrial television channels and one satellite channel. Private satellite channels started in July 1992 with the launch of Star TV. Satellite TV channels are accessible via cable subscription, direct-broadcast satellite services or internet-based television. Hyderabad's first dial-up internet access became available in the early 1990s and was limited to software development companies. The first public internet access service began in 1995, with the first private sector internet service provider (ISP) starting operations in 1998. In 2015, high-speed public WiFi was introduced in parts of the city.
## Education
Public and private schools in Hyderabad are governed by the Board of Secondary Education, Telangana or Central Board of Secondary Education, depending on the affiliation and follow a "10+2+3" plan. About two-thirds of pupils attend privately run institutions. Languages of instruction include English, Hindi, Telugu and Urdu. Depending on the institution, students are required to sit the Secondary School Certificate or the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education. After completing secondary education, students enroll in schools or junior colleges with higher secondary facilities. Admission to professional graduation colleges in Hyderabad, many of which are affiliated with either Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad (JNTUH) or Osmania University (OU), is through the Engineering Agricultural and Medical Common Entrance Test (EAM-CET).
There are 13 universities in Hyderabad: two private universities, two deemed universities, six state universities, and three central universities. The central universities are the University of Hyderabad (Hyderabad Central University, HCU), Maulana Azad National Urdu University and the English and Foreign Languages University. Osmania University, established in 1918, was the first university in Hyderabad and as of 2012 is India's second most popular institution for international students. The Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University, established in 1982, is the first distance-learning open university in India.
Hyderabad is home to a number of centres specialising in particular fields such as biomedical sciences, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, such as the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) and National Institute of Nutrition (NIN). Hyderabad has five major medical schools—Osmania Medical College, Gandhi Medical College, Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences, Deccan College of Medical Sciences and Shadan Institute of Medical Sciences—and many affiliated teaching hospitals. An All India Institute of Medical Sciences has been sanctioned in the outskirts of Hyderabad. The Government Nizamia Tibbi College is a college of Unani medicine. Hyderabad is also the headquarters of the Indian Heart Association, a non-profit foundation for cardiovascular education.
Institutes in Hyderabad include the National Institute of Rural Development, NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad (NLU), the Indian School of Business, the National Geophysical Research Institute, the Institute of Public Enterprise, the Administrative Staff College of India and the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy. Technical and engineering schools include the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIITH), Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani – Hyderabad (BITS Hyderabad), Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management Hyderabad Campus (GITAM Hyderabad Campus), and Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad (IIT-H) as well as agricultural engineering institutes such as the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University. Hyderabad also has schools of fashion design including Raffles Millennium International, NIFT Hyderabad and Wigan and Leigh College. The National Institute of Design, Hyderabad (NID-H), will offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses from 2015.
## Sports
At the professional level, the city has hosted national and international sports events such as the 2002 National Games of India, the 2003 Afro-Asian Games, the 2004 AP Tourism Hyderabad Open women's tennis tournament, the 2007 Military World Games, the 2009 World Badminton Championships and the 2009 IBSF World Snooker Championship. The city hosts a number of venues suitable for professional competition such as the Swarnandhra Pradesh Sports Complex for field hockey, the G. M. C. Balayogi Stadium in Gachibowli for athletics and football, and for cricket, the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium and Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, home ground of the Hyderabad Cricket Association. Hyderabad has hosted many international cricket matches, including matches in the 1987 and the 1996 ICC Cricket World Cups. The Hyderabad cricket team represents the city in the Ranji Trophy—a first-class cricket tournament among India's states and cities. Hyderabad is home to the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad, champion of 2016 Indian Premier League. Previous franchise Deccan Chargers was the champion of 2009 Indian Premier League. The new professional football club of the city Hyderabad FC competes in Indian Super League (ISL) and was the champions of 2021-22 Indian Super League.
During British rule, Secunderabad became a well-known sporting centre and many race courses, parade grounds and polo fields were built. Many elite clubs formed by the Nizams and the British such as the Secunderabad Club, the Nizam Club and the Hyderabad Race Club, which is known for its horse racing especially the annual Deccan derby, still exist. In more recent times, motorsports has become popular with the Andhra Pradesh Motor Sports Club organising popular events such as the Deccan 1⁄4 Mile Drag, TSD Rallies and 4x4 off-road rallying. The 2023 Hyderabad ePrix, at the Hyderabad Street Circuit, was the first FIA Formula E World Championship race in India.
## Transport
As of 2018, the most commonly used forms of medium-distance transport in Hyderabad include government-owned services such as light railways and buses, as well as privately operated taxis and auto rickshaws. These altogether serve 3.5 million passengers daily. Bus services operate from the Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station in the city centre with a fleet of 3800 buses serving 3.3 million passengers.
Hyderabad Metro—(a light-rail rapid transit system) was inaugurated in November 2017. As of 2020 it is a 3 track network spread upon 69.2 km (43 mi) with 57 stations, it is the second-largest metro rail network in India. Hyderabad's Multi-Modal Transport System (MMTS), is a three-line suburban rail service with 121 services carrying 180,000 passengers daily. Complementing these government services are minibus routes operated by Setwin (Society for Employment Promotion & Training in Twin Cities). Intercity rail services operate from Hyderabad; the main, and largest, station is Secunderabad railway station, which serves as Indian Railways' South Central Railway zone headquarters and a hub for both buses and MMTS light rail services connecting Secunderabad and Hyderabad. Other major railway stations in Hyderabad are Hyderabad Deccan, Kacheguda, Begumpet, Malkajgiri and Lingampalli.
As of 2018, there are over 5.3 million vehicles operating in the city, of which 4.3 million are two-wheelers and 1.04 million four-wheelers. The large number of vehicles coupled with relatively low road coverage—roads occupy only 9.5% of the total city area—has led to widespread traffic congestion especially since 80% of passengers and 60% of freight are transported by road. The Inner Ring Road, the Outer Ring Road, the Hyderabad Elevated Expressway, the longest flyover in India, and various interchanges, overpasses and underpasses were built to ease congestion. Maximum speed limits within the city are 50 km/h (31 mph) for two-wheelers and cars, 35 km/h (22 mph) for auto rickshaws and 40 km/h (25 mph) for light commercial vehicles and buses.
Hyderabad sits at the junction of three National Highways linking it to six other states: NH-44 runs 3,963 km (2,462 mi) from Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, in the north to Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, in the south; NH-65, runs 841 km (523 mi) east-west between Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh connects Hyderabad and Suryapet with Pune, Maharashtra; 334 km (208 mi) NH-163 links Hyderabad and Bhopalpatnam, Chhattisgarh; 270 km (168 mi) NH-765 links Hyderabad to Srisailam, Andhra Pradesh. Five state highways, 225 km (140 mi) SH-1 links Hyderabad, to Ramagundam, SH-2, SH-4, and SH-6, either start from, or pass through, Hyderabad.
Air traffic was previously handled via Begumpet Airport established in 1930, but this was replaced by Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) in 2008, capable of handling 25 million passengers and 150,000 metric-tonnes of cargo per annum. In 2020, Airports Council International, an autonomous body representing the world's airports, judged RGIA the Best Airport in Environment and Ambience and the Best Airport by Size and Region in the 15-25 million passenger category.
## See also
- List of flyovers and under-passes in Hyderabad
- List of people from Hyderabad
- List of tallest buildings in Hyderabad
- List of tourist attractions in Hyderabad
## Explanatory notes
## General and cited references
|
15,155 |
I. M. Pei
| 1,168,947,292 |
Chinese-American architect (1917–2019)
|
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Ieoh Ming Pei FAIA RIBA (/ˌjoʊ mɪŋ ˈpeɪ/ YOH ming PAY; Chinese: 貝聿銘; pinyin: Bèi Yùmíng; April 26, 1917 – May 16, 2019) was a Chinese-American architect. Raised in Shanghai, Pei drew inspiration at an early age from the garden villas at Suzhou, the traditional retreat of the scholar-gentry to which his family belonged. In 1935, he moved to the United States and enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania's architecture school, but he quickly transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was unhappy with the focus at both schools on Beaux-Arts architecture, and spent his free time researching emerging architects, especially Le Corbusier. After graduating, he joined the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and became a friend of the Bauhaus architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. In 1948, Pei was recruited by New York City real estate magnate William Zeckendorf, for whom he worked for seven years before establishing an independent design firm in 1955, I. M. Pei & Associates. In 1966 that became I. M. Pei & Partners, and in 1989 became Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. Pei retired from full-time practice in 1990. In his retirement, he worked as an architectural consultant primarily from his sons' architectural firm Pei Partnership Architects.
Pei's first major recognition came with the Mesa Laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado (designed in 1961, and completed in 1967). His new stature led to his selection as chief architect for the John F. Kennedy Library in Massachusetts. He went on to design Dallas City Hall and the East Building of the National Gallery of Art. He returned to China for the first time in 1975 to design a hotel at Fragrant Hills, and designed Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong, a skyscraper in Hong Kong for the Bank of China fifteen years later. In the early 1980s, Pei was the focus of controversy when he designed a glass-and-steel pyramid for the Louvre in Paris. He later returned to the world of the arts by designing the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, the Miho Museum in Japan, Shigaraki, near Kyoto, and the chapel of the junior and high school: MIHO Institute of Aesthetics, the Suzhou Museum in Suzhou, Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar, and the Grand Duke Jean Museum of Modern Art, abbreviated to Mudam, in Luxembourg.
Pei won a wide variety of prizes and awards in the field of architecture, including the AIA Gold Medal in 1979, the first Praemium Imperiale for Architecture in 1989, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, in 2003. In 1983, he won the Pritzker Prize, which is sometimes referred to as the Nobel Prize of architecture.
## Childhood
I. M. Pei's ancestry traces back to the Ming dynasty, when his family moved from Anhui to Suzhou. The family made their wealth in medicinal herbs, then proceeded to join the ranks of the scholar-gentry. Ieoh Ming Pei was born on April 26, 1917, to Tsuyee and Lien Kwun, and the family moved to Hong Kong one year later. The family eventually included five children. As a boy, Pei was very close to his mother, a devout Buddhist who was recognized for her skills as a flautist. She invited him (and not his brothers or sisters) to join her on meditation retreats. His relationship with his father was less intimate. Their interactions were respectful but distant.
Pei's ancestors' success meant that the family lived in the upper echelons of society, but Pei said his father was "not cultivated in the ways of the arts". The younger Pei, drawn more to music and other cultural forms than to his father's domain of banking, explored art on his own. "I have cultivated myself," he said later.
Pei studied in St. Paul's College in Hong Kong as a child. When Pei was 10, his father received a promotion and relocated with his family to Shanghai. Pei attended St. John's Middle School, the secondary school of St. John's University that was run by Anglican missionaries. Academic discipline was rigorous; students were allowed only one half-day each month for leisure. Pei enjoyed playing billiards and watching Hollywood movies, especially those of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. He also learned rudimentary English skills by reading the Bible and novels by Charles Dickens.
Shanghai's many international elements gave it the name "Paris of the East". The city's global architectural flavors had a profound influence on Pei, from The Bund waterfront area to the Park Hotel, built in 1934. He was also impressed by the many gardens of Suzhou, where he spent the summers with extended family and regularly visited a nearby ancestral shrine. The Shizilin Garden, built in the 14th century by a Buddhist monk and owned by Pei's uncle Bei Runsheng, was especially influential. Its unusual rock formations, stone bridges, and waterfalls remained etched in Pei's memory for decades. He spoke later of his fondness for the garden's blending of natural and human-built structures.
Soon after the move to Shanghai, Pei's mother developed cancer. As a pain reliever, she was prescribed opium, and assigned the task of preparing her pipe to Pei. She died shortly after his thirteenth birthday, and he was profoundly upset. The children were sent to live with extended family; their father became more consumed by his work and more physically distant. Pei said: "My father began living his own separate life pretty soon after that." His father later married a woman named Aileen, who moved to New York later in her life.
## Education and formative years
As Pei neared the end of his secondary education, he decided to study at a university. He was accepted in a number of schools, but decided to enroll at the University of Pennsylvania. Pei's choice had two roots. While studying in Shanghai, he had closely examined the catalogs for various institutions of higher learning around the world. The architectural program at the University of Pennsylvania stood out to him. The other major factor was Hollywood. Pei was fascinated by the representations of college life in the films of Bing Crosby, which differed tremendously from the academic atmosphere in China. "College life in the U.S. seemed to me to be mostly fun and games", he said in 2000. "Since I was too young to be serious, I wanted to be part of it ... You could get a feeling for it in Bing Crosby's movies. College life in America seemed very exciting to me. It's not real, we know that. Nevertheless, at that time it was very attractive to me. I decided that was the country for me." Pei added that "Crosby's films in particular had a tremendous influence on my choosing the United States instead of England to pursue my education."
In 1935 Pei boarded a boat and sailed to San Francisco, then traveled by train to Philadelphia. What he found once he arrived, however, differed vastly from his expectations. Professors at the University of Pennsylvania based their teaching in the Beaux-Arts style, rooted in the classical traditions of ancient Greece and Rome. Pei was more intrigued by modern architecture, and also felt intimidated by the high level of drafting proficiency shown by other students. He decided to abandon architecture and transferred to the engineering program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Once he arrived, however, the dean of the architecture school commented on his eye for design and convinced Pei to return to his original major.
MIT's architecture faculty was also focused on the Beaux-Arts school, and Pei found himself uninspired by the work. In the library he found three books by the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier. Pei was inspired by the innovative designs of the new International Style, characterized by simplified form and the use of glass and steel materials. Le Corbusier visited MIT in November 1935, an occasion which powerfully affected Pei: "The two days with Le Corbusier, or 'Corbu' as we used to call him, were probably the most important days in my architectural education." Pei was also influenced by the work of U.S. architect Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1938 he drove to Spring Green, Wisconsin, to visit Wright's famous Taliesin building. After waiting for two hours, however, he left without meeting Wright.
Although he disliked the Beaux-Arts emphasis at MIT, Pei excelled in his studies. "I certainly don't regret the time at MIT", he said later. "There I learned the science and technique of building, which is just as essential to architecture." Pei received his BArch degree in 1940; his thesis was titled "Standardized Propaganda Units for War Time and Peace Time China".
While visiting New York City in the late 1930s, Pei met a Wellesley College student named Eileen Loo. They began dating and married in the spring of 1942. She enrolled in the landscape architecture program at Harvard University, and Pei was thus introduced to members of the faculty at Harvard's Graduate School of Design (GSD). He was excited by the lively atmosphere and joined the GSD in December 1942.
Less than a month later, Pei suspended his work at Harvard to join the National Defense Research Committee, which coordinated scientific research into U.S. weapons technology during World War II. Pei's background in architecture was seen as a considerable asset; one member of the committee told him: "If you know how to build you should also know how to destroy." The fight against Germany was ending, so he focused on the Pacific War. The U.S. realized that its bombs used against the stone buildings of Europe would be ineffective against Japanese cities, mostly constructed from wood and paper; Pei was assigned to work on incendiary bombs. Pei spent two and a half years with the NDRC, but revealed few details of his work.
In 1945 Eileen gave birth to a son, T'ing Chung; she withdrew from the landscape architecture program in order to care for him. Pei returned to Harvard in the autumn of 1945, and received a position as assistant professor of design. The GSD was developing into a hub of resistance to the Beaux-Arts orthodoxy. At the center were members of the Bauhaus, a European architectural movement that had advanced the cause of modernist design. The Nazi regime had condemned the Bauhaus school, and its leaders left Germany. Two of these, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, took positions at the Harvard GSD. Their iconoclastic focus on modern architecture appealed to Pei, and he worked closely with both men.
One of Pei's design projects at the GSD was a plan for an art museum in Shanghai. He wanted to create a mood of Chinese authenticity in the architecture without using traditional materials or styles. The design was based on straight modernist structures, organized around a central courtyard garden, with other similar natural settings arranged nearby. It was very well received; Gropius, in fact, called it "the best thing done in [my] master class." Pei received his MArch degree in 1946, and taught at Harvard for another two years.
## Career
### 1948–1956: early career with Webb and Knapp
In the spring of 1948, Pei was recruited by New York real estate magnate William Zeckendorf to join a staff of architects for his firm of Webb and Knapp to design buildings around the country. Pei found Zeckendorf's personality the opposite of his own; his new boss was known for his loud speech and gruff demeanor. Nevertheless, they became good friends and Pei found the experience personally enriching. Zeckendorf was well connected politically, and Pei enjoyed learning about the social world of New York's city planners.
His first project for Webb and Knapp was an apartment building with funding from the Housing Act of 1949. Pei's design was based on a circular tower with concentric rings. The areas closest to the supporting pillar handled utilities and circulation; the apartments themselves were located toward the outer edge. Zeckendorf loved the design and even showed it off to Le Corbusier when they met. The cost of such an unusual design was too high, however, and the building never moved beyond the model stage.
Pei finally saw his architecture come to life in 1949, when he designed a two-story corporate building for Gulf Oil in Atlanta, Georgia. The building was demolished in February 2013 although the front facade will be retained as part of an apartment development. His use of marble for the exterior curtain wall brought praise from the journal Architectural Forum. Pei's designs echoed the work of Mies van der Rohe in the beginning of his career as also shown in his own weekend-house in Katonah, New York in 1952. Soon Pei was so inundated with projects that he asked Zeckendorf for assistants, which he chose from his associates at the GSD, including Henry N. Cobb and Ulrich Franzen. They set to work on a variety of proposals, including the Roosevelt Field Shopping Mall on Long Island. The team also redesigned the Webb and Knapp office building, transforming Zeckendorf's office into a circular space with teak walls and a glass clerestory. They also installed a control panel into the desk that allowed their boss to control the lighting in his office. The project took one year and exceeded its budget, but Zeckendorf was delighted with the results.
In 1952, Pei and his team began work on a series of projects in Denver, Colorado. The first of these was the Mile High Center, which compressed the core building into less than 25 percent of the total site; the rest is adorned with an exhibition hall and fountain-dotted plazas. One block away, Pei's team also redesigned Denver's Courthouse Square, which combined office spaces, commercial venues, and hotels. These projects helped Pei conceptualize architecture as part of the larger urban geography. "I learned the process of development," he said later, "and about the city as a living organism." These lessons, he said, became essential for later projects.
Pei and his team also designed a united urban area for Washington, D.C., called L'Enfant Plaza (named for French-American architect Pierre Charles L'Enfant). Pei's associate Araldo Cossutta was the lead architect for the plaza's North Building (955 L'Enfant Plaza SW) and South Building (490 L'Enfant Plaza SW). Vlastimil Koubek was the architect for the East Building (L'Enfant Plaza Hotel, located at 480 L'Enfant Plaza SW), and for the Center Building (475 L'Enfant Plaza SW; now the United States Postal Service headquarters). The team set out with a broad vision that was praised by both The Washington Post and Washington Star (which rarely agreed on anything), but funding problems forced revisions and a significant reduction in scale.
In 1955, Pei's group took a step toward institutional independence from Webb and Knapp by establishing a new firm called I. M. Pei & Associates. (The name changed later to I. M. Pei & Partners.) They gained the freedom to work with other companies, but continued working primarily with Zeckendorf. The new firm distinguished itself through the use of detailed architectural models. They took on the Kips Bay residential area on the East Side of Manhattan, where Pei set up Kips Bay Towers, two large long towers of apartments with recessed windows (to provide shade and privacy) in a neat grid, adorned with rows of trees. Pei involved himself in the construction process at Kips Bay, even inspecting the bags of cement to check for consistency of color.
The company continued its urban focus with the Society Hill project in central Philadelphia. Pei designed the Society Hill Towers, a three-building residential block injecting cubist design into the 18th-century milieu of the neighborhood. As with previous projects, abundant green spaces were central to Pei's vision, which also added traditional townhouses to aid the transition from classical to modern design.
From 1958 to 1963, Pei and Ray Affleck developed a key downtown block of Montreal in a phased process that involved one of Pei's most admired structures in the Commonwealth, the cruciform tower known as the Royal Bank Plaza (Place Ville Marie). According to The Canadian Encyclopedia "its grand plaza and lower office buildings, designed by internationally famous US architect I. M. Pei, helped to set new standards for architecture in Canada in the 1960s ... The tower's smooth aluminum and glass surface and crisp unadorned geometric form demonstrate Pei's adherence to the mainstream of 20th-century modern design."
Although these projects were satisfying, Pei wanted to establish an independent name for himself. In 1959 he was approached by MIT to design a building for its Earth science program. The Green Building continued the grid design of Kips Bay and Society Hill. The pedestrian walkway at the ground floor, however, was prone to sudden gusts of wind, which embarrassed Pei. "Here I was from MIT," he said, "and I didn't know about wind-tunnel effects." At the same time, he co-designed the Luce Memorial Chapel at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan. The soaring structure, commissioned by the same organization that had run his middle school in Shanghai, broke severely from the cubist grid patterns of his urban projects.
The challenge of coordinating these projects took an artistic toll on Pei. He found himself responsible for acquiring new building contracts and supervising the plans for them. As a result, he felt disconnected from the actual creative work. "Design is something you have to put your hand to," he said. "While my people had the luxury of doing one job at a time, I had to keep track of the whole enterprise." Pei's dissatisfaction reached its peak at a time when financial problems began plaguing Zeckendorf's firm. I. M. Pei and Associates officially broke from Webb and Knapp in 1960, which benefited Pei creatively but pained him personally. He had developed a close friendship with Zeckendorf, and both men were sad to part ways.
### NCAR and related projects
Pei was able to return to hands-on design when he was approached in 1961 by Walter Orr Roberts to design the new Mesa Laboratory for the National Center for Atmospheric Research outside Boulder, Colorado. The project differed from Pei's earlier urban work; it would rest in an open area in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. He drove with his wife around the region, visiting assorted buildings and surveying the natural environs. He was impressed by the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, but felt it was "detached from nature".
The conceptualization stages were important for Pei, presenting a need and an opportunity to break from the Bauhaus tradition. He later recalled the long periods of time he spent in the area: "I recalled the places I had seen with my mother when I was a little boy—the mountaintop Buddhist retreats. There in the Colorado mountains, I tried to listen to the silence again—just as my mother had taught me. The investigation of the place became a kind of religious experience for me." Pei also drew inspiration from the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloans; he wanted the buildings to exist in harmony with their natural surroundings. To this end, he called for a rock-treatment process that could color the buildings to match the nearby mountains. He also set the complex back on the mesa overlooking the city, and designed the approaching road to be long, winding, and indirect.
Roberts disliked Pei's initial designs, referring to them as "just a bunch of towers". Roberts intended his comments as typical of scientific experimentation, rather than artistic critique; still, Pei was frustrated. His second attempt, however, fit Roberts' vision perfectly: a spaced-out series of clustered buildings, joined by lower structures and complemented by two underground levels. The complex uses many elements of cubist design, and the walkways are arranged to increase the probability of casual encounters among colleagues.
Once the laboratory was built, several problems with its construction became apparent. Leaks in the roof caused difficulties for researchers, and the shifting of clay soil beneath caused cracks in the buildings which were expensive to repair. Still, both architect and project manager were pleased with the final result. Pei referred to the NCAR complex as his "breakout building", and he remained a friend of Roberts until the scientist died in March 1990.
The success of NCAR brought renewed attention to Pei's design acumen. He was recruited to work on a variety of projects, including the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York, the Sundrome terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, and dormitories at New College of Florida.
### Kennedy Library
After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, his family and friends discussed how to construct a library that would serve as a fitting memorial. A committee was formed to advise Kennedy's widow Jacqueline, who would make the final decision. The group deliberated for months and considered many famous architects. Eventually, Kennedy chose Pei to design the library, based on two considerations. First, she appreciated the variety of ideas he had used for earlier projects. "He didn't seem to have just one way to solve a problem," she said. "He seemed to approach each commission thinking only of it and then develop a way to make something beautiful." Ultimately, however, Kennedy made her choice based on her personal connection with Pei. Calling it "really an emotional decision", she explained: "He was so full of promise, like Jack; they were born in the same year. I decided it would be fun to take a great leap with him."
The project was plagued with problems from the outset. The first was scope. President Kennedy had begun considering the structure of his library soon after taking office, and he wanted to include archives from his administration, a museum of personal items, and a political science institute. After the assassination, the list expanded to include a fitting memorial tribute to the slain president. The variety of necessary inclusions complicated the design process and caused significant delays.
Pei's first proposed design included a large glass pyramid that would fill the interior with sunlight, meant to represent the optimism and hope that Kennedy's administration had symbolized for so many in the United States. Mrs. Kennedy liked the design, but resistance began in Cambridge, the first proposed site for the building, as soon as the project was announced. Many community members worried that the library would become a tourist attraction, causing particular problems with traffic congestion. Others worried that the design would clash with the architectural feel of nearby Harvard Square. By the mid-1970s, Pei tried proposing a new design, but the library's opponents resisted every effort. These events pained Pei, who had sent all three of his sons to Harvard, and although he rarely discussed his frustration, it was evident to his wife. "I could tell how tired he was by the way he opened the door at the end of the day," she said. "His footsteps were dragging. It was very hard for I. M. to see that so many people didn't want the building."
Finally the project moved to Columbia Point, near the University of Massachusetts Boston. The new site was less than ideal; it was located on an old landfill, and just over a large sewage pipe. Pei's architectural team added more fill to cover the pipe and developed an elaborate ventilation system to conquer the odor. A new design was unveiled, combining a large square glass-enclosed atrium with a triangular tower and a circular walkway.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum was dedicated on October 20, 1979. Critics generally liked the finished building, but the architect himself was unsatisfied. The years of conflict and compromise had changed the nature of the design, and Pei felt that the final result lacked its original passion. "I wanted to give something very special to the memory of President Kennedy," he said in 2000. "It could and should have been a great project." Pei's work on the Kennedy project boosted his reputation as an architect of note.
### "Pei Plan" in Oklahoma City
The Pei Plan was a failed urban redevelopment initiative designed for downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1964. The plan called for the demolition of hundreds of old downtown structures in favor of renewed parking, office building, and retail developments, in addition to public projects such as the Myriad Convention Center and the Myriad Botanical Gardens. It was the dominant template for downtown development in Oklahoma City from its inception through the 1970s. The plan generated mixed results and opinion, largely succeeding in re-developing office building and parking infrastructure but failing to attract its anticipated retail and residential development. Significant public resentment also developed as a result of the destruction of multiple historic structures. As a result, Oklahoma City's leadership avoided large-scale urban planning for downtown throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, until the passage of the Metropolitan Area Projects (MAPS) initiative in 1993.
### Providence's Cathedral Square
Another city which turned to Pei for urban renewal during this time was Providence, Rhode Island. In the late 1960s, Providence hired Pei to redesign Cathedral Square, a once-bustling civic center which had become neglected and empty, as part of an ambitious larger plan to redesign downtown. Pei's new plaza, modeled after the Greek Agora marketplace, opened in 1972. The city ran out of money before Pei's vision could be fully realized. Also, recent construction of a low-income housing complex and Interstate 95 had changed the neighborhood's character permanently. In 1974, The Providence Evening Bulletin called Pei's new plaza a "conspicuous failure". By 2016, media reports characterized the plaza as a neglected, little-visited "hidden gem".
### Augusta, Georgia
In 1974, the city of Augusta, Georgia turned to Pei and his firm for downtown revitalization. The Chamber of Commerce building and Bicentennial Park were completed from his plan. In 1976, Pei designed a distinctive modern penthouse that was added to the roof of architect William Lee Stoddart's historic Lamar Building, designed in 1916. In 1980, Pei and his company designed the Augusta Civic Center, now known as the James Brown Arena.
### Dallas City Hall
Kennedy's assassination also led indirectly to another commission for Pei's firm. In 1964 the acting mayor of Dallas, Erik Jonsson, began working to change the community's image. Dallas was known and disliked as the city where the president had been killed, but Jonsson began a program designed to initiate a community renewal. One of the goals was a new city hall, which could be a "symbol of the people". Jonsson, a co-founder of Texas Instruments, learned about Pei from his associate Cecil Howard Green, who had recruited the architect for MIT's Earth Sciences building.
Pei's approach to the new Dallas City Hall mirrored those of other projects; he surveyed the surrounding area and worked to make the building fit. In the case of Dallas, he spent days meeting with residents of the city and was impressed by their civic pride. He also found that the skyscrapers of the downtown business district dominated the skyline, and sought to create a building which could face the tall buildings and represent the importance of the public sector. He spoke of creating "a public-private dialogue with the commercial high-rises".
Working with his associate Theodore Musho, Pei developed a design centered on a building with a top much wider than the bottom; the facade leans at an angle of 34 degrees, which shades the building from the Texas sun. A plaza stretches out before the building, and a series of support columns holds it up. It was influenced by Le Corbusier's High Court building in Chandigarh, India; Pei sought to use the significant overhang to unify the building and plaza. The project cost much more than initially expected, and took 11 years to complete. Revenue was secured in part by including a subterranean parking garage. The interior of the city hall is large and spacious; windows in the ceiling above the eighth floor fill the main space with light.
The city of Dallas received the building well, and a local television news crew found unanimous approval of the new city hall when it officially opened to the public in 1978. Pei himself considered the project a success, even as he worried about the arrangement of its elements. He said: "It's perhaps stronger than I would have liked; it's got more strength than finesse." He felt that his relative lack of experience left him without the necessary design tools to refine his vision, but the community liked the city hall enough to invite him back. Over the years he went on to design five additional buildings in the Dallas area.
### Hancock Tower, Boston
While Pei and Musho were coordinating the Dallas project, their associate Henry Cobb had taken the helm for a commission in Boston. John Hancock Insurance chairman Robert Slater hired I. M. Pei & Partners to design a building that could overshadow the Prudential Tower, erected by their rival.
After the firm's first plan was discarded due to a need for more office space, Cobb developed a new plan around a towering parallelogram, slanted away from the Trinity Church and accented by a wedge cut into each narrow side. To minimize the visual impact, the building was covered in large reflective glass panels; Cobb said this would make the building a "background and foil" to the older structures around it. When the Hancock Tower was finished in 1976, it was the tallest building in New England.
Serious issues of execution became evident in the tower almost immediately. Many glass panels fractured in a windstorm during construction in 1973. Some detached and fell to the ground, causing no injuries but sparking concern among Boston residents. In response, the entire tower was reglazed with smaller panels. This significantly increased the cost of the project. Hancock sued the glass manufacturers, Libbey-Owens-Ford, as well as I. M. Pei & Partners, for submitting plans that were "not good and workmanlike". LOF countersued Hancock for defamation, accusing Pei's firm of poor use of their materials; I. M. Pei & Partners sued LOF in return. All three companies settled out of court in 1981.
The project became an albatross for Pei's firm. Pei himself refused to discuss it for many years. The pace of new commissions slowed and the firm's architects began looking overseas for opportunities. Cobb worked in Australia and Pei took on jobs in Singapore, Iran, and Kuwait. Although it was a difficult time for everyone involved, Pei later reflected with patience on the experience. "Going through this trial toughened us," he said. "It helped to cement us as partners; we did not give up on each other."
### National Gallery East Building, Washington, DC
In the mid-1960s, directors of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., declared the need for a new building. Paul Mellon, a primary benefactor of the gallery and a member of its building committee, set to work with his assistant J. Carter Brown (who became gallery director in 1969) to find an architect. The new structure would be located to the east of the original building, and tasked with two functions: offer a large space for public appreciation of various popular collections; and house office space as well as archives for scholarship and research. They likened the scope of the new facility to the Library of Alexandria. After inspecting Pei's work at the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa and the Johnson Museum at Cornell University, they offered him the commission.
Pei took to the project with vigor, and set to work with two young architects he had recently recruited to the firm, William Pedersen and Yann Weymouth. Their first obstacle was the unusual shape of the building site, a trapezoid of land at the intersection of Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues. Inspiration struck Pei in 1968, when he scrawled a rough diagram of two triangles on a scrap of paper. The larger building would be the public gallery; the smaller would house offices and archives. This triangular shape became a singular vision for the architect. As the date for groundbreaking approached, Pedersen suggested to his boss that a slightly different approach would make construction easier. Pei simply smiled and said: "No compromises."
The growing popularity of art museums presented unique challenges to the architecture. Mellon and Pei both expected large crowds of people to visit the new building, and they planned accordingly. To this end, Pei designed a large lobby roofed with enormous skylights. Individual galleries are located along the periphery, allowing visitors to return after viewing each exhibit to the spacious main room. A large mobile sculpture by American artist Alexander Calder was later added to the lobby. Pei hoped the lobby would be exciting to the public in the same way as the central room of the Guggenheim Museum is in New York City. The modern museum, he said later, "must pay greater attention to its educational responsibility, especially to the young".
Materials for the building's exterior were chosen with careful precision. To match the look and texture of the original gallery's marble walls, builders re-opened the quarry in Knoxville, Tennessee, from which the first batch of stone had been harvested. The project even found and hired Malcolm Rice, a quarry supervisor who had overseen the original 1941 gallery project. The marble was cut into three-inch-thick blocks and arranged over the concrete foundation, with darker blocks at the bottom and lighter blocks on top.
The East Building was honored on May 30, 1978, two days before its public unveiling, with a black-tie party attended by celebrities, politicians, benefactors, and artists. When the building opened, popular opinion was enthusiastic. Large crowds visited the new museum, and critics generally voiced their approval. Ada Louise Huxtable wrote in The New York Times that Pei's building was "a palatial statement of the creative accommodation of contemporary art and architecture". The sharp angle of the smaller building has been a particular note of praise for the public; over the years it has become stained and worn from the hands of visitors.
Some critics disliked the unusual design, however, and criticized the reliance on triangles throughout the building. Others took issue with the large main lobby, particularly its attempt to lure casual visitors. In his review for Artforum, critic Richard Hennessy described a "shocking fun-house atmosphere" and "aura of ancient Roman patronage". One of the earliest and most vocal critics, however, came to appreciate the new gallery once he saw it in person. Allan Greenberg had scorned the design when it was first unveiled, but wrote later to J. Carter Brown: "I am forced to admit that you are right and I was wrong! The building is a masterpiece."
### Fragrant Hills, China
After U.S. President Richard Nixon made his famous 1972 visit to China, a wave of exchanges took place between the two countries. One of these was a delegation of the American Institute of Architects in 1974, which Pei joined. It was his first trip back to China since leaving in 1935. He was favorably received, returned the welcome with positive comments, and a series of lectures ensued. Pei noted in one lecture that since the 1950s Chinese architects had been content to imitate Western styles; he urged his audience in one lecture to search China's native traditions for inspiration.
In 1978, Pei was asked to initiate a project for his home country. After surveying a number of different locations, Pei fell in love with a valley that had once served as an imperial garden and hunting preserve known as Fragrant Hills. The site housed a decrepit hotel; Pei was invited to tear it down and build a new one. As usual, he approached the project by carefully considering the context and purpose. Likewise, he considered modernist styles inappropriate for the setting. Thus, he said, it was necessary to find "a third way".
After visiting his ancestral home in Suzhou, Pei created a design based on some simple but nuanced techniques he admired in traditional residential Chinese buildings. Among these were abundant gardens, integration with nature, and consideration of the relationship between enclosure and opening. Pei's design included a large central atrium covered by glass panels that functioned much like the large central space in his East Building of the National Gallery. Openings of various shapes in walls invited guests to view the natural scenery beyond. Younger Chinese who had hoped the building would exhibit some of Cubist flavor for which Pei had become known were disappointed, but the new hotel found more favor with government officials and architects.
The hotel, with 325 guest rooms and a four-story central atrium, was designed to fit perfectly into its natural habitat. The trees in the area were of special concern, and particular care was taken to cut down as few as possible. He worked with an expert from Suzhou to preserve and renovate a water maze from the original hotel, one of only five in the country. Pei was also meticulous about the arrangement of items in the garden behind the hotel; he even insisted on transporting 230 short tons (210 t) of rocks from a location in southwest China to suit the natural aesthetic. An associate of Pei's said later that he never saw the architect so involved in a project.
During construction, a series of mistakes collided with the nation's lack of technology to strain relations between architects and builders. Whereas 200 or so workers might have been used for a similar building in the US, the Fragrant Hill project employed over 3,000 workers. This was mostly because the construction company lacked the sophisticated machines used in other parts of the world. The problems continued for months, until Pei had an uncharacteristically emotional moment during a meeting with Chinese officials. He later explained that his actions included "shouting and pounding the table" in frustration. The design staff noticed a difference in the manner of work among the crew after the meeting. As the opening neared, however, Pei found the hotel still needed work. He began scrubbing floors with his wife and ordered his children to make beds and vacuum floors. The project's difficulties took an emotional and physical strain on the Pei family.
The Fragrant Hill Hotel opened on October 17, 1982, but quickly fell into disrepair. A member of Pei's staff returned for a visit several years later and confirmed the dilapidated condition of the hotel. He and Pei attributed this to the country's general unfamiliarity with deluxe buildings. The Chinese architectural community at the time gave the structure little attention, as their interest at the time centered on the work of American postmodernists such as Michael Graves.
### Javits Convention Center, New York
As the Fragrant Hill project neared completion, Pei began work on the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City, for which his associate James Freed served as lead designer. Hoping to create a vibrant community institution in what was then a run-down neighborhood on Manhattan's west side, Freed developed a glass-coated structure with an intricate space frame of interconnected metal rods and spheres.
The convention center was plagued from the start by budget problems and construction blunders. City regulations forbid a general contractor having final authority over the project, so architects and program manager Richard Kahan had to coordinate the wide array of builders, plumbers, electricians, and other workers. The forged steel globes to be used in the space frame came to the site with hairline cracks and other defects: 12,000 were rejected. These and other problems led to media comparisons with the disastrous Hancock Tower. One New York City official blamed Kahan for the difficulties, indicating that the building's architectural flourishes were responsible for delays and financial crises. The Javits Center opened on April 3, 1986, to a generally positive reception. During the inauguration ceremonies, however, neither Freed nor Pei was recognized for their role in the project.
### Grand Louvre, Paris
When François Mitterrand was elected President of France in 1981, he laid out an ambitious plan for a variety of construction projects. One of these was the renovation of the Louvre. Mitterrand appointed a civil servant named Émile Biasini [fr] to oversee it. After visiting museums in Europe and the United States, including the U.S. National Gallery, he asked Pei to join the team. The architect made three secretive trips to Paris, to determine the feasibility of the project; only one museum employee knew why he was there. Pei finally agreed that a new construction project was not only possible, but necessary for the future of the museum. He thus became the first foreign architect to work on the Louvre.
The heart of the new design included not only a renovation of the Cour Napoléon in the midst of the buildings, but also a transformation of the interiors. Pei proposed a central entrance, not unlike the lobby of the National Gallery East Building, which would link the three major wings around the central space. Below would be a complex of additional floors for research, storage, and maintenance purposes. At the center of the courtyard he designed a glass and steel pyramid, first proposed with the Kennedy Library, to serve as entrance and anteroom skylight. It was mirrored by an inverted pyramid to the west, to reflect sunlight into the complex. These designs were partly an homage to the fastidious geometry of the French landscape architect André Le Nôtre (1613–1700). Pei also found the pyramid shape best suited for stable transparency, and considered it "most compatible with the architecture of the Louvre, especially with the faceted planes of its roofs".
Biasini and Mitterrand liked the plans, but the scope of the renovation displeased Louvre administrator André Chabaud. He resigned from his post, complaining that the project was "unfeasible" and posed "architectural risks". Some sections of the French public also reacted harshly to the design, mostly because of the proposed pyramid. One critic called it a "gigantic, ruinous gadget"; another charged Mitterrand with "despotism" for inflicting Paris with the "atrocity". Pei estimated that 90 percent of Parisians opposed his design. "I received many angry glances in the streets of Paris," he said. Some condemnations carried nationalistic overtones. One opponent wrote: "I am surprised that one would go looking for a Chinese architect in America to deal with the historic heart of the capital of France."
Soon, however, Pei and his team won the support of several key cultural icons, including the conductor Pierre Boulez and Claude Pompidou, widow of former French President Georges Pompidou, after whom the similarly controversial Centre Georges Pompidou was named. In an attempt to soothe public ire, Pei took a suggestion from then-mayor of Paris Jacques Chirac and placed a full-sized cable model of the pyramid in the courtyard. During the four days of its exhibition, an estimated 60,000 people visited the site. Some critics eased their opposition after witnessing the proposed scale of the pyramid.
Pei demanded a method of glass production that resulted in clear panes. The pyramid was constructed at the same time as the subterranean levels below, which caused difficulties during the building stages. As they worked, construction teams came upon an abandoned set of rooms containing 25,000 historical items; these were incorporated into the rest of the structure to add a new exhibition zone.
The new Cour Napoléon was opened to the public on October 14, 1988, and the Pyramid entrance was opened the following March. By this time, public opposition had softened; a poll found a 56 percent approval rating for the pyramid, with 23 percent still opposed. The newspaper Le Figaro had vehemently criticized Pei's design, but later celebrated the tenth anniversary of its magazine supplement at the pyramid. Prince Charles of Britain surveyed the new site with curiosity, and declared it "marvelous, very exciting". A writer in Le Quotidien de Paris wrote: "The much-feared pyramid has become adorable."
The experience was exhausting for Pei, but also rewarding. "After the Louvre," he said later, "I thought no project would be too difficult." The pyramid achieved further widespread international recognition for its central role in the plot at the denouement of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and its appearance in the final scene of the subsequent screen adaptation. The Louvre Pyramid became Pei's most famous structure.
### Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas
The opening of the Louvre Pyramid coincided with four other projects on which Pei had been working, prompting architecture critic Paul Goldberger to declare 1989 "the year of Pei" in The New York Times. It was also the year in which Pei's firm changed its name to Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, to reflect the increasing stature and prominence of his associates. At the age of 72, Pei had begun thinking about retirement, but continued working long hours to see his designs come to light.
One of the projects took Pei back to Dallas, Texas, to design the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. The success of city's performing artists, particularly the Dallas Symphony Orchestra then led by conductor Eduardo Mata, led to interest by city leaders in creating a modern center for musical arts that could rival the best halls in Europe. The organizing committee contacted 45 architects, but at first Pei did not respond, thinking that his work on the Dallas City Hall had left a negative impression. One of his colleagues from that project, however, insisted that he meet with the committee. He did and, although it would be his first concert hall, the committee voted unanimously to offer him the commission. As one member put it: "We were convinced that we would get the world's greatest architect putting his best foot forward."
The project presented a variety of specific challenges. Because its main purpose was the presentation of live music, the hall needed a design focused on acoustics first, then public access and exterior aesthetics. To this end, a professional sound technician was hired to design the interior. He proposed a shoebox auditorium, used in the acclaimed designs of top European symphony halls such as the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Vienna Musikverein. Pei drew inspiration for his adjustments from the designs of the German architect Johann Balthasar Neumann, especially the Basilica of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. He also sought to incorporate some of the panache of the Paris Opéra designed by Charles Garnier.
Pei's design placed the rigid shoebox at an angle to the surrounding street grid, connected at the north end to a long rectangular office building, and cut through the middle with an assortment of circles and cones. The design attempted to reproduce with modern features the acoustic and visual functions of traditional elements like filigree. The project was risky: its goals were ambitious and any unforeseen acoustic flaws would be virtually impossible to remedy after the hall's completion. Pei admitted that he did not completely know how everything would come together. "I can imagine only 60 percent of the space in this building," he said during the early stages. "The rest will be as surprising to me as to everyone else." As the project developed, costs rose steadily and some sponsors considered withdrawing their support. Billionaire tycoon Ross Perot made a donation of US\$10 million, on the condition that it be named in honor of Morton H. Meyerson, the longtime patron of the arts in Dallas.
The building opened and immediately garnered widespread praise, especially for its acoustics. After attending a week of performances in the hall, a music critic for The New York Times wrote an enthusiastic account of the experience and congratulated the architects. One of Pei's associates told him during a party before the opening that the symphony hall was "a very mature building"; he smiled and replied: "Ah, but did I have to wait this long?"
### Bank of China, Hong Kong
A new offer had arrived for Pei from the Chinese government in 1982. With an eye toward the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from the British in 1997, authorities in China sought Pei's aid on a new tower for the local branch of the Bank of China. The Chinese government was preparing for a new wave of engagement with the outside world and sought a tower to represent modernity and economic strength. Given the elder Pei's history with the bank before the Communist takeover, government officials visited the 89-year-old man in New York to gain approval for his son's involvement. Pei then spoke with his father at length about the proposal. Although the architect remained pained by his experience with Fragrant Hills, he agreed to accept the commission.
The proposed site in Hong Kong's Central District was less than ideal; a tangle of highways lined it on three sides. The area had also been home to a headquarters for Japanese military police during World War II, and was notorious for prisoner torture. The small parcel of land made a tall tower necessary, and Pei had usually shied away from such projects; in Hong Kong especially, the skyscrapers lacked any real architectural character. Lacking inspiration and unsure of how to approach the building, Pei took a weekend vacation to the family home in Katonah, New York. There he found himself experimenting with a bundle of sticks until he happened upon a cascading sequence.
Pei felt that his design for the Bank of China Tower needed to reflect "the aspirations of the Chinese people". The design that he developed for the skyscraper was not only unique in appearance, but also sound enough to pass the city's rigorous standards for wind-resistance. The building is composed of four triangular shafts rising up from a square base, supported by a visible truss structure that distributes stress to the four corners of the base. Using the reflective glass that had become something of a trademark for him, Pei organized the facade around diagonal bracing in a union of structure and form that reiterates the triangle motif established in the plan. At the top, he designed the roofs at sloping angles to match the rising aesthetic of the building. Some influential advocates of feng shui in Hong Kong and China criticized the design, and Pei and government officials responded with token adjustments.
As the tower neared completion, Pei was shocked to witness the government's massacre of unarmed civilians at the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. He wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times titled "China Won't Ever Be the Same," in which he said that the killings "tore the heart out of a generation that carries the hope for the future of the country". The massacre deeply disturbed his entire family, and he wrote that "China is besmirched."
### 1990–2019: museum projects
As the 1990s began, Pei transitioned into a role of decreased involvement with his firm. The staff had begun to shrink, and Pei wanted to dedicate himself to smaller projects allowing for more creativity. Before he made this change, however, he set to work on his last major project as active partner: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Considering his work on such bastions of high culture as the Louvre and U.S. National Gallery, some critics were surprised by his association with what many considered a tribute to low culture. The sponsors of the hall, however, sought Pei for specifically this reason; they wanted the building to have an aura of respectability from the beginning. As in the past, Pei accepted the commission in part because of the unique challenge it presented.
Using a glass wall for the entrance, similar in appearance to his Louvre pyramid, Pei coated the exterior of the main building in white metal, and placed a large cylinder on a narrow perch to serve as a performance space. The combination of off-centered wraparounds and angled walls was, Pei said, designed to provide "a sense of tumultuous youthful energy, rebelling, flailing about".
The building opened in 1995, and was received with moderate praise. The New York Times called it "a fine building", but Pei was among those who felt disappointed with the results. The museum's early beginnings in New York combined with an unclear mission created a fuzzy understanding among project leaders for precisely what was needed. Although the city of Cleveland benefited greatly from the new tourist attraction, Pei was unhappy with it.
At the same time, Pei designed a new museum for Luxembourg, the Musée d'art moderne Grand-Duc Jean, commonly known as the Mudam. Drawing from the original shape of the Fort Thüngen walls where the museum was located, Pei planned to remove a portion of the original foundation. Public resistance to the historical loss forced a revision of his plan, however, and the project was nearly abandoned. The size of the building was halved, and it was set back from the original wall segments to preserve the foundation. Pei was disappointed with the alterations, but remained involved in the building process even during construction.
In 1995, Pei was hired to design an extension to the Deutsches Historisches Museum, or German Historical Museum in Berlin. Returning to the challenge of the East Building of the U.S. National Gallery, Pei worked to combine a modernist approach with a classical main structure. He described the glass cylinder addition as a "beacon," and topped it with a glass roof to allow plentiful sunlight inside. Pei had difficulty working with German government officials on the project; their utilitarian approach clashed with his passion for aesthetics. "They thought I was nothing but trouble", he said.
Pei also worked at this time on two projects for a new Japanese religious movement called Shinji Shumeikai. He was approached by the movement's spiritual leader, Kaishu Koyama, who impressed the architect with her sincerity and willingness to give him significant artistic freedom. One of the buildings was a bell tower, designed to resemble the bachi used when playing traditional instruments like the shamisen. Pei was unfamiliar with the movement's beliefs, but explored them in order to represent something meaningful in the tower. As he said: "It was a search for the sort of expression that is not at all technical."
The experience was rewarding for Pei, and he agreed immediately to work with the group again. The new project was the Miho Museum, to display Koyama's collection of tea ceremony artifacts. Pei visited the site in Shiga Prefecture, and during their conversations convinced Koyama to expand her collection. She conducted a global search and acquired more than 300 items showcasing the history of the Silk Road.
One major challenge was the approach to the museum. The Japanese team proposed a winding road up the mountain, not unlike the approach to the NCAR building in Colorado. Instead, Pei ordered a hole cut through a nearby mountain, connected to a major road via a bridge suspended from ninety-six steel cables and supported by a post set into the mountain. The museum itself was built into the mountain, with 80 percent of the building underground.
When designing the exterior, Pei borrowed from the tradition of Japanese temples, particularly those found in nearby Kyoto. He created a concise spaceframe wrapped into French limestone and covered with a glass roof. Pei also oversaw specific decorative details, including a bench in the entrance lobby, carved from a 350-year-old keyaki tree. Because of Koyama's considerable wealth, money was rarely considered an obstacle; estimates at the time of completion put the cost of the project at US\$350 million.
During the first decade of the 2000s, Pei designed a variety of buildings, including the Suzhou Museum near his childhood home. He also designed the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, at the request of the Al-Thani Family. Although it was originally planned for the corniche road along Doha Bay, Pei convinced the project coordinators to build a new island to provide the needed space. He then spent six months touring the region and surveying mosques in Spain, Syria, and Tunisia. He was especially impressed with the elegant simplicity of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo.
Once again, Pei sought to combine new design elements with the classical aesthetic most appropriate for the location of the building. The sand-colored rectangular boxes rotate evenly to create a subtle movement, with small arched windows at regular intervals into the limestone exterior. Inside, galleries are arranged around a massive atrium, lit from above. The museum's coordinators were pleased with the project; its official website describes its "true splendour unveiled in the sunlight," and speaks of "the shades of colour and the interplay of shadows paying tribute to the essence of Islamic architecture".
The Macao Science Center in Macau was designed by Pei Partnership Architects in association with I. M. Pei. The project to build the science center was conceived in 2001 and construction started in 2006. The center was completed in 2009 and opened by the Chinese President Hu Jintao. The main part of the building is a distinctive conical shape with a spiral walkway and large atrium inside, similar to that of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Galleries lead off the walkway, mainly consisting of interactive exhibits aimed at science education. The building is in a prominent position by the sea and is now a Macau landmark.
Pei's career ended with his death in May 2019, at 102 years of age.
## Style and method
Pei's style was described as thoroughly modernist, with significant cubist themes. He was known for combining traditional architectural principles with progressive designs based on simple geometric patterns—circles, squares, and triangles are common elements of his work in both plan and elevation. As one critic wrote: "Pei has been aptly described as combining a classical sense of form with a contemporary mastery of method." In 2000, biographer Carter Wiseman called Pei "the most distinguished member of his Late-Modernist generation still in practice". At the same time, Pei himself rejected simple dichotomies of architectural trends. He once said: "The talk about modernism versus post-modernism is unimportant. It's a side issue. An individual building, the style in which it is going to be designed and built, is not that important. The important thing, really, is the community. How does it affect life?"
Pei's work is celebrated throughout the world of architecture. His colleague John Portman once told him: "Just once, I'd like to do something like the East Building." But this originality did not always bring large financial reward; as Pei replied to the successful architect: "Just once, I'd like to make the kind of money you do." His concepts, moreover, were too individualized and dependent on context to have given rise to a particular school of design. Pei referred to his own "analytical approach" when explaining the lack of a "Pei School".
"For me," he said, "the important distinction is between a stylistic approach to the design; and an analytical approach giving the process of due consideration to time, place, and purpose ... My analytical approach requires a full understanding of the three essential elements ... to arrive at an ideal balance among them."
## Awards and honors
In the words of his biographer, Pei won "every award of any consequence in his art", including the Arnold Brunner Award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1963), the Gold Medal for Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1979), the AIA Gold Medal (1979), the first Praemium Imperiale for Architecture from the Japan Art Association (1989), the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, the 1998 Edward MacDowell Medal in the Arts, and the 2010 Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects. In 1983 he was awarded the Pritzker Prize, sometimes referred to as the Nobel Prize of architecture. In its citation, the jury said: "Ieoh Ming Pei has given this century some of its most beautiful interior spaces and exterior forms ... His versatility and skill in the use of materials approach the level of poetry." The prize was accompanied by a US\$100,000 award, which Pei used to create a scholarship for Chinese students to study architecture in the U.S., on the condition that they return to China to work. In 1986, he was one of twelve recipients of the Medal of Liberty. When he was awarded the 2003 Henry C. Turner Prize by the National Building Museum, museum board chair Carolyn Brody praised his impact on construction innovation: "His magnificent designs have challenged engineers to devise innovative structural solutions, and his exacting expectations for construction quality have encouraged contractors to achieve high standards." In December 1992, Pei was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H. W. Bush. In 1996, Pei became the first person to be elected a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Pei was also an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
## Personal life
Pei's wife of over 70 years, Eileen Loo, died on June 20, 2014. Together they had three sons, T'ing Chung (1945–2003), Chien Chung (b. 1946; known as Didi), and Li Chung (b. 1949; known as Sandi); and a daughter, Liane (b. 1960). T'ing Chung was an urban planner and alumnus of his father's alma mater MIT and Harvard. Chieng Chung and Li Chung, who are both Harvard College and Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni, founded and run Pei Partnership Architects. Liane is a lawyer.
In 2015, Pei's home health aide, Eter Nikolaishvili, grabbed Pei's right forearm and twisted it, resulting in bruising and bleeding and hospital treatment. Pei alleges that the assault occurred when Pei threatened to call the police about Nikolaishvili. Nikolaishvili agreed to plead guilty in 2016.
Pei celebrated his 100th birthday on April 26, 2017. He died at his Manhattan apartment on May 16, 2019, at the age of 102. He was survived by his three adult children, seven grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
## In popular culture
In the 2021 parody film America: The Motion Picture, I. M. Pei was voiced by David Callaham.
## See also
- Chinese Americans in New York City
- List of I. M. Pei projects
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Governor of Kentucky
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Head of state and of government of the U.S. commonwealth of Kentucky
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"1792 establishments in Kentucky",
"Governor of Kentucky"
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The governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky is the head of government in Kentucky. Sixty-two men and one woman have served as governor of Kentucky. The governor's term is four years in length; since 1992, incumbents have been able to seek re-election once before becoming ineligible for four years. Throughout the state's history, four men have served two non-consecutive terms as governor, and two others have served two consecutive terms. Kentucky is one of only five U.S. states that hold gubernatorial elections in odd-numbered years. The current governor is Andy Beshear, who was first elected in 2019.
The governor's powers are enumerated in the state constitution. There have been four constitutions of Kentucky—adopted in 1792, 1799, 1850, and 1891, respectively—and each has enlarged the governor's authority. Among the powers assigned to the governor in the constitution are the ability to grant pardons, veto legislation, and call the legislature into session. The governor serves as commander-in-chief of the state's military forces and is empowered to enforce all laws of the state. The officeholder is given broad statutory authority to make appointments to the various cabinets and departments of the executive branch, limited somewhat by the adoption of a merit system for state employees in 1960. Because Kentucky's governor controls so many appointments to commissions, the office has been historically considered one of the most powerful state executive positions in the United States. Additionally, the governor's influence has been augmented by wide discretion in awarding state contracts and significant influence over the legislature, although the latter has been waning since the mid-1970s.
The history of the office of Governor is largely one of long periods of domination by a single party, though different parties were predominant in different eras. Federalists were rare among Kentuckians during the period of the First Party System, and Democratic Republicans won every gubernatorial election in the state until 1828. The Second Party System began when the Democratic-Republicans split into Jacksonian Democrats (the predecessor of the modern Democratic Party) and National Republicans (later to become Whigs). Beginning with the election of Thomas Metcalfe in 1828, the Whigs dominated the governorship until 1851, with John Breathitt being the only Democrat elected during that period.
With the collapse of the Whig Party in the 1850s, Democrats took control of the governorship for the duration of the Third Party System, with Charles S. Morehead of the Know Nothing Party being the only exception. The election of Republican William O'Connell Bradley in 1895 began the only period of true two-party competition for the governorship; from Bradley's election through 1931, five Republicans and six Democrats held the office of governor of Kentucky. Since 1931, only four Republicans have served as governor of Kentucky, and no Republican governor has ever been re-elected; the most recent past governor, Matt Bevin, lost re-election.
## Powers and responsibilities
In all four Kentucky constitutions, the first power enumerated to the governor is to serve as commander-in-chief of the state's militia and military forces. In 1799, a stipulation was added that the governor would not personally lead troops on the battlefield unless advised to do so by a resolution of the General Assembly. Such a case occurred in 1813 when Governor Isaac Shelby, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, was asked to lead a band of Kentucky troops to aid William Henry Harrison at the Battle of the Thames. For his service, Shelby received the Thanks of Congress and the Congressional Gold Medal.
Among the other powers and responsibilities of the governor that appear in all four constitutions are the power to enforce all laws, the power to fill vacancies in elected offices until the next meeting of the General Assembly, and the power to remit fines and grant pardons. The power to pardon is not applicable to cases of impeachment, and in cases of treason, a gubernatorial pardon is only effective until the end of the next session of the General Assembly, which can grant a full pardon for treason. The 1891 constitution further required that, with each application for a pardon, the governor file "a statement of the reasons for his decision thereon, which ... shall always be open to public inspection." This requirement was first proposed by a delegate to the 1850 constitutional convention, but it was rejected at that time. Historically, power in Kentucky's executive has been split amongst a variety of elected positions—including Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Auditor of Public Accounts, Treasurer, and several commissioners—but in the late 20th century, political power has centralized in the office of Governor.
### Convening and adjourning the legislature
The power of the governor to adjourn the General Assembly for a period of up to four months if the two houses cannot agree on a time to adjourn appears in all four constitutions. The governor is also empowered to convene the General Assembly "on extraordinary occasions". Since the 1799 constitution, the governor has been permitted to call the legislature into session somewhere other than the state capital if the capital had, since the last legislative session, "become dangerous from an enemy or from contagious diseases." This was an important provision in the early days of the Commonwealth, when epidemics like smallpox posed a danger to the populace. One notable example of an attempt to employ this power was in 1900 when Republican governor William S. Taylor attempted to adjourn the legislature and re-convene it in heavily Republican London, Kentucky following the shooting of William Goebel. Taylor claimed a state of insurrection existed in the capital, but defiant Democrats refused to heed the call to adjourn or to convene in London.
The 1891 constitution added a provision that the governor must specify the reason for any specially called legislative session, and that no other business could be considered during the session. There is, however, no constitutional requirement that the legislature conduct any business during the called session. In 2007, Republican governor Ernie Fletcher called the Assembly into session to consider a long list of items. The Democratically controlled House of Representatives maintained that none of the items were urgent enough that they could not wait until the regular session convened; they claimed that Fletcher was calling the session only to boost his sagging poll numbers before the upcoming election in which he faced a challenge from Democrat Steve Beshear. The House convened on the day appointed and adjourned an hour later without transacting any business.
### Veto
Unlike the U.S. President, the governor does not have the option of a pocket veto. If the governor does not make a decision to sign or veto a bill, it automatically becomes law after 10 days. In the event that the legislature adjourns to prevent the return of a bill by veto, the bill becomes law three days after the commencement of the next legislative session unless the governor explicitly vetoes it. (With the federal pocket veto, the bill is considered vetoed after ten days if the legislature adjourns.)
The 1799 constitution contained, for the first time, the power of the governor to veto legislation; this power was substantially similar to, and probably based upon, that found in the 1792 New Hampshire Constitution and the 1798 Georgia Constitution. The 1891 constitution empowered the governor with a line-item veto, but its use was forbidden on constitutional amendments and laws related to the classification of property for tax purposes. The governor's veto can be overridden by roll-call majority votes of both houses of the legislature; unlike in most states where a supermajority is required to override a veto.
### Budget
Although setting the state budget is a legislative function in many states, Kentucky governors are required by statute to present a proposed biennial budget to the General Assembly for approval shortly after the beginning of its even-year sessions. The governor's budget has often been approved with few changes, but since the Republicans took control of the state senate for the first time in 1999, approval has become a much more contentious process. The General Assembly failed to pass a budget before the end of its session in both 2002 and 2004. In both cases, the state operated under an executive spending plan drafted by the governor until the legislature could re-convene and pass a budget. In 2005 the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that the governor had no authority to expend funds without legislative approval, and that if legislators failed to pass a budget in the future, only expenditures explicitly authorized in the state constitution could be made.
### Administration and appointments
Although the Kentucky constitution designates the governor as the head of the executive branch of state government, it does not specify the means of carrying out that role. Empowered to nominate all constitutional officers by the state's first constitution, that power of the office of the governor has been reduced in subsequent constitutions, as more of those offices became elective. Because the governor is not explicitly authorized by the constitution to conduct many of the functions necessary to administer the state government, the officeholder has had to rely on empowering legislation enacted by the General Assembly. With this in mind, Kentucky historian Thomas D. Clark wrote in 2004 that extensive executive powers had been granted through the creation of a large number of commissions that reported to the governor:
> During the past century and a half, and especially in the later 20th century, it would have been impossible for state government to operate efficiently without a broadening of executive powers. Through the years the General Assembly has created a myriad of commissions and turned them over to the governor to exercise administrative oversight. ... All of these commissions extended the influence of the governor into every phase of human life in the commonwealth, well beyond the limitations of executive power envisioned by delegates to the constitutional convention in 1891.
By 1934, the executive branch consisted of sixty-nine boards, commissions, and agencies in addition to the constitutional officers, although the members of these commissions were often the constitutional officers themselves. Governor Ruby Laffoon proposed the Administrative Reorganization Act of 1934 to organize these boards and commissions into seventeen executive departments and seven independent agencies. The General Assembly passed this legislation, giving the executive branch some semblance of structure for the first time.
Laffoon's successor, A. B. "Happy" Chandler, called a special legislative session in 1936 seeking passage of another reorganization act. This act abolished several commissions and organized those remaining into ten statutory departments: Finance, Revenue, Highways, Health, Welfare, Industrial Relations, Business Regulation, Conservation, Libraries and Archives, and Mines and Minerals. The Act also created the Executive Cabinet, consisting of the constitutional officers and the heads of each of the ten statutory departments. The efficiencies created by Chandler's reorganization allowed him to pay off more than three-quarters of the state's \$28.5 million debt. Besides effecting the reorganization of the executive branch, the Reorganization Act of 1936 also explicitly empowered the governor to appoint executive department heads and establish, combine, or divide departments as necessary. Later statutes gave the governor the power to appoint advisory committees on reorganization, appoint deputy heads of divisions, transfer employees and change their responsibilities within the executive branch, and establish general rules of conduct for executive branch members.
In the 35 years between the time of Chandler's reorganization and the election of Wendell H. Ford as governor in 1971, the executive branch had again become unwieldy. 60 departments and 210 boards reported directly to the governor by 1972, and duplication of services between departments had created inefficiencies. On January 1, 1973, a plan that Ford had issued in late 1972 took effect, consolidating the departments reporting to him into six program cabinets: Consumer Protection and Regulation, Development, Education and the Arts, Human Resources, Safety and Justice, and Transportation. Ford continued merging departments and reorganizing the executive branch throughout 1973 to the extent that, by the end of the year, there were only three program cabinets (Development, Education and the Arts, and Consumer Protection and Regulation) and four additional departments (Human Resources, Justice, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, and Transportation).
By 2002, the executive branch had again grown to fourteen cabinets, but had no additional departments. Shortly after his election in 2003, Governor Ernie Fletcher undertook the last major reorganization of the executive branch to date, reducing the number of cabinets to nine—Justice and Public Safety, Education and Workforce Development, Environmental and Public Protection, Transportation, Economic Development, Health and Family Services, Finance and Administration, Tourism, Arts and Heritage, and Personnel.
Because the governor controls so many appointments to commissions—approximately 2,000 according to a 1992 estimate—the office has been historically considered one of the most powerful state executive positions in the United States. Additionally, the governor is given wide discretion in awarding state contracts, further augmenting his influence. In the second half of the 20th century, attempts were made to curb the use of the governor's appointment power for political patronage. During his second term in office, Happy Chandler issued an executive order creating a merit system that forbade the hiring or firing of state employees for political reasons; his successor, Bert T. Combs, pushed a new merit system through the legislature, protecting it from abolition by executive order. Despite the presence of the merit system, many governors have been criticized for abusing their appointment power. In 2005, Ernie Fletcher and several members of his administration were indicted for violating the merit system in their hiring practices; the charges were later dropped as part of an agreement with the prosecutor, Attorney General Greg Stumbo.
### Unofficial powers
In The Kentucky Encyclopedia, Eastern Kentucky University professor Paul Blanchard writes that "Many observers consider the governor's informal powers—those derived from tradition, custom, and precedent—as important as the formal powers." Frequently the leaders of their political parties at the state level, Kentucky governors usually control the party's delegations to state and national party conventions. Though given few powers with regard to the legislature, Kentucky governors can exercise a great deal of influence over the General Assembly, often hand-selecting the leadership of both chambers. A move toward a more independent legislature began in the last quarter of the 20th century, particularly during the administration of Governor John Y. Brown Jr. from 1979 to 1983. Brown was much less engaged in legislative affairs than his predecessors; he did not seek to influence the selection of the legislature's leadership, and he left on vacation during one of the two legislative sessions of his term. The trend toward a coequal legislature continued under the administrations of Brown's two immediate successors, Martha Layne Collins and Wallace Wilkinson, neither of whom was considered a strong executive.
The governor is also the most visible state officer and is the center of political attention in the Commonwealth. The official host of the state when dignitaries visit, the governor frequently delivers addresses at various dedications and ceremonies, and appears on national television with the winner of the annual Kentucky Derby. The state constitution requires the governor to address the legislature periodically regarding the state of the Commonwealth. This address, traditionally given annually, is often targeted directly at the state's citizens as much as, or more so than, the legislature. The governor can use the address to extol the accomplishments of his or her term and lay out a specific plan for the upcoming legislative session; the contents of the address often shape the agenda of the session. The state's media outlets devote significant coverage to the governor's actions, and many strong governors have used the media to win support for their agendas and criticize political enemies.
## Qualifications and term
Candidates for the office of governor of Kentucky must be at least thirty years of age and have resided in the state for at least six years preceding the general election. The residency requirement was increased from two years to six years in the constitution of 1799 and all subsequent constitutions. The 1792 constitution—the state's first—also included an exception for candidates who had been absent from the state "on the public business of the United States or of this State." The age requirement was raised from thirty years to thirty-five years in the 1799 constitution and was returned to thirty years in the 1891 constitution.
A prohibition against any person concurrently holding the office of governor and a federal office appears in the first three state constitutions, but is absent in the state's current charter. Additionally, the 1799 constitution barred a "minister of any religious society" from holding the office. This language was possibly aimed at the sitting governor, James Garrard, who was an ordained Baptist minister and had frequently clashed with the legislature. The prohibition against ministers holding the office remained in the 1850 constitution, but was removed from the 1891 constitution.
In the 1891 constitution, a section was included that forbade anyone from holding any state office—including the office of governor—who had "either directly or indirectly, give[n], accept[ed] or knowingly carr[ied] a challenge to any person or persons to fight in single combat, with a citizen of this State, with a deadly weapon, either in or out of the State". This provision reflected the prevalence of duelling in the South at the time. The gubernatorial oath of office states:
> I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and be faithful and true to the Commonwealth of Kentucky so long as I continue to be a citizen thereof, and that I will faithfully execute, to the best of my ability, the office of Governor according to law; and I do further solemnly swear that since the adoption of the present Constitution, I, being a citizen of this state, have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within this state, nor out of it, nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted as second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person thus offending, so help me God."
The governor's term has been for four years in all four state constitutions. The governor was not term-limited in the 1792 constitution, but in the 1799 constitution, the governor was made ineligible for re-election for seven years following the expiration of his term. The provision did not apply to then-sitting governor James Garrard, who was re-elected in 1799. In the 1850 constitution, the period of ineligibility following the expiration of the governor's term was shortened to four years, and it remained so in the 1891 constitution. In 1953, Governor Lawrence Wetherby lamented the challenges presented by the term limit coupled with biennial legislative sessions:
> A Kentucky governor is elected under our constitution for four years without legal opportunity, regardless of how acceptable his program has been, to put it before the public for approval or rejection. In practical application he must successfully run the legislative gauntlet during the first hurried ninety days he is in office if he is to adopt a program and have an administration worthy of history's harsh pen. The remaining general assembly two years hence is invariably plagued with vicissitudes common to 'lame duck' tenures.
The idea of removing the gubernatorial term limit was first proposed in the 1850 constitutional convention, but was vigorously opposed by some of the state's best known statesmen of the day, including Archibald Dixon, Garrett Davis, Benjamin Hardin, and Charles A. Wickliffe. Not until 1992 was an amendment to the state constitution passed to help ameliorate the situation by making the governor eligible to succeed himself one time before becoming ineligible for four years. Succession amendments had been proposed and defeated during the administrations of John Y. Brown, Jr. and Wallace Wilkinson, but then-Governor Brereton Jones was able to see it passed because, unlike Brown and Wilkinson, he was willing to exempt the present incumbents, including himself, from the succession provision. Paul E. Patton, with victories in the elections of 1995 and 1999, was the first governor to be elected to consecutive terms since the 1992 amendment. Another constitutional amendment, passed in November 2000, called for a 30-day legislative session to be held in odd-numbered years between the longer 60-day sessions held in even-numbered years.
## Election
In the 1792 constitution, the governor and state senators were chosen by electors, in a manner similar to the operation of the United States Electoral College. In the 1795 gubernatorial election, Benjamin Logan received 21 electoral votes, James Garrard received 17, Thomas Todd received 14, and John Brown received 1. The constitution did not specify whether election required a plurality or a majority of the electoral votes cast; in the absence of any instruction, the electors held a runoff vote, wherein most of Todd's electors voted for Garrard, giving him a majority. The secretary of state certified Garrard's election, though Attorney General John Breckinridge questioned the legality of the second vote and Logan formally protested it. Ultimately, Breckinridge determined that he was not empowered by the state constitution to intervene, and Logan gave up the challenge. The 1799 constitution changed the method of selecting the governor to direct election by majority vote and prescribed that, in the event of a tie vote, the governor would be chosen by lot in the Kentucky General Assembly. This provision has remained since 1799.
After the development of the party system, it became commonplace for political parties to choose their nominees for the office of governor via a nominating convention. Thomas Metcalfe was the first gubernatorial candidate chosen by a nominating convention; he was nominated by the National Republican Party at their convention in December 1827. Governor Ruby Laffoon, elected in 1931, was the last governor of Kentucky nominated by a convention. Laffoon's lieutenant governor, Happy Chandler, pushed the legislature to mandate party primaries, which they did in 1935. Party primaries remain required by law today. In 1992, the state constitution was amended to require candidates for governor and lieutenant governor to be nominated and elected as a ticket.
Kentucky is one of only five U.S. states to hold gubernatorial elections in odd-numbered years—commonly called an off-year election. Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, and New Jersey also hold off-year gubernatorial elections. The general election for governor and lieutenant governor is held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The governor and lieutenant governor are inaugurated on the fifth Tuesday after their election. This was changed from the fourth Tuesday after the election by the 1850 constitution.
## Succession
Under Kentucky's first constitution (1792), the Speaker of the Kentucky Senate became acting governor upon the death, resignation, or removal of the sitting governor from office, until a new election could be held. The 1799 constitution created the office of lieutenant governor, who acted as Speaker of the Senate, but was not otherwise considered a member of that body. The lieutenant governor was to become governor in the event of the sitting governor's death, resignation, or removal from office and was to act in a gubernatorial capacity any time the governor was out of the state. Whenever the lieutenant governor became the new governor, the Senate was to elect one of its members to act as Speaker; that individual then became next in the line of gubernatorial succession. A provision of the 1850 constitution added that, if the governor's term had more than two years remaining at the time of his death, resignation, or removal from office, a special election would be called to fill the office; the lieutenant governor would become the new governor and serve in the interim.
In the 1891 constitution, the chain of succession was extended. It mandated that, if the Senate was not in session and therefore did not have an elected Speaker, the secretary of state, or in the event of his inability to qualify, the attorney general, would become acting governor in the event of the death, resignation, or removal from office of the sitting governor and lieutenant governor. The secretary of state or attorney general would then be required to call the Senate into session to elect a Speaker, who would subsequently become governor. A 1992 amendment to the state constitution removed the provision under which the lieutenant governor became acting governor when the sitting governor was out of the state. It also relieved the lieutenant governor of his duties in the Senate and created the office of President of the Kentucky Senate, chosen from among the state senators, who presides over the Senate. The amendment also modified the chain of succession again—it is now as follows:
1. Governor (Andy Beshear)
2. Lieutenant Governor (Jacqueline Coleman)
3. President of the Senate (if the Senate is in session) (Robert Stivers)
4. Attorney General (if the Senate is not in session) (Daniel Cameron)
5. State Auditor (if the Senate is not in session and the Attorney General fails to qualify) (Mike Harmon)
If the office devolves upon the attorney general or state auditor, that individual is required to call the Senate into session to elect a president, who would subsequently become governor.
The first instance of gubernatorial succession in Kentucky's history occurred upon the death of Governor George Madison in 1816. Madison was extremely popular as a twice-wounded war hero. He died of tuberculosis just three weeks into his term. His lieutenant governor, Gabriel Slaughter, ascended to the governorship and immediately made two very unpopular appointments. These moves engendered much animosity toward Slaughter, and a movement began in the House of Representatives to hold a new election for governor. Leaders of the movement, including a young John C. Breckinridge, claimed that Slaughter was only the "acting governor" until a new governor was elected. The call for a new election failed in the House in 1815, but was approved by the House in 1817 only to fail in the Senate. Slaughter served out the rest of Madison's term and in so doing, established the precedent that the lieutenant governor would be the permanent successor to the governor upon the latter's death, resignation, or removal from office.
Besides Madison, four other governors have died while in office—John Breathitt, James Clark, John L. Helm, and William Goebel. All died of natural causes except Goebel, who is the only governor of any U.S. state to have been assassinated. Goebel lost the contentious 1899 gubernatorial election to William S. Taylor, but challenged the results. While the General Assembly was considering the challenge, Goebel was shot. Days later, the General Assembly decided in favor of Goebel, ousting Taylor from office and making Goebel governor. Goebel was sworn in on his sick bed and died two days later. His lieutenant governor, J. C. W. Beckham, succeeded him.
7 men have resigned the office of governor before the end of their terms—John J. Crittenden, Beriah Magoffin, John W. Stevenson, Augustus O. Stanley, Happy Chandler, Earle C. Clements, and Wendell H. Ford. 6 resigned to accept a higher office: Crittenden was appointed Attorney General of the United States and the other 5 were elected to the U.S. Senate. Only Beriah Magoffin resigned under duress. A Confederate sympathizer during the Civil War, Magoffin's power was entirely checked by a hostile, pro-Union legislature. With the state's government in gridlock, Magoffin agreed to resign in exchange for being able to name his successor. Lieutenant Governor Linn Boyd had died in office, and the Speaker of the Senate, John F. Fisk, was not acceptable to Magoffin as a successor. Fisk resigned as Speaker, and the Senate elected Magoffin's choice, James Fisher Robinson as Speaker. Magoffin then resigned, Robinson was elevated to governor, and Fisk was re-elected as Speaker of the Senate.
All elected officials in Kentucky, including the governor, are subject to impeachment for "any misdemeanors in office". The articles of impeachment must be issued by the House of Representatives and the trial is conducted by the Senate. If convicted, the governor is subject to removal from office and may be prohibited from holding elected office in the state thereafter. Impeached governors may also be subject to trial in the criminal or civil court system. No governor of Kentucky has been impeached.
## Compensation and residence
Each iteration of the Kentucky Constitution has provided that the governor receive a salary. Under the first three constitutions, the governor's salary could not be increased or reduced while he was in office; this provision was extended to all public officials in the present constitution. The governor's salary is set by law, and is equal to \$60,000 times the increase in the consumer price index between January 1, 1984, and the beginning of the current calendar year. In 2014, the governor's salary was \$186,730.
The Kentucky Governor's Mansion is the official residence of the governor of Kentucky. The present Governor's Mansion, constructed in 1914 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, is located at 704 Capitol Avenue in the state capital of Frankfort. It is the second building to serve as the official residence of the governor of Kentucky. The Kentucky Revised Statutes provide that "[t]he Governor shall have the use of the mansion and the furniture therein and premises, free of rent, but the purchase of furniture for the mansion shall be upon the recommendation of the secretary of the Finance and Administration Cabinet".
The state's first governor's mansion was constructed during the gubernatorial tenure of James Garrard. According to tradition, future governors Thomas Metcalfe (a stonemason) and Robert P. Letcher (who worked at his father's brickyard) participated in the construction of the first governor's mansion. After the construction of the present governor's mansion, the old governor's mansion became the official residence of the lieutenant governor. Lieutenant governor Steve Henry vacated the mansion in 2002 so it could be renovated; following the renovation, it became a state guest house and official entertainment space for the governor. For many years, the mansion was the oldest official residence still in use in the United States. Located at 420 High Street in Frankfort, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
## History of the office
Political parties had developed in the United States before Kentucky became a state. Because most early Kentuckians were Virginians, they naturally allied with the Democratic-Republicans, the party of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison; the latter was a cousin of George Madison, the state's sixth governor. Political victories were few and far between for Federalists in Kentucky, and none of Kentucky's governors were members of the Federalist Party. Military service was the most important consideration for voters in Kentucky's early gubernatorial elections. John Breathitt, elected Kentucky's eleventh governor in 1832, was the first Kentucky governor not to have served in the military.
The Federalist Party had died out nationally by 1820, but new party divisions were soon to form in Kentucky. The Panic of 1819 left many Kentuckians deeply in debt and without a means of repaying their creditors. Two factions grew up around the issue of debt relief. Those who favored laws favorable to debtors were dubbed the "Relief Party" and those who favored laws protecting creditors were called the "Anti-Relief Party". While not formal political parties—members of both factions still considered themselves Democratic-Republicans—these factions defined the political dialogue of the 1820s in Kentucky. The debt relief issue began under Gabriel Slaughter, who identified with the Anti-Relief Party, but Slaughter's two immediate successors, John Adair and Joseph Desha, were members of the Relief Party. The struggle between the two parties culminated in the Old Court – New Court controversy, an attempt by the pro-relief legislature to abolish the Court of Appeals because the court overturned some debt relief measures as unconstitutional. The controversy ended with the restoration of the Old Court over Desha's veto in late 1826.
Although many Old Court supporters—typically the state's wealthy aristocracy—gravitated to the National Republican Party (later to be called Whigs) that formed in the 1820s, it is inaccurate to assume the Anti-Relief Party as a whole became National Republicans and the Relief Party became Democrats. The primary factor in determining which party Kentuckians aligned with was their faith in Whig Party founder and native son, Henry Clay. From the election of Thomas Metcalfe in 1828 to the expiration of John L. Helm's term in 1851, only one Democrat held the office of governor: John Breathitt, who died a year and a half into his term and was succeeded in office by his lieutenant governor, James Turner Morehead, a National Republican.
Following the collapse of the Whig Party in the early 1850s, many former Whigs joined the Know Nothing, or American Party, and Charles S. Morehead was elected governor from that party in 1855. Sectarian tensions gripped the state in the lead-up to the Civil War, and while the majority of Kentuckians favored the preservation of the Union above all else, a self-constituted group of Confederate sympathizers met at Russellville and formed a Confederate government for the state. While this provisional government never displaced the elected government in Frankfort, two men served as Confederate governors of Kentucky.
From the close of the Civil War until 1895, Kentuckians elected a series of Bourbon Democrats with Confederate sympathies as governor, including two men—James B. McCreary and Simon Bolivar Buckner—who had served in the Confederate States Army. The Democratic dominance was broken by William O'Connell Bradley, who was elected the state's first Republican governor in 1895. Bradley's election marked the beginning of thirty years of true, two-party competition for the governorship in the state. Between 1895 and 1931, five Republicans and six Democrats held the office of governor. Since 1931, however, the Republicans have been unable to preserve this level of parity, and in that period only four of the twenty elected governors have been from the Republican party.
## See also
- 2019 Kentucky gubernatorial election – most recent gubernatorial election
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34,655,588 |
William Jennings Bryan 1896 presidential campaign
| 1,164,546,753 |
Campaign of William Jennings Bryan for the election to President of the United States in 1896
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[
"1896 United States presidential campaigns",
"Democratic Party (United States) presidential campaigns",
"Economic history of the United States",
"Gold standard",
"Metallism",
"Monetary policy",
"People's Party (United States)",
"Political history of the United States",
"Populism",
"William Jennings Bryan"
] |
In 1896, William Jennings Bryan ran unsuccessfully for president of the United States. Bryan, a former Democratic congressman from Nebraska, gained his party's presidential nomination in July of that year after electrifying the Democratic National Convention with his Cross of Gold speech. He was defeated in the general election by the Republican candidate, former Ohio governor William McKinley.
Born in 1860, Bryan grew up in rural Illinois and in 1887 moved to Nebraska, where he practiced law and entered politics. He won election to the House of Representatives in 1890, and was re-elected in 1892, before mounting an unsuccessful US Senate run. He set his sights on higher office, believing he could be elected president in 1896 even though he remained a relatively minor figure in the Democratic Party. In anticipation of a presidential campaign, he spent much of 1895 and early 1896 making speeches across the United States; his compelling oratory increased his popularity in his party.
Bryan often spoke on the issue of the currency. The economic Panic of 1893 had left the nation in a deep recession, which still persisted in early 1896. Bryan and many other Democrats believed the economic malaise could be remedied through a return to bimetallism, or free silver—a policy they believed would inflate the currency and make it easier for debtors to repay loans. Bryan went to the Democratic convention in Chicago as an undeclared candidate, whom the press had given only a small chance of becoming the Democratic nominee. His 'Cross of Gold' speech, given to conclude the debate on the party platform, immediately transformed him into a favorite for the nomination, and he won it the next day. The Democrats nominated Arthur Sewall, a wealthy Maine banker and shipbuilder, for vice president. The left-wing Populist Party (which had hoped to nominate the only silver-supporting candidate) endorsed Bryan for president, but found Sewall unacceptable, substituting Thomas E. Watson of Georgia.
Abandoned by many gold-supporting party leaders and newspapers after the Chicago convention, Bryan undertook an extensive tour by rail to bring his campaign to the people. He spoke some 600 times, to an estimated 5,000,000 listeners. His campaign focused on silver, an issue that failed to appeal to the urban voter, and he was defeated in what is generally seen as a realigning election. The coalition of wealthy, middle-class and urban voters that defeated Bryan kept the Republicans in power for most of the time until 1932. Although defeated in the election, Bryan's campaign made him a national figure, which he remained until his death in 1925.
## Background
### Bryan
William Jennings Bryan was born in rural Salem, Illinois, in 1860. His father, Silas Bryan, was a Jacksonian Democrat, judge, lawyer, and local party activist. As a judge's son, the younger Bryan had ample opportunity to observe the art of speechmaking in courtrooms, political rallies, and at church and revival meetings. In post-Civil War America, oratory was highly prized, and Bryan showed aptitude for it from a young age, raised in his father's house in Salem. Attending Illinois College beginning in 1877, Bryan devoted himself to winning the school prize for speaking. He won the prize in his junior year, and also secured the affection of Mary Baird, a student at a nearby women's academy. She became his wife, and was his principal assistant throughout his career.
While attending law school from 1881 to 1883, Bryan was a clerk to former Illinois senator Lyman Trumbull, who influenced him in a dislike for wealth and business monopolies. Bryan was strongly affected by the emerging Social Gospel movement that called on Protestant activists to seek to cure social problems such as poverty. Looking for a growing city in which his practice could thrive, he moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1887.
Bryan quickly became prominent in Lincoln as a lawyer and a public speaker, becoming known as the "Boy Orator of the Platte". In 1890, he agreed to run for Congress against William James Connell, a Republican, who had won the local congressional seat in 1888. At that time, Nebraska was suffering hard times as many farmers had difficulties making ends meet due to low grain prices, and many Americans were discontented with the existing two major political parties. As a result, disillusioned farmers and others formed a new far-left party, which came to be known as the Populist Party. The Populists proposed both greater government control over the economy (with some calling for government ownership of railroads) and giving the people power over government through the secret ballot, direct election of United States Senators (who were, until 1913, elected by state legislatures), and replacement of the Electoral College with direct election of the president and vice president by popular vote. Party members in many states, including Nebraska, demanded inflation of the currency through issuance of paper or silver currency, allowing easier repayment of debt. After a candidate backed by the nascent Populists withdrew, Bryan defeated Connell for the seat by 6,700 votes (nearly doubling Connell's 1888 margin), receiving support from the Populists and Prohibitionists.
In Congress, Bryan was appointed to the powerful Ways and Means Committee and became a major spokesman on the tariff and money questions. He introduced several proposals for the direct election of senators and to eliminate tariff barriers in industries dominated by monopolies or trusts. This advocacy brought him contributions from silver mine owners in his successful re-election bid in 1892. In the 1892 presidential election, former Democratic president Grover Cleveland defeated the Republican incumbent, Benjamin Harrison, to regain his office. Bryan did not support Cleveland, making it clear he preferred the Populist candidate, James B. Weaver, though he indicated that as a loyal Democrat, he would vote the party ticket.
In May 1894, Bryan announced he would not seek re-election to the House of Representatives, feeling the incessant need to raise money to campaign in a marginal district was inhibiting his political career. Instead, he sought the Senate seat that the Nebraska legislature would fill in January 1895. Although Bryan was successful in winning the non-binding popular vote, Republicans gained a majority in the legislature and elected John Thurston as senator.
### Economic depression; rise of free silver
The question of the currency had been a major political issue since the mid-1870s. Advocates of free silver (or bimetallism) wanted the government to accept all silver bullion presented to it and to return it, struck into coin, at the historic value ratio between gold and silver of 16 to 1. This would restore a practice abolished in 1873. A free silver policy would inflate the currency, as the silver in a dollar coin was worth just over half the face value. Someone who presented ten dollars in silver bullion would receive back almost twice that in silver coin. Advocates believed these proposals would lead to prosperity, while opponents warned that varying from the gold standard (which the United States had, effectively, used since 1873) would cause problems in international trade.
The 1878 Bland–Allison Act and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 required the government to buy large quantities of silver and strike it into coin. They had been passed as compromises between free silver and the gold standard. Bryan, who had been elected after the passage of the latter enactment, initially had little to say on the subject. Free silver was very popular among Nebraskans, though many powerful Democrats opposed it. After his election to Congress, Bryan studied the currency question carefully, and came to believe in free silver; he also saw its political potential. By 1893, Bryan had become a leading supporter of free silver, arguing in a speech in St. Louis that the gold standard was deflationary "making a man pay a debt with a dollar larger than the one he borrowed ... If this robbery is permitted, the farmer will be ruined, and then the cities will suffer."
Even as Cleveland took office as president in March 1893, there were signs of an economic decline. Sherman's act required the government to pay out gold in exchange for silver and paper currency, and through the early months of 1893 gold flowed out of the Treasury. On April 22, 1893, the amount of gold in the Treasury dropped below \$100 million for the first time since 1879, adding to the unease. Rumors that Europeans were about to redeem a large sum for gold caused desperate selling on the stock market, the start of the Panic of 1893. By August, many firms had gone bankrupt, and a special session of Congress convened, called by Cleveland to repeal the silver purchase act. Bryan, who was still in Congress, spoke eloquently against the repeal, but Cleveland forced it through. The President's uncompromising stand for gold alienated many in his own party (most southern and western Democrats were pro-silver). The economy failed to improve, and when the President in 1894 sent federal troops to Illinois to break up the Pullman Strike, he outraged even more Democrats. In late 1894, pro-silver Democrats began to organize in the hope of taking control of the party from Cleveland and other Gold Democrats and nominating a silver candidate in 1896. In this, they were led by Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld, who had opposed Cleveland over the Pullman strike. The Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress in the 1894 midterm elections, with a number of southern states, usually solid for the Democrats, electing Republican or Populist congressmen.
In 1893, bimetallism had been just one of many proposals by Populists and others. As the economic downturn continued, free silver advocates blamed its continuation on the repeal of the silver purchase act, and the issue of silver became more prominent. Free silver especially resonated among farmers in the South and West, as well as miners. June 1894 marked the publication of William H. Harvey's Coin's Financial School. The book, composed of accounts of (fictitious) lectures on the silver issue given by an adolescent named Coin to Chicago audiences, became an immense bestseller. The book included (as foils to the title character) many of Chicago's most prominent men of business; some, such as banker and future Secretary of the Treasury Lyman Gage, issued denials that they had participated in any such lectures. This popular treatment of the currency issue was highly influential. A Missourian, Ezra Peters, wrote to Illinois Senator John M. Palmer, "Coins [sic] Financial School is raising h— in this neck of the woods. If those in favor of honest money don't do something to offset its influence the country is going to the dogs." A Minnesota correspondent wrote in Outlook magazine: "high school boys are about equally divided between silver and baseball, with a decided leaning toward the former".
## Dark horse candidate
### Preparation
In March 1895, the same month he left Congress, Bryan passed his 35th birthday, making him constitutionally eligible for the presidency. By then, he had come to see his nomination for that office as possible, even likely. Bryan believed he could use the coalition-building techniques he had applied in gaining election to Congress, uniting pro-silver forces behind him to gain the Democratic nomination and the presidency. To that end, it was important that the Populists not nominate a rival silver candidate, and he took pains to cultivate good relations with Populist leaders. Through 1895 and early 1896, Bryan sought to make himself as widely known as an advocate for silver as possible. He had accepted the nominal editorship of the Omaha World-Herald in August 1894. The position involved no day-to-day duties, but allowed him to publish his political commentaries. In the 17 months between his departure from Congress and the Democratic National Convention in July 1896, Bryan travelled widely through the South and West, speaking on silver. At every stop, he made contacts that he later cultivated. Several times, in his addresses, Bryan repeated variations on lines he had spoken in Congress in December 1894, decrying the gold standard, "I will not help to crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. I will not aid them to press down upon the bleeding brow of labor this crown of thorns."
Historian H. Wayne Morgan described Bryan:
> Robert La Follette remembered Bryan as "a tall, slender, handsome fellow who looked like a young divine". A streak of the moralist preacher raised his political chances among a people attuned to the biblical phrase and Shakespearan [sic] stance. He was a fine actor, with a justly famous voice, but was not a charlatan. Bryan believed in the out-dated Jeffersonian virtues he preached in the Hamiltonian world of 1896 ... He was young, had a respectable but not burdensome record, came from the West, and understood the arts of conciliation. Though men thought otherwise at the time, neither fate nor accident created his position in the party.
Through early 1896, Bryan quietly sought the nomination. Any possible candidacy depended on silver supporters being successful in electing the bulk of convention delegates; accordingly Bryan backed such efforts. He maintained contact with silver partisans in other parties, hopeful of gathering them in after a nomination. His campaign was low-key, without excessive publicity: Bryan did not want to attract the attention of more prominent candidates. He continued to give speeches, and collected his traveling expenses, and most often a speaking fee, from those who had invited him.
Bryan faced a number of disadvantages in seeking the Democratic nomination: he was little-known among Americans who did not follow politics closely, he had no money to pour into his campaign, he lacked public office, and had incurred the enmity of Cleveland and his administration through his stance on silver and other issues. There was little advantage to the Democratic Party in nominating a candidate from Nebraska, a state small in population that had never voted for a Democrat. As state conventions met to nominate delegates to the July national convention, for the most part, they supported silver, and sent silver men to Chicago. Gold Democrats had success in the Northeast, and little elsewhere. Most state conventions did not bind, or "instruct", their delegates to vote for a specific candidate for the nomination; this course was strongly supported by Bryan. Once delegates were selected, Bryan wrote to party officials and obtained a list; he sent copies of his speeches, clippings from the World-Herald, and his photograph to each delegate.
In June 1896, Bryan's old teacher, former senator Trumbull died; on the day of his funeral, Bryan's mother also died, suddenly in Salem. Bryan spoke at her funeral, quoting lines from Second Timothy: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." He also attended, as a correspondent for the World-Herald, the Republican convention that month in St. Louis. The Republicans, at the request of their nominee for president, former Ohio governor William McKinley, included a plank in their party platform supporting the gold standard. Bryan was deeply moved when, after the adoption of the platform, Colorado Senator Henry M. Teller led a walkout of silver-supporting Republicans. Bryan's biographer, Paolo Coletta, suggests that Bryan may have played a part in inciting the silver men's departure; he was in close contact with Silver Republicans such as Teller and South Dakota Senator Richard Pettigrew. Historian James Barnes wrote of Bryan's preparations:
> The Nebraskan merely understood the political situation better than most of those who might have been his rivals, and he took advantage in a legitimate and thoroughly honorable manner of the existing conditions. He knew that hard work could turn the discontent of the people into a revolt against the gold wing of the party, and no group of individuals ever labored more diligently to gain their political ends than did the silver men in the [Democratic Party] between 1893 and 1896. Bryan sensed the possibility of becoming the nominee long before 1896; his ambition was fully matured several months prior to the convention, and there is evidence that his hopes were becoming tinged with certainty before he left for Chicago.
### Convention
In the run up to the Democratic National Convention, set to begin at the Chicago Coliseum on July 7, 1896, no candidate was seen as an overwhelming favorite for the presidential nomination. The leading candidates were former Missouri congressman Richard P. Bland and former Iowa governor Horace Boies. "Silver Dick" Bland was seen as the elder statesman of the silver movement; he had originated the Bland-Allison Act of 1878, while Boies' victories for governor in a normally Republican state made him attractive as a candidate who might compete with McKinley in the crucial Midwest. Both had openly declared their candidacies, and were the only Democrats to have organizations seeking to obtain pledged delegates. Neither candidate had much money to spend on his campaign. In addition to the frontrunners, other silver men were spoken of as candidates. These included Vice President Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, Senator Joseph C. Blackburn of Kentucky, Indiana Governor Claude Matthews, and Bryan. Illinois Governor Altgeld, a leader of the silver movement, was ineligible because he was not a natural-born U.S. citizen as required for the presidency in the Constitution. When Senator Teller walked out of the Republican convention in protest over the currency plank, he immediately became another possible candidate for the Democratic nomination for president. However, he was deemed unlikely to succeed, as many Democrats feared that if elected, he might fill some patronage jobs with Republicans. President Cleveland spent the week of the convention fishing, and had no comment about the events there; political scientist Richard Bensel attributes Cleveland's political inaction to the President's loss of influence in his party.
Bryan's Nebraska delegation left Lincoln by train on July 5. Carrying some 200 people, the train bore signs on each of its five cars, such as "The W.J. Bryan Club" and "Keep Your Eye on Nebraska." Bryan's strategy was simple: maintain a low profile as a candidate until the last possible moment, then give a speech that rallied the silver forces behind him and bring about his nomination. He was utterly confident that he would succeed, believing "the logic of the situation," as he later put it, dictated his selection. He explained to Champ Clark, the future Speaker of the House, that Bland and others from southern states would fall because of prejudice towards the old Confederacy, that Boies could not be nominated because he was too little-known, and all others would fail due to lack of support—leaving only himself.
Coletta noted the problems faced by Bryan in obtaining the nomination, and how his groundwork helped overcome them:
> The maneuver that paid Bryan highest dividends was his fifteen months of missionary work in behalf of silver and cultivation of the Chicago delegates. He knew personally more delegates than did any other candidate ... and he was on the ground to supervise his strategy. When he spoke of himself as the nominee, some reacted as [journalist] Willis J. Abbot did and doubted his mental capacity. How could a boy in appearance, one not yet admitted to the convention, without a single state behind him, dare claim the nomination? The answer was simple, Bryan told Abbot—he had prepared a speech that would stampede the convention.
Bryan stayed at the Clifton House, a modest hotel adjoining the opulent Palmer House. A large banner outside the Clifton House proclaimed the presence of Nebraska's delegation headquarters, but did not mention Bryan's campaign, which was run from Nebraska's rooms. The main candidates headquartered at the Palmer House, their rooms often crowded as they served free alcoholic drinks. The Coliseum was located in a "dry" district of Chicago but the hotels were not.
Just before the convention, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) made initial determinations of which delegations were to be seated—once convened, delegates would make the final determination after the convention's Credentials Committee reported. The DNC seated a rival, pro-gold Nebraska delegation, and recommended New York Senator David B. Hill as the convention's temporary chairman, each by a vote of 27–23. Bryan was present when it was announced that his delegation would not be initially seated; reports state he acted "somewhat surprised" at the outcome. Since the DNC action meant Bryan would not have a seat at the start of proceedings, he could not be the temporary chairman (who would deliver the keynote address); the Nebraskan began looking for other opportunities to make a speech at the convention. Historian James A. Barnes deemed the DNC's vote immaterial; once the convention met on July 7, it quickly elected a silver man, Virginia Senator John Daniel, as temporary chairman and appointed a committee to review credentials friendly to the silver cause.
As the committees met, the convention proceeded, though in considerable confusion. Many of the silver men had not attended a national convention before, and were unfamiliar with its procedures. Members of the Committee on Resolutions (also called the Platform Committee) intended to elect California Senator Stephen M. White as chairman; they found that he had already been co-opted as permanent chairman of the convention. Bryan had been widely supported as a candidate for permanent chairman by the silver men, but some western delegates on the Committee on Permanent Organization objected, stating that they wanted the chance to support Bryan for the nomination (the permanent chairman was customarily ruled out as a candidate).
Delegates spent most of the first two days listening to various speeches by silver supporters. The first report from the Credentials Committee, on the afternoon of July 8, recommended the seating of Bryan's delegation. This was a matter of intense interest for the silver delegates: Bryan had written to large numbers of delegates urging them to support his men over their gold rivals; once in Chicago, he and his fellow Nebraskans had spoken with many others about the dispute. The convention, by voice vote, seated the silver Nebraskans, who arrived in the convention hall a few minutes later, accompanied by a band. Soon afterwards, the delegates, bored, shouted for a speech from Bryan, but he was not to be found.
Once seated, Bryan went to the Platform Committee meeting at the Palmer House, displacing the Nebraska gold delegate on the committee. The proposed platform was pro-silver; Senator Hill had offered an amendment backing the gold standard, which had been defeated by committee vote. As Hill was determined to take the platform fight to the full convention, the committee discussed who should speak in the debate, and allocated 75 minutes to each side. South Carolina Senator Benjamin Tillman, a silver supporter, wanted an hour to address the convention, and to close the debate. When both Hill and Bryan (who was selected as the other pro-silver speaker) objected to such a long closing address, Tillman settled for 50 minutes and for opening the debate rather than closing it; Bryan was given 25 minutes to close. Bryan later asked the Platform Committee chairman, Arkansas Senator James K. Jones why he was given such a crucial role as closing the platform debate; Senator Jones responded that he had three reasons: Bryan's long service in the silver cause, the Nebraskan was the only major speaker not to have addressed the convention, and that Jones had a sore throat. That evening, Bryan dined with his wife and with friends. Looking upon the loud Boies and Bland supporters, Bryan commented, "These people don't know it, but they will be cheering for me just this way tomorrow night."
### Speech
On the morning of July 9, 1896, thousands of people waited outside the Coliseum, hoping to hear the platform debate. The galleries were quickly packed, but the delegates, slowed by fatigue from the first two days and the long journey from the downtown hotels, were slower to arrive. It was not until 10:45 am, three-quarters of an hour late, that Chairman White called the convention to order. Bryan arrived during the delay; he was greeted with a musical tribute from one of the convention bands, which then returned to playing a medley of Irish melodies. Once White started the proceedings, he turned over the gavel to Senator Jones, who read the proposed platform to great applause from silver delegates, and hissing from gold men. The minority report attracted the opposite reaction.
Senator Tillman, a fiery speaker who wore a pitchfork on his lapel, began the debate. His speech, set as the only one besides Bryan's in favor of silver, portrayed silver as a sectional issue pitting the poorer folk of the South and West against gold-supporting New York and the rest of the Northeast. It was badly received even by silver delegates, who wished to think of silver as a patriotic, national issue. Senator Jones felt compelled to spend five minutes (granted by the gold side), stating that the silver issue crossed sectional lines. New York Senator Hill was next: the leading spokesman for gold, both gold and silver delegates quieted to hear him. He was followed by Senator William Vilas of Wisconsin and former Massachusetts Governor William D. Russell. Each made their cases for gold, and likely changed few votes. Only Bryan was left to speak, and no one at the convention had yet effectively championed the silver cause. The New York Times described the setting:
> There never was such a propitious moment for such an orator than that which fell to Bryan. The minority [gold faction] had just been pleased and the majority had just been depressed and mortified by the appearance, as the champion of free silver, of Tillman ... The minority had indicated its position. The majority felt exposed, crestfallen, and humiliated.
Writer Edgar Lee Masters, who witnessed Bryan's speech, remembered, "Suddenly I saw a man spring up from his seat among the delegates and with the agility and swiftness of an eager boxer hurry to the speaker's rostrum. He was slim, tall, pale, raven-haired, beaked of nose." The Nebraska delegation waved red handkerchiefs as Bryan progressed to the podium; he wore an alpaca sack suit more typical of Lincoln and the West than of Chicago. There was loud cheering as Bryan stood at the lectern; it took him a full minute to gain silence. He began:
> I would be presumptuous, indeed, to present myself against the distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened if this were a mere measuring of abilities; but this is not a contest between persons. The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the cause of humanity.
Bryan, with this declaration, set the theme of his argument, and as it would prove, his campaign: that the welfare of humanity was at stake with the silver issue. According to his biographer Michael Kazin, "Bryan felt he was serving his part in a grander conflict that began with Christ and showed no sign of approaching its end." From the start, Bryan had his audience: when he finished a sentence, they would rise, shout and cheer, then quiet themselves to ready for the next words; the Nebraskan later described the convention as like a trained choir. He dismissed arguments that the business men of the East favored the gold standard:
> We say to you that you have made the definition of a business man too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer; the attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis; the merchant at the cross-roads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, who begins in spring and toils all summer, and who by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet into the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured into the channels of trade are as much business men as the few financial magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world. We come to speak of this broader class of business men.
Many of the elements of the speech had appeared in prior Bryan addresses. However, the business man argument was new, though he had hinted at it in an interview he gave at the Republican convention. Bryan always regarded that argument as the speech's most powerful part, despite the fame its conclusion would gain. He responded to an argument by Senator Vilas that from silver forces might arise a Robespierre. Bryan affirmed that the people could be counted on to prevent the rise of a tyrant, and noted, "What we need is an Andrew Jackson to stand, as Jackson stood, against the encroachments of organized wealth." He continued:
> Upon which side will the Democratic Party fight; upon the side of "the idle holders of idle capital" or upon the side of "the struggling masses"? That is the question which the party must answer first, and then it must be answered by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic Party, as shown by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses, who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic Party.
Bryan concluded the address, seizing a place in American history:
> Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."
As he spoke his final sentence, he brought his hands to his head, fingers extended in imitation of thorns; amid dead silence in the Coliseum, he extended his arms, recalling with words and posture the Crucifixion of Jesus, and held that position for several seconds. He then lowered his arms, and began the journey back to his seat in the silence.
Bryan described the stillness as "really painful"; his anxieties that he might have failed were soon broken by pandemonium. The New York World reported, "The floor of the convention seemed to heave up. Everybody seemed to go mad at once." In a demonstration of some half an hour, Bryan was carried around the floor, then surrounded with cheering supporters. Men and women threw their hats into the air, not caring where they might come down. Delegates were shouting to begin the vote and nominate Bryan immediately, which he refused to consider, feeling that if his appeal could not last overnight, it would not last until November. Bryan left the convention, returning to his hotel to await the outcome. In the midst of the crazed crowd, Altgeld, a Bland supporter, commented to his friend, lawyer Clarence Darrow, "That is the greatest speech I ever listened to. I don't know but its effect will be to nominate him."
### Nomination
When order was restored after Bryan's speech, the convention passed the platform, voting down the minority report and a resolution in support of the Cleveland administration; it then recessed for a few hours until 8:00 pm, when nominating speeches were to be made. According to The Boston Globe, Bryan "had locked himself within the four walls at the Clifton House, down town, and there blushes unseen. The dark horse is in his stall, feasting on the oats of hope and political straws." Bryan had made no arrangements for formal nominating speeches given the short timeframe, and was surprised when word was brought to him at the Clifton House that he had been nominated by Henry Lewis of Georgia: the candidate had expected the Kansas delegation to name him. As Missouri Senator George Vest nominated Bland, his oratory was drowned out by the gallery, "Bryan, Bryan, W.J. Bryan".
The balloting for the presidential nomination was held on July 10, the day after the speech; a two-thirds majority was needed to nominate. Bryan remained at his hotel, sending word to his fellow Nebraskans, "There must be no pledging, no promising, on any subject with anybody. No delegation must be permitted to violate instructions given by a state convention. Our delegation should not be too prominent in applause. Treat all candidates fairly." On the first ballot, Bryan had 137 votes, mostly from Nebraska and four southern states, trailing Bland who had 235; Boies was fourth with 67 votes and was never a factor in the balloting. Bland maintained his lead on the second and third ballots, but on the fourth, with the convention in a huge uproar, Bryan took the lead. Governor Altgeld had held Illinois, which was subject to the "unit rule" whereby the entirety of a state's vote was cast as a majority of that state's delegation directed. After the fourth ballot, the Illinois delegation caucused and Altgeld was one of only two remaining Bland supporters, thus giving Bryan all of the state's 48 votes and bringing him near the two-thirds mark and the nomination. On the fifth ballot, other states joined the Bryan bandwagon, making him the Democratic candidate for president.
At the Clifton House, Bryan's rooms were overwhelmed with those wishing to congratulate him, despite the efforts of police to keep the crowds at bay. Bryan quipped, "I seem to have plenty of friends now, but I remember well when they were very few." He left the choice of a running mate to the convention; delegates selected Maine shipbuilder Arthur Sewall. Active in Democratic Party politics, Sewall was one of the few eastern party leaders to support silver, was wealthy and could help finance the campaign; he also balanced the ticket geographically. According to historian Stanley Jones in his account of the 1896 election, "it seemed in retrospect a curious logic that gave a capitalist from Maine a leading role in a campaign intended to have a strong appeal to the masses of the South and West". Bryan and Sewall gained their nominations without the ballots of the gold men, most of whom refused to vote. Amid talk that the Gold Democrats would form their own party, Senator Hill was asked if he remained a Democrat. "I was a Democrat before the Convention and am a Democrat still—very still."
## General election campaign
Bryan's nomination was denounced by many establishment Democrats. President Cleveland, stunned by the convention's repudiation of him and his policies, decided against open support for a bolt from the party, either by endorsing McKinley or by publicly backing a rival Democratic ticket. Nevertheless, Gold Democrats began plans to hold their own convention, which took place in September. Many Cleveland supporters decried Bryan as no true Democrat, but a fanatic and socialist, his nomination procured through demagoguery. Some of the Democratic political machines, such as New York's Tammany Hall, decided to ignore the national ticket and concentrate on electing local and congressional candidates. Large numbers of traditionally Democratic newspapers refused to support Bryan, including the New York World, whose circulation of 800,000 was the nation's largest, and major dailies in cities such as Philadelphia, Detroit, and Brooklyn. Southern newspapers stayed with Bryan; they were unwilling to endorse McKinley, the choice of most African Americans, though few of them could vote in the South. Newspapers that supported other parties in western silver states, such as the Populist Rocky Mountain News of Denver, Colorado, and Utah's Republican The Salt Lake Tribune, quickly endorsed Bryan.
Following his nomination in June, McKinley's team had believed that the election would be fought on the issue of the protective tariff. Chicago banker Charles G. Dawes, a McKinley advisor who had known Bryan when both lived in Lincoln, had predicted to McKinley and his friend and campaign manager, Mark Hanna, that if Bryan had the chance to speak to the convention, he would be its choice. McKinley and Hanna gently mocked Dawes, telling him that Bland would be the nominee. In the three weeks between the two conventions, McKinley spoke only on the tariff question, and when journalist Murat Halstead telephoned him from Chicago to inform him that Bryan would be nominated, he responded dismissively and hung up the phone. When Bryan was nominated on a silver platform, the Republicans were briefly gratified, believing that Bryan's selection would result in an easy victory for McKinley.
Despite the confidence of the Republicans, the nomination of Bryan sparked great excitement through the nation. His program of prosperity through free silver struck an emotional chord with the American people in a way that McKinley's protective tariff did not. Many Republican leaders had gone on vacation for the summer, believing that the fight, on their terms, would take place in the fall. Bryan's endorsement, soon after Chicago, by the Populists, his statement that he would undertake a nationwide tour on an unprecedented scale, and word from local activists of the strong silver sentiment in areas Republicans had to win to take the election, jarred McKinley's party from its complacency.
### Populist nominee
The Populist strategy for 1896 was to nominate the candidate most supportive of silver. Populist leaders correctly believed the Republicans unlikely to nominate a silver man. They hoped the Democrats either would not endorse silver in their platform or if they did, that the Democratic candidate would be someone who could be painted as weak on silver. Bryan's sterling record on the issue left the Populists with a stark choice: They could endorse Bryan, and risk losing their separate identity as a party, or nominate another candidate, thus dividing the pro-silver vote to McKinley's benefit. According to Stanley Jones, "the Democratic endorsement of silver and Bryan at Chicago precipitated the disintegration" of the Populist Party; it was never again a force in national politics after 1896.
Even before their convention in late July, the Populists faced dissent in their ranks. Former Populist governor of Colorado Davis H. Waite wrote to former congressman Ignatius Donnelly that the Democrats had returned to their roots and "nominated a good & true man on the platform. Of course I support him." Populist Kansas Congressman Jerry Simpson wrote, "I care not for party names. It is the substance we are after, and we have it with William J. Bryan." Many Populists saw the election of Bryan, whose positions on many issues were not far from theirs, as the quickest path to the reforms they sought; a majority of delegates to the convention in St. Louis favored him. However, many delegates disliked Sewall because of his wealth and ownership of a large business, and believed that nominating someone else would keep Populist issues alive in the campaign. Although they nominated Bryan for president, they chose Georgia's Thomas E. Watson as vice-presidential candidate; some hoped Bryan would dump Sewall from his ticket. Bryan did not; Senator Jones (as the new Democratic National Committee chairman, in charge of the campaign) stated, "Mr. Sewall, will, of course, remain on the ticket, and Mr. Watson can do what he likes."
Historian R. Hal Williams, in his book about the 1896 campaign, believes that the Populist nomination did Bryan little good; most Populists would have voted for him anyway and the endorsement allowed his opponents to paint him and his supporters as extremists. The vice presidential squabble, Williams argues, worried voters who feared that instability would follow a Bryan victory, and drove them towards McKinley. Populist leader Henry Demarest Lloyd described silver as the "cow-bird" of the Populist Party, which had pushed aside all other issues. The National Silver Party, mostly former Republicans, met at the same time as the Populists; both conventions were in St. Louis. They quickly endorsed Bryan and Sewall, urging all silver forces to unite behind that ticket.
### New York visit
After the Democratic convention, Bryan had returned triumphantly to Lincoln, making speeches along the way. At home, he took a short rest, and was visited by Senator Jones to discuss plans for the campaign. Bryan was not interested in campaign organization; what he wanted from the DNC was enough money to conduct a national tour by train. The campaign, as it proved, was badly organized: This was Jones' first national campaign, and the party structure in many states was either only newly in the control of silver forces, or in gold states wanted no part of the national ticket. With little money, poor organization, and a hostile press, Bryan was his campaign's most important asset, and he wanted to reach the voters by traveling to them. According to Stanley Jones in his study of the 1896 campaign, "Bryan expected that he alone, carrying to the people the message of free silver, would win the election for his party."
Bryan set the formal acceptance of his nomination for August 12 at New York's Madison Square Garden; he left Lincoln five days earlier by rail, and spoke 38 times along the way, sometimes from the trackside in his nightgown. While speaking in McKinley's hometown of Canton, Ohio, Bryan yielded to impulse and called upon his rival at his home with Congressman Bland; the Republican candidate and his wife, somewhat startled, received the two men hospitably in a scene Williams calls, "surely bizarre." August 12 was an extremely hot day in New York, especially for the crowd jammed into the Garden; when Missouri Governor William J. Stone, chair of the notification committee, essayed a lengthy speech, he was drowned out by the crowd, which wanted to hear "the Boy Orator of the Platte". Many were disappointed; the Democratic candidate read a two-hour speech from a manuscript, wishing to look statesmanlike, and fearing that if he spoke without a script, the press would misrepresent his words. Many seats were vacant before he concluded.
After several days in upstate New York, during which he had a dinner with Senator Hill at which the subject of politics was carefully avoided, Bryan began a circuitous journey back to Lincoln by train. At a speech in Chicago on Labor Day, Bryan varied from the silver issue to urge regulation of corporations. According to Stanley Jones,
> The period of this tour, in the return from New York to Lincoln, was the high point of the Bryan campaign. Bryan was well rested. After invading "the enemy's country", he was returning to his own territory. Wherever his train went people, who had travelled from nearby farms and villages, waved and shouted encouragement. Their enthusiasm at the unrehearsed rear platform appearances and in the formal speeches was spontaneous and contagious. The smell of victory seemed to hang in the air. Perhaps a vote taken then would have given Bryan the election.
### Whistle-stop tour
Bryan's plan for victory was to undertake a strenuous train tour, bringing his message to the people. Although Hanna and other advisors urged McKinley to get on the road, the Republican candidate declined to match Bryan's gambit, deciding that not only was the Democrat a better stump speaker, but that however McKinley travelled, Bryan would upstage him by journeying in a less comfortable way. McKinley's chosen strategy was a front porch campaign; he would remain at home, giving carefully scripted speeches to visiting delegations, much to the gratification of Canton's hot dog vendors and souvenir salesmen, who expanded facilities to meet the demand. Meanwhile, Hanna raised millions from business men to pay for speakers on the currency question and to flood the nation with hundreds of millions of pamphlets. Starved of money, the Democrats had fewer speakers and fewer publications to issue. Bryan's supporters raised at most \$500,000 for the 1896 campaign; McKinley's raised at least \$3.5 million. Among the foremost supporters of Bryan was publisher William Randolph Hearst who both contributed to Bryan's campaign and slanted his newspapers' coverage in his favor.
On September 11, 1896, Bryan departed on a train trip that continued until November 1, two days before the election. At first, he rode in public cars, and made his own travel arrangements, looking up train schedules and even carrying his own bags from train station to hotel. By early October, the DNC, at the urging of Populist officials who felt Bryan was being worn out, procured the services of North Carolina journalist Josephus Daniels to make travel arrangements, and also obtained a private railroad car, The Idler—a name Bryan thought somewhat inappropriate due to the strenuous nature of the tour. Mary Bryan had joined her husband in late September; on The Idler, the Bryans were able to eat and sleep in relative comfort.
During this tour, Bryan spoke almost exclusively on the silver question, and attempted to mold the speeches to reflect local issues and interests. He did not campaign on Sundays, but on most other days spoke between 20 and 30 times. Crowds assembled hours or days ahead of Bryan's arrival. The train bearing The Idler pulled in after a short journey from the last stop, and after he was greeted by local dignitaries, Bryan would give a brief speech addressing silver and the need for the people to retake the government. The shortness of the speech did not dismay the crowds, who knew his arguments well: they were there to see and hear William Jennings Bryan—one listener told him that he had read every one of his speeches, and had ridden 50 miles (80 km) to hear him, "And, by gum, if I wasn't a Republican, I'd vote for you." After a brief interval for handshakes, the train would pull out again, to another town down the track.
Throughout the nation, voters were intensely interested in the campaign, studying the flood of pamphlets. Speakers for both parties found eager audiences. Arthur F. Mullen, a resident of O'Neill, Nebraska, described the summer and fall of 1896:
> O'Neill buzzed with political disputation from dawn till next dawn. A bowery had been built for the Fourth of July picnic and dance. Ordinarily, it was torn down after that event. In 1896 it was kept as a forum, and by day and night men and women met there to talk about the Crime of '73, the fallacies of the gold standard, bimetallism and international consent, the evils of the tariff, the moneybags of Mark Hanna, the front porch campaign of McKinley. They read W. H. Harvey's Coin's Financial School to themselves, their friends, and opponents ... They read Bryan when they couldn't go off to listen to him.
Bryan rarely emphasized other issues than silver; leader of a disparate coalition linked by the silver question, he feared alienating some of his supporters. He occasionally addressed other subjects: in an October speech in Detroit, he spoke out against the Supreme Court's decision ruling the federal income tax unconstitutional. He promised to enforce the laws against the trusts, procure stricter ones from Congress, and if the Supreme Court struck them down, to seek a constitutional amendment. In what Williams describes as "a political campaign that became an American legend", Bryan traveled to 27 of the 45 states, logging 18,000 miles (29,000 km), and in his estimated 600 speeches reached some 5,000,000 listeners.
### Attacks and Gold Democrats; the final days
Republican newspapers painted Bryan as a tool of Governor Altgeld, who was controversial for having pardoned the surviving men convicted of involvement in the Haymarket bombing. Others dubbed Bryan a "Popocrat". On September 27, The New York Times published a letter by an "eminent alienist" who, based on an analysis of the candidate's speeches, concluded that Bryan was mad. The paper editorialized on the same page that even if the Democratic candidate was not insane, he was at least "of unsound mind". For the most part, Bryan ignored the attacks, and made light of them in his account of the 1896 campaign. Republican newspapers and spokesmen claimed that Bryan's campaign was expensively financed by the silver interests. This was not the case: the mining industry was seeing poor times, and had little money to donate to Bryan. In his account, Bryan quoted a letter by Senator Jones: "No matter in how small sums, no matter by what humble contributions, let the friends of liberty and national honor contribute all they can to the good cause."
In September, the Gold Democrats met in convention in Indianapolis. Loyal to Cleveland, they wanted to nominate him. However, the President ruled this out; his Cabinet members also refused to run. Not even supporters thought the Gold Democrats would win; the purpose was to have a candidate who would speak for the gold element in the party, and who would divide the vote and defeat Bryan. Illinois Senator John M. Palmer was eager to be the presidential candidate, and the convention nominated him with Kentucky's Simon Bolivar Buckner as his running mate. Palmer was a 79-year-old former Union general, Buckner a 73-year-old former Confederate of that rank; the ticket was the oldest in combined age in American history, and Palmer the second-oldest presidential candidate (behind Peter Cooper of the Greenback Party; Bryan was the youngest). The Gold Democrats received quiet financial support from Hanna and the Republicans. Palmer proved an able campaigner who visited most major cities in the East, and in the final week of his campaign, told listeners, "I will not count it any great fault if next Tuesday you decide to cast your ballots for William McKinley."
The South and most of the West were deemed certain to vote for Bryan. When early-voting Maine and Vermont went strongly Republican in September, this meant that McKinley would most likely win the Northeast. These results made the Midwest the crucial battlefield that would decide the presidency. Bryan spent most of October there—160 of his final 250 train stops were in the Midwest. Early Republican polls had shown Bryan ahead in crucial Midwestern states, including McKinley's Ohio. Much of the blizzard of paper the Republican campaign was able to pay for concentrated on this area/ By September, this had its effect as silver sentiment began to fade. Morgan noted, "full organization, [Republican] party harmony, a campaign of education with the printed and spoken word would more than counteract" Bryan's speechmaking. Beginning in September, the Republicans concentrated on the tariff question, and as Election Day, November 3, approached, they were confident of victory.
William and Mary Bryan returned to Lincoln on November 1, two days before the election. He was not yet done with campaigning, however; on November 2, he undertook a train journey across Nebraska in support of Democratic congressional candidates. He made 27 speeches, including seven in Omaha, the last concluding a few minutes before midnight. His train reached Lincoln after the polls opened; he journeyed from train station to polling place to his house escorted by a mounted troop of supporters. He slept much of the evening of election day, to be wakened by his wife with telegrams showing the election was most likely lost.
### Election
The 1896 presidential election was close by modern measurements, but less so by the standards of the day, which had seen close-run elections over the previous 20 years. McKinley won with 7.1 million votes to Bryan's 6.5 million, 51% to 47%. The electoral vote was not as close: 271 for McKinley to 176 for Bryan. The nation was regionally split, with the industrial East and Midwest for McKinley, and with Bryan carrying the Solid South and the silver strongholds of the Rocky Mountain states. McKinley did well in the border states of Maryland, West Virginia, and Kentucky. Although Bryan claimed that many employers had intimidated their workers into voting Republican, Williams points out that the Democrats benefited from the disenfranchisement of southern African Americans. Palmer received less than 1% of the vote, but his vote total in Kentucky was greater than McKinley's margin of victory there. Confusion over ballots in Minnesota resulted in 15,000 voided votes and may have thrown that state to the Republicans.
In most areas, Bryan did better among rural voters than urban. Even in the South, Bryan attracted 59% of the rural vote, but only 44% of the urban vote, taking 57% of the southern vote overall. The only areas of the nation where Bryan took a greater percentage of the urban than the rural vote were New England and the Rocky Mountain states; in neither case did this affect the outcome, as Bryan took only 27% of New England's vote overall, while taking 88% of the Rocky Mountain city vote to 81% of the vote there outside the cities. McKinley even won the urban vote in Nebraska. Most cities that were financial or manufacturing centers voted for McKinley. Those that served principally as agricultural centers or had been founded along the railroad favored Bryan. The Democratic Party preserved control in the eastern cities through machine politics and the continued loyalty of the Irish-American voter; Bryan's loss over the silver issue of many German-American voters, previously solidly Democratic, helped ensure his defeat in the Midwest. According to Stanley Jones, "the only conclusion to be reached was that the Bryan campaign, with its emphasis on the free coinage of silver at 16 to 1, had not appealed to the urban working classes."
On November 5, Bryan sent a telegram of congratulations to McKinley, becoming the first losing presidential candidate to do so, "Senator Jones has just informed me that the returns indicate your election, and I hasten to extend my congratulations. We have submitted the issues to the American people and their will is law." By the end of 1896, Bryan had published his account of the campaign, The First Battle. In the book, Bryan made it clear that the first battle would not be the last, "If we are right, we shall yet triumph."
## Appraisal and legacy
Michael Kazin, Bryan's biographer, notes the many handicaps he faced in his 1896 campaign: "A severe economic downturn that occurred with Democrats in power, a party deserted by its men of wealth and national prominence, the vehement opposition of most prominent publishers and academics and ministers, and hostility from the nation's largest employers". According to Kazin, "what is remarkable is not that Bryan lost but that he came as close as he did to winning." Williams believes that Bryan did better than any other Democrat would have, and comments, "The nominee of a divided and discredited party, he had come remarkably close to winning." Bryan's own explanation was brief: "I have borne the sins of Grover Cleveland."
The consequences of defeat, however, were severe for the Democratic Party. The 1896 presidential race is generally considered a realigning election, when there is a major shift in voting patterns, upsetting the political balance. McKinley was supported by middle-class and wealthy voters, urban laborers, and prosperous farmers; this coalition would keep the Republicans mostly in power until the 1930s. The election of 1896 marked a transition as the concerns of the rural population became secondary to those of the urban; according to Stanley Jones, "the Democratic Party reacted with less sensitivity than the Republicans to the hopes and fears of the new voters which the new age was producing". This was evidenced in the tariff question: Bryan spent little time addressing it, stating that it was subsumed in the financial issue; Republican arguments that the protective tariff would benefit manufacturers appealed to urban workers and went unrebutted by the Democrats.
One legacy of the campaign was the career of William Jennings Bryan. He ran for president a second time in 1900 and a third time in 1908, each time losing. Through the almost three decades before his death in 1925, he was ever present on political platform and speaking circuit, fighting first for silver, and then for other causes. Bryan served as Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson from 1913 to 1915, resigning as Wilson moved the nation closer to intervention in World War I. His final years were marked with controversy, such as his involvement in the Scopes Monkey Trial in the final weeks of his life, but according to Kazin, "Bryan's sincerity, warmth, and passion for a better world won the hearts of people who cared for no other public figure in his day".
Despite his defeat, Bryan's campaign inspired many of his contemporaries. Writers such as Edgar Lee Masters, Hamlin Garland and his fellow Nebraskan, Willa Cather, like Bryan came from the prairies; they wrote of their admiration for him and his first battle. The poet Vachel Lindsay, 16 years old in 1896, passionately followed Bryan's first campaign, and wrote of him many years later:
> > Where is that boy, that Heaven-born Bryan, That Homer Bryan, who sang from the West? Gone to join the shadows with Altgeld the Eagle, Where the kings and the slaves and the troubadours rest.
## Results
Source (Popular Vote):
Source (Electoral Vote):
|
644,443 |
AdS/CFT correspondence
| 1,170,157,692 |
Duality between theories of gravity on anti-de Sitter space and conformal field theories
|
[
"Conformal field theory",
"Quantum gravity",
"String theory"
] |
In theoretical physics, anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence (frequently abbreviated as ADS/CFT correspondence) is a conjectured relationship between two kinds of physical theories. On one side are anti-de Sitter spaces (AdS) which are used in theories of quantum gravity, formulated in terms of string theory or M-theory. On the other side of the correspondence are conformal field theories (CFT) which are quantum field theories, including theories similar to the Yang–Mills theories that describe elementary particles.
The duality represents a major advance in the understanding of string theory and quantum gravity. This is because it provides a non-perturbative formulation of string theory with certain boundary conditions and because it is the most successful realization of the holographic principle, an idea in quantum gravity originally proposed by Gerard 't Hooft and promoted by Leonard Susskind.
It also provides a powerful toolkit for studying strongly coupled quantum field theories. Much of the usefulness of the duality results from the fact that it is a strong–weak duality: when the fields of the quantum field theory are strongly interacting, the ones in the gravitational theory are weakly interacting and thus more mathematically tractable. This fact has been used to study many aspects of nuclear and condensed matter physics by translating problems in those subjects into more mathematically tractable problems in string theory.
The AdS/CFT correspondence was first proposed by Juan Maldacena in late 1997. Important aspects of the correspondence were soon elaborated on in two articles, one by Steven Gubser, Igor Klebanov and Alexander Polyakov, and another by Edward Witten. By 2015, Maldacena's article had over 10,000 citations, becoming the most highly cited article in the field of high energy physics, reaching over 20,000 citations in 2020.
## Background
### Quantum gravity and strings
Current understanding of gravity is based on Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. Formulated in 1915, general relativity explains gravity in terms of the geometry of space and time, or spacetime. It is formulated in the language of classical physics developed by physicists such as Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell. The other nongravitational forces are explained in the framework of quantum mechanics. Developed in the first half of the twentieth century by a number of different physicists, quantum mechanics provides a radically different way of describing physical phenomena based on probability.
Quantum gravity is the branch of physics that seeks to describe gravity using the principles of quantum mechanics. Currently, a popular approach to quantum gravity is string theory, which models elementary particles not as zero-dimensional points but as one-dimensional objects called strings. In the AdS/CFT correspondence, one typically considers theories of quantum gravity derived from string theory or its modern extension, M-theory.
In everyday life, there are three familiar dimensions of space (up/down, left/right, and forward/backward), and there is one dimension of time. Thus, in the language of modern physics, one says that spacetime is four-dimensional. One peculiar feature of string theory and M-theory is that these theories require extra dimensions of spacetime for their mathematical consistency: in string theory spacetime is ten-dimensional, while in M-theory it is eleven-dimensional. The quantum gravity theories appearing in the AdS/CFT correspondence are typically obtained from string and M-theory by a process known as compactification. This produces a theory in which spacetime has effectively a lower number of dimensions and the extra dimensions are "curled up" into circles.
A standard analogy for compactification is to consider a multidimensional object such as a garden hose. If the hose is viewed from a sufficient distance, it appears to have only one dimension, its length, but as one approaches the hose, one discovers that it contains a second dimension, its circumference. Thus, an ant crawling inside it would move in two dimensions.
### Quantum field theory
The application of quantum mechanics to physical objects such as the electromagnetic field, which are extended in space and time, is known as quantum field theory. In particle physics, quantum field theories form the basis for our understanding of elementary particles, which are modeled as excitations in the fundamental fields. Quantum field theories are also used throughout condensed matter physics to model particle-like objects called quasiparticles.
In the AdS/CFT correspondence, one considers, in addition to a theory of quantum gravity, a certain kind of quantum field theory called a conformal field theory. This is a particularly symmetric and mathematically well behaved type of quantum field theory. Such theories are often studied in the context of string theory, where they are associated with the surface swept out by a string propagating through spacetime, and in statistical mechanics, where they model systems at a thermodynamic critical point.
## Overview of the correspondence
### The geometry of anti-de Sitter space
In the AdS/CFT correspondence, one considers string theory or M-theory on an anti-de Sitter background. This means that the geometry of spacetime is described in terms of a certain vacuum solution of Einstein's equation called anti-de Sitter space.
In very elementary terms, anti-de Sitter space is a mathematical model of spacetime in which the notion of distance between points (the metric) is different from the notion of distance in ordinary Euclidean geometry. It is closely related to hyperbolic space, which can be viewed as a disk as illustrated on the right. This image shows a tessellation of a disk by triangles and squares. One can define the distance between points of this disk in such a way that all the triangles and squares are the same size and the circular outer boundary is infinitely far from any point in the interior.
Now imagine a stack of hyperbolic disks where each disk represents the state of the universe at a given time. The resulting geometric object is three-dimensional anti-de Sitter space. It looks like a solid cylinder in which any cross section is a copy of the hyperbolic disk. Time runs along the vertical direction in this picture. The surface of this cylinder plays an important role in the AdS/CFT correspondence. As with the hyperbolic plane, anti-de Sitter space is curved in such a way that any point in the interior is actually infinitely far from this boundary surface.
This construction describes a hypothetical universe with only two space and one time dimension, but it can be generalized to any number of dimensions. Indeed, hyperbolic space can have more than two dimensions and one can "stack up" copies of hyperbolic space to get higher-dimensional models of anti-de Sitter space.
### The idea of AdS/CFT
An important feature of anti-de Sitter space is its boundary (which looks like a cylinder in the case of three-dimensional anti-de Sitter space). One property of this boundary is that, locally around any point, it looks just like Minkowski space, the model of spacetime used in nongravitational physics.
One can therefore consider an auxiliary theory in which "spacetime" is given by the boundary of anti-de Sitter space. This observation is the starting point for AdS/CFT correspondence, which states that the boundary of anti-de Sitter space can be regarded as the "spacetime" for a conformal field theory. The claim is that this conformal field theory is equivalent to the gravitational theory on the bulk anti-de Sitter space in the sense that there is a "dictionary" for translating calculations in one theory into calculations in the other. Every entity in one theory has a counterpart in the other theory. For example, a single particle in the gravitational theory might correspond to some collection of particles in the boundary theory. In addition, the predictions in the two theories are quantitatively identical so that if two particles have a 40 percent chance of colliding in the gravitational theory, then the corresponding collections in the boundary theory would also have a 40 percent chance of colliding.
Notice that the boundary of anti-de Sitter space has fewer dimensions than anti-de Sitter space itself. For instance, in the three-dimensional example illustrated above, the boundary is a two-dimensional surface. The AdS/CFT correspondence is often described as a "holographic duality" because this relationship between the two theories is similar to the relationship between a three-dimensional object and its image as a hologram. Although a hologram is two-dimensional, it encodes information about all three dimensions of the object it represents. In the same way, theories which are related by the AdS/CFT correspondence are conjectured to be exactly equivalent, despite living in different numbers of dimensions. The conformal field theory is like a hologram which captures information about the higher-dimensional quantum gravity theory.
### Examples of the correspondence
Following Maldacena's insight in 1997, theorists have discovered many different realizations of the AdS/CFT correspondence. These relate various conformal field theories to compactifications of string theory and M-theory in various numbers of dimensions. The theories involved are generally not viable models of the real world, but they have certain features, such as their particle content or high degree of symmetry, which make them useful for solving problems in quantum field theory and quantum gravity.
The most famous example of the AdS/CFT correspondence states that type IIB string theory on the product space $\mathrm{AdS}_5\times S^5$ is equivalent to N = 4 supersymmetric Yang–Mills theory on the four-dimensional boundary. In this example, the spacetime on which the gravitational theory lives is effectively five-dimensional (hence the notation $\mathrm{AdS}_5$), and there are five additional compact dimensions (encoded by the $S^5$ factor). In the real world, spacetime is four-dimensional, at least macroscopically, so this version of the correspondence does not provide a realistic model of gravity. Likewise, the dual theory is not a viable model of any real-world system as it assumes a large amount of supersymmetry. Nevertheless, as explained below, this boundary theory shares some features in common with quantum chromodynamics, the fundamental theory of the strong force. It describes particles similar to the gluons of quantum chromodynamics together with certain fermions. As a result, it has found applications in nuclear physics, particularly in the study of the quark–gluon plasma.
Another realization of the correspondence states that M-theory on $\mathrm{AdS}_7\times S^4$ is equivalent to the so-called (2,0)-theory in six dimensions. In this example, the spacetime of the gravitational theory is effectively seven-dimensional. The existence of the (2,0)-theory that appears on one side of the duality is predicted by the classification of superconformal field theories. It is still poorly understood because it is a quantum mechanical theory without a classical limit. Despite the inherent difficulty in studying this theory, it is considered to be an interesting object for a variety of reasons, both physical and mathematical.
Yet another realization of the correspondence states that M-theory on $\mathrm{AdS}_4\times S^7$ is equivalent to the ABJM superconformal field theory in three dimensions. Here the gravitational theory has four noncompact dimensions, so this version of the correspondence provides a somewhat more realistic description of gravity.
## Applications to quantum gravity
### A non-perturbative formulation of string theory
In quantum field theory, one typically computes the probabilities of various physical events using the techniques of perturbation theory. Developed by Richard Feynman and others in the first half of the twentieth century, perturbative quantum field theory uses special diagrams called Feynman diagrams to organize computations. One imagines that these diagrams depict the paths of point-like particles and their interactions. Although this formalism is extremely useful for making predictions, these predictions are only possible when the strength of the interactions, the coupling constant, is small enough to reliably describe the theory as being close to a theory without interactions.
The starting point for string theory is the idea that the point-like particles of quantum field theory can also be modeled as one-dimensional objects called strings. The interaction of strings is most straightforwardly defined by generalizing the perturbation theory used in ordinary quantum field theory. At the level of Feynman diagrams, this means replacing the one-dimensional diagram representing the path of a point particle by a two-dimensional surface representing the motion of a string. Unlike in quantum field theory, string theory does not yet have a full non-perturbative definition, so many of the theoretical questions that physicists would like to answer remain out of reach.
The problem of developing a non-perturbative formulation of string theory was one of the original motivations for studying the AdS/CFT correspondence. As explained above, the correspondence provides several examples of quantum field theories which are equivalent to string theory on anti-de Sitter space. One can alternatively view this correspondence as providing a definition of string theory in the special case where the gravitational field is asymptotically anti-de Sitter (that is, when the gravitational field resembles that of anti-de Sitter space at spatial infinity). Physically interesting quantities in string theory are defined in terms of quantities in the dual quantum field theory.
### Black hole information paradox
In 1975, Stephen Hawking published a calculation which suggested that black holes are not completely black but emit a dim radiation due to quantum effects near the event horizon. At first, Hawking's result posed a problem for theorists because it suggested that black holes destroy information. More precisely, Hawking's calculation seemed to conflict with one of the basic postulates of quantum mechanics, which states that physical systems evolve in time according to the Schrödinger equation. This property is usually referred to as unitarity of time evolution. The apparent contradiction between Hawking's calculation and the unitarity postulate of quantum mechanics came to be known as the black hole information paradox.
The AdS/CFT correspondence resolves the black hole information paradox, at least to some extent, because it shows how a black hole can evolve in a manner consistent with quantum mechanics in some contexts. Indeed, one can consider black holes in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence, and any such black hole corresponds to a configuration of particles on the boundary of anti-de Sitter space. These particles obey the usual rules of quantum mechanics and in particular evolve in a unitary fashion, so the black hole must also evolve in a unitary fashion, respecting the principles of quantum mechanics. In 2005, Hawking announced that the paradox had been settled in favor of information conservation by the AdS/CFT correspondence, and he suggested a concrete mechanism by which black holes might preserve information.
## Applications to quantum field theory
### Nuclear physics
One physical system which has been studied using the AdS/CFT correspondence is the quark–gluon plasma, an exotic state of matter produced in particle accelerators. This state of matter arises for brief instants when heavy ions such as gold or lead nuclei are collided at high energies. Such collisions cause the quarks that make up atomic nuclei to deconfine at temperatures of approximately two trillion kelvins, conditions similar to those present at around 10<sup>−11</sup> seconds after the Big Bang.
The physics of the quark–gluon plasma is governed by quantum chromodynamics, but this theory is mathematically intractable in problems involving the quark–gluon plasma. In an article appearing in 2005, Đàm Thanh Sơn and his collaborators showed that the AdS/CFT correspondence could be used to understand some aspects of the quark–gluon plasma by describing it in the language of string theory. By applying the AdS/CFT correspondence, Sơn and his collaborators were able to describe the quark gluon plasma in terms of black holes in five-dimensional spacetime. The calculation showed that the ratio of two quantities associated with the quark–gluon plasma, the shear viscosity $\eta$ and volume density of entropy $s$, should be approximately equal to a certain universal constant:
$\frac{\eta}{s}\approx\frac{\hbar}{4\pi k}$
where $\hbar$ denotes the reduced Planck constant and $k$ is the Boltzmann constant. In addition, the authors conjectured that this universal constant provides a lower bound for $\eta/s$ in a large class of systems. In 2008, the predicted value of this ratio for the quark–gluon plasma was confirmed at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Another important property of the quark–gluon plasma is that very high energy quarks moving through the plasma are stopped or "quenched" after traveling only a few femtometers. This phenomenon is characterized by a number $\widehat{q}$ called the jet quenching parameter, which relates the energy loss of such a quark to the squared distance traveled through the plasma. Calculations based on the AdS/CFT correspondence have allowed theorists to estimate $\widehat{q}$, and the results agree roughly with the measured value of this parameter, suggesting that the AdS/CFT correspondence will be useful for developing a deeper understanding of this phenomenon.
### Condensed matter physics
Over the decades, experimental condensed matter physicists have discovered a number of exotic states of matter, including superconductors and superfluids. These states are described using the formalism of quantum field theory, but some phenomena are difficult to explain using standard field theoretic techniques. Some condensed matter theorists including Subir Sachdev hope that the AdS/CFT correspondence will make it possible to describe these systems in the language of string theory and learn more about their behavior.
So far some success has been achieved in using string theory methods to describe the transition of a superfluid to an insulator. A superfluid is a system of electrically neutral atoms that flows without any friction. Such systems are often produced in the laboratory using liquid helium, but recently experimentalists have developed new ways of producing artificial superfluids by pouring trillions of cold atoms into a lattice of criss-crossing lasers. These atoms initially behave as a superfluid, but as experimentalists increase the intensity of the lasers, they become less mobile and then suddenly transition to an insulating state. During the transition, the atoms behave in an unusual way. For example, the atoms slow to a halt at a rate that depends on the temperature and on Planck's constant, the fundamental parameter of quantum mechanics, which does not enter into the description of the other phases. This behavior has recently been understood by considering a dual description where properties of the fluid are described in terms of a higher dimensional black hole.
### Criticism
With many physicists turning towards string-based methods to solve problems in nuclear and condensed matter physics, some theorists working in these areas have expressed doubts about whether the AdS/CFT correspondence can provide the tools needed to realistically model real-world systems. In a talk at the Quark Matter conference in 2006, an American physicist, Larry McLerran pointed out that the N = 4 super Yang–Mills theory that appears in the AdS/CFT correspondence differs significantly from quantum chromodynamics, making it difficult to apply these methods to nuclear physics. According to McLerran,
> $N=4$ supersymmetric Yang–Mills is not QCD ... It has no mass scale and is conformally invariant. It has no confinement and no running coupling constant. It is supersymmetric. It has no chiral symmetry breaking or mass generation. It has six scalar and fermions in the adjoint representation ... It may be possible to correct some or all of the above problems, or, for various physical problems, some of the objections may not be relevant. As yet there is not consensus nor compelling arguments for the conjectured fixes or phenomena which would insure that the $N=4$ supersymmetric Yang Mills results would reliably reflect QCD.
In a letter to Physics Today, Nobel laureate Philip W. Anderson voiced similar concerns about applications of AdS/CFT to condensed matter physics, stating
> As a very general problem with the AdS/CFT approach in condensed-matter theory, we can point to those telltale initials "CFT"—conformal field theory. Condensed-matter problems are, in general, neither relativistic nor conformal. Near a quantum critical point, both time and space may be scaling, but even there we still have a preferred coordinate system and, usually, a lattice. There is some evidence of other linear-T phases to the left of the strange metal about which they are welcome to speculate, but again in this case the condensed-matter problem is overdetermined by experimental facts.
## History and development
### String theory and nuclear physics
The discovery of the AdS/CFT correspondence in late 1997 was the culmination of a long history of efforts to relate string theory to nuclear physics. In fact, string theory was originally developed during the late 1960s and early 1970s as a theory of hadrons, the subatomic particles like the proton and neutron that are held together by the strong nuclear force. The idea was that each of these particles could be viewed as a different oscillation mode of a string. In the late 1960s, experimentalists had found that hadrons fall into families called Regge trajectories with squared energy proportional to angular momentum, and theorists showed that this relationship emerges naturally from the physics of a rotating relativistic string.
On the other hand, attempts to model hadrons as strings faced serious problems. One problem was that string theory includes a massless spin-2 particle whereas no such particle appears in the physics of hadrons. Such a particle would mediate a force with the properties of gravity. In 1974, Joël Scherk and John Schwarz suggested that string theory was therefore not a theory of nuclear physics as many theorists had thought but instead a theory of quantum gravity. At the same time, it was realized that hadrons are actually made of quarks, and the string theory approach was abandoned in favor of quantum chromodynamics.
In quantum chromodynamics, quarks have a kind of charge that comes in three varieties called colors. In a paper from 1974, Gerard 't Hooft studied the relationship between string theory and nuclear physics from another point of view by considering theories similar to quantum chromodynamics, where the number of colors is some arbitrary number $N$, rather than three. In this article, 't Hooft considered a certain limit where $N$ tends to infinity and argued that in this limit certain calculations in quantum field theory resemble calculations in string theory.
### Black holes and holography
In 1975, Stephen Hawking published a calculation which suggested that black holes are not completely black but emit a dim radiation due to quantum effects near the event horizon. This work extended previous results of Jacob Bekenstein who had suggested that black holes have a well-defined entropy. At first, Hawking's result appeared to contradict one of the main postulates of quantum mechanics, namely the unitarity of time evolution. Intuitively, the unitarity postulate says that quantum mechanical systems do not destroy information as they evolve from one state to another. For this reason, the apparent contradiction came to be known as the black hole information paradox.
Later, in 1993, Gerard 't Hooft wrote a speculative paper on quantum gravity in which he revisited Hawking's work on black hole thermodynamics, concluding that the total number of degrees of freedom in a region of spacetime surrounding a black hole is proportional to the surface area of the horizon. This idea was promoted by Leonard Susskind and is now known as the holographic principle. The holographic principle and its realization in string theory through the AdS/CFT correspondence have helped elucidate the mysteries of black holes suggested by Hawking's work and are believed to provide a resolution of the black hole information paradox. In 2004, Hawking conceded that black holes do not violate quantum mechanics, and he suggested a concrete mechanism by which they might preserve information.
### Maldacena's paper
On January 1, 1998, Juan Maldacena published a landmark paper that initiated the study of AdS/CFT. According to Alexander Markovich Polyakov, "[Maldacena's] work opened the flood gates." The conjecture immediately excited great interest in the string theory community and was considered in a paper by Steven Gubser, Igor Klebanov and Polyakov, and another paper of Edward Witten. These papers made Maldacena's conjecture more precise and showed that the conformal field theory appearing in the correspondence lives on the boundary of anti-de Sitter space.
One special case of Maldacena's proposal says that N = 4 super Yang–Mills theory, a gauge theory similar in some ways to quantum chromodynamics, is equivalent to string theory in five-dimensional anti-de Sitter space. This result helped clarify the earlier work of 't Hooft on the relationship between string theory and quantum chromodynamics, taking string theory back to its roots as a theory of nuclear physics. Maldacena's results also provided a concrete realization of the holographic principle with important implications for quantum gravity and black hole physics. By the year 2015, Maldacena's paper had become the most highly cited paper in high energy physics with over 10,000 citations. These subsequent articles have provided considerable evidence that the correspondence is correct, although so far it has not been rigorously proved.
## Generalizations
### Three-dimensional gravity
In order to better understand the quantum aspects of gravity in our four-dimensional universe, some physicists have considered a lower-dimensional mathematical model in which spacetime has only two spatial dimensions and one time dimension. In this setting, the mathematics describing the gravitational field simplifies drastically, and one can study quantum gravity using familiar methods from quantum field theory, eliminating the need for string theory or other more radical approaches to quantum gravity in four dimensions.
Beginning with the work of J. David Brown and Marc Henneaux in 1986, physicists have noticed that quantum gravity in a three-dimensional spacetime is closely related to two-dimensional conformal field theory. In 1995, Henneaux and his coworkers explored this relationship in more detail, suggesting that three-dimensional gravity in anti-de Sitter space is equivalent to the conformal field theory known as Liouville field theory. Another conjecture formulated by Edward Witten states that three-dimensional gravity in anti-de Sitter space is equivalent to a conformal field theory with monster group symmetry. These conjectures provide examples of the AdS/CFT correspondence that do not require the full apparatus of string or M-theory.
### dS/CFT correspondence
Unlike our universe, which is now known to be expanding at an accelerating rate, anti-de Sitter space is neither expanding nor contracting. Instead it looks the same at all times. In more technical language, one says that anti-de Sitter space corresponds to a universe with a negative cosmological constant, whereas the real universe has a small positive cosmological constant.
Although the properties of gravity at short distances should be somewhat independent of the value of the cosmological constant, it is desirable to have a version of the AdS/CFT correspondence for positive cosmological constant. In 2001, Andrew Strominger introduced a version of the duality called the dS/CFT correspondence. This duality involves a model of spacetime called de Sitter space with a positive cosmological constant. Such a duality is interesting from the point of view of cosmology since many cosmologists believe that the very early universe was close to being de Sitter space. Our universe may also resemble de Sitter space in the distant future.
### Kerr/CFT correspondence
Although the AdS/CFT correspondence is often useful for studying the properties of black holes, most of the black holes considered in the context of AdS/CFT are physically unrealistic. Indeed, as explained above, most versions of the AdS/CFT correspondence involve higher-dimensional models of spacetime with unphysical supersymmetry.
In 2009, Monica Guica, Thomas Hartman, Wei Song, and Andrew Strominger showed that the ideas of AdS/CFT could nevertheless be used to understand certain astrophysical black holes. More precisely, their results apply to black holes that are approximated by extremal Kerr black holes, which have the largest possible angular momentum compatible with a given mass. They showed that such black holes have an equivalent description in terms of conformal field theory. The Kerr/CFT correspondence was later extended to black holes with lower angular momentum.
### Higher spin gauge theories
The AdS/CFT correspondence is closely related to another duality conjectured by Igor Klebanov and Alexander Markovich Polyakov in 2002. This duality states that certain "higher spin gauge theories" on anti-de Sitter space are equivalent to conformal field theories with O(N) symmetry. Here the theory in the bulk is a type of gauge theory describing particles of arbitrarily high spin. It is similar to string theory, where the excited modes of vibrating strings correspond to particles with higher spin, and it may help to better understand the string theoretic versions of AdS/CFT and possibly even prove the correspondence. In 2010, Simone Giombi and Xi Yin obtained further evidence for this duality by computing quantities called three-point functions.
## See also
- Algebraic holography
- Ambient construction
- Randall–Sundrum model
|
16,293,091 |
Choe Bu
| 1,146,288,151 |
Korean official (1454–1504)
|
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"16th-century executions by Korea",
"Castaways",
"Executed Korean people",
"Korean diarists",
"Korean expatriates in China",
"Korean historians",
"Korean politicians",
"Korean travel writers",
"Ming dynasty",
"People executed by Korea by decapitation",
"People from South Jeolla Province",
"Shipwreck survivors"
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Choe Bu (Korean: 최부, 1454–1504) was a Korean diarist, historian, politician, and travel writer during the early Joseon Dynasty. He was most well known for the account of his shipwrecked travels in China from February to July 1488, during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). He was eventually banished from the Joseon court in 1498 and executed in 1504 during two political purges. However, in 1506 he was exonerated and given posthumous honors by the Joseon court.
Choe's diary accounts of his travels in China became widely printed during the 16th century in both Korea and Japan. Modern historians also refer to his written works, since his travel diary provides a unique outsider's perspective on Chinese culture in the 15th century. The attitudes and opinions expressed in his writing represent in part the standpoints and views of the 15th century Confucian Korean literati, who viewed Chinese culture as compatible with and similar to their own. His description of cities, people, customs, cuisines, and maritime commerce along China's Grand Canal provides insight into the daily life of China and how it differed between northern and southern China during the 15th century.
## Official career
Choe Bu of the Tamjin Choe clan was born in 1454 in the prefectural town of Naju in Jeollanam-do, Korea. Choe passed the jinsa examinations in 1477, which was a lower examination that did not immediately ensure a post in government; rather, it permitted enrollment in the National Academy, or Seonggyungwan, where he could study further for the higher mungwa examinations. In preparation for the exams, he studied the Five Classics as Confucian students had for centuries, but he also was taught the emphasis of the Four Books of Zhu Xi (1130–1200), which was in line with the Neo-Confucian doctrine first accepted in mainstream Chinese education during the mid-13th century. He passed his first civil service examination in 1482 and a second civil service examination in 1486, qualifying him for an immediate post in government. In a career as a graduate scholar-official that spanned 18 years, Choe was privileged with various positions. He held posts in the Hodang Library, printing office, and the National Academy. He also held posts involving the military, such as on the military supplies commission, with the office of the inspector-general, and with the Yongyang garrison. The culmination of his career was his promotion as a minister of the Directorate of Ceremonies in the capital, a distinguished office. Choe Bu was also one of the scholars who aided in the compilation of the Dongguk Tonggam in 1485, a history of Korea from ancient times. Choe was learned in Confucian ethics, Chinese letters, Chinese poetry, and well versed in Korean history, geography, and famous people; all this later helped him to dispel the notion of some Chinese officials that he was a Japanese pirate rather than a Korean official who had unfortunately shipwrecked in China. In 1487, Choe Bu was sent to Jeju Island to check the registers for escaped slaves from the mainland.
## A castaway in China, 1488
### Southern China
While serving his post in Jeju as the Commissioner of Registers for the island, a family slave from Naju arrived on 12 February 1488 to alert Choe that his father had died. In keeping with his Confucian values, Choe prepared to leave his post immediately and begin the period of mourning for the loss of his father. However, while setting sail for mainland Korea with a crew of 43 Koreans, Choe's ship was blown far off course during a violent storm that lasted 14 days, his ship aimlessly drifting off towards China until reaching the Chinese coast off of Taizhou, Zhejiang, near Ningbo. Before reaching the shores of Zhejiang, Choe wrote on the fifth day of his travel at sea during the storm:
> This day a dense fog obscured everything. Things a foot away could not be made out. Towards evening, rain streamed down heavily, abating somewhat with night. The frightening waves were like mountains. They would lift the ship up into the blue sky and then drop it as if down an abyss. They billowed and crashed, the noise splitting heaven from earth. We might all be drowned and left to rot at any moment.
Upon the urging of his crewmen, Choe changed his clothes in a ritual fashion in preparation for death, although he prayed to the heavens to spare him and his crew, asking what sins they had committed to deserve this fate. On the sixth day, during fairer weather, their ship came upon a group of islands in the Yellow Sea where Chinese pirates were moored. The pirates robbed their ship of spare goods and rations, threw away the Koreans' oars and anchor, and left them to drift aimlessly into the sea.
Although it was still raining heavily, Choe's crew spotted a near-deserted strip of Zhejiang coastline on 28 February. Almost immediately, his ship was surrounded by six Chinese boats, the crews of which did not attempt to board Choe's ship until the following day. Although he could not speak Chinese, Choe was able to communicate with the Chinese by using their written character system in what was dubbed "brush conversations". Through writing, he questioned these Chinese sailors on how far the nearest official road and courier route was. When given three different estimates of the distance from there to the Taizhou prefectural capital, Choe was convinced that his hosts were deceiving him; historian Timothy Brook notes that it was more likely ignorance and inexperience of traveling inland than mere deception on behalf of the Chinese sailors. Regardless, the Chinese sailors began robbing the Korean ship of its remaining goods, convinced that they were Japanese pirates. When heavy rains inundated the region once more, the Chinese sailors returned to their ships; Choe's party, fearing for their lives should the sailors board their ship again, saw this as an opportune moment and made a dash for the shore under cover of rain. After traveling several days overland looking for the nearest courier route, Choe's party was found by Chinese authorities and taken to Taizhou Battalion. Like in the previous incident with the Chinese sailors and villagers along the shore, the Koreans were almost killed when they were first encountered by Chinese soldiers. Employing his wit and intellect in these dangerous confrontations of being misconstrued as a coastal pirate, Choe avoided disaster for him and his crew.
The battalion commander at Taizhou ordered his officer Zhai Yong to escort Choe Bu's Korean party to the regional command centre at Shaoxing on 6 March. From there they could be transferred to provincial authorities at Hangzhou and finally to the empire's capital of Beijing where the party could be officially escorted back to Korea. Choe Bu and his officers were carried in sedan chairs, an accommodation provided by the Taizhou Battalion, although in spots of rough terrain Choe Bu and his officers were forced to walk on foot like the others.
The battalion troops escorting Choe and his Korean party reached Jiantiao Battalion on 8 March; on the next day, they travelled by boat across Sanmen Bay to reach the Yuexi Police Station and Post House. On 10 March, the party travelled along the postal route to Baiqiao Station, a courier centre between Taizhou and Ningbo prefectures. The courier officials were eager to see the Koreans off, since a party of 43 was a somewhat large group for a courier station to provide sudden accommodations for.
In a daylong trip, the party reached the next station located 35 km (22 mi) north by the second watch of the night. Heavy rains and wind made further advance impossible, but despite rain on the next day, Zhai Yong urged Choe and the Koreans to push on regardless, explaining that the regulations for prompt arrival times in China's courier system were very stringent. The party covered another 35 km (22 mi) on 11 March, completely soaked by the rain when they reached the next station. The station master provided the party with a small fire to keep warm, but a man who thought the Koreans were captured pirates barged in and kicked their fire out in a rage. Zhai Yong dutifully wrote an account of this assault and passed it on to the county magistrate's office before having the party continue en route to their destination on the following day, 12 March. They reached the Beidu River on that day, boarding ships that would lead them to the Grand Canal, the central courier and trade artery of China that would carry them all the way to Beijing. At this point, water transport was the preferable means of travel for the courier agents; Choe wrote "all envoys, tribute, and commerce come and go by water. If either the water in the locks and rivers is too shallow because of drought to let boats pass or there is a very urgent matter, the overland route is taken." When the party reached Ningbo on that day, Choe Bu remarked on the beautiful scenery; when they reached Cixi City, he noted the city's many markets and cluttering of warships; upon entering Ningbo and reaching the Supreme Piracy-Defense Office, Choe wrote that the gates and crowds there were three times as great as at Cixi.
After interrogating Choe Bu and Zhai Yong, Zhai was punished with a flogging for the recent fire-kicking incident, which officials of Ningbo cited as evidence of his lack of command. Yet that wasn't the only offense; Zhai was flogged again when the party reached Hangzhou, since he failed to meet the deadline in reaching his destination while escorting the Koreans. The standard punishment was 20 strokes for a day's delay, with an additional stroke for every subsequent three days of delay and a maximum of 60. Although this was perhaps a damper on their travel affair, Choe was impressed with the sights of Hangzhou, writing:
> It truly seems a different world, as people say ... Houses stand in solid rows, and the gowns of the crowds seem like screens. The markets pile up gold and silver; the people amass beautiful clothes and ornaments. Foreign ships stand as thick as the teeth of a comb, and in the streets wine shops and music halls front directly each on another.
Brook states that Choe correctly observed the fact that Hangzhou was the central trade city where ships from areas throughout southeast China congregated to take goods into the Jiangnan region, the hotbed of commercial activity in China. Due to the hai jin laws, the Ming government was the only entity allowed to conduct foreign trade; regardless of this prohibition, Choe was informed of the rampant illegal smuggling that passed through Hangzhou, bringing in sandalwood, pepper, and perfumes from Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. Yet this was a risky pursuit, as Choe was made aware that half the ships that engaged in this business did not return. On 23 March, the Hangzhou prefectural government granted Choe's party a new escort, an official document explaining their presence in China, and lofty provisions of food and other items that were complements of the transport offices in charge of large-scale national transportation needs. The party stayed in Hangzhou for another two days before departing on 25 March. The reason for the delay was due to courier officials' dutiful following of the handbook Bureaucratic System of the Ming Dynasty (Da Ming guanzhi), which was used to calculate through geomantic principles which days were auspicious to depart on and which days were not. The Europeans, too, became aware of such divination practices later in the 16th century: Mendoza's History of the great and mighty kingdom of China and the situation thereof (published 1585) mentions that among the Chinese books purchased by the Spanish Augustinian friar Martín de Rada in Fujian in 1575 were some that discussed how to "cast lottes when they beginne any journey ...".
Traveling 50 km (31 mi) on average per day, it would take the party 43 days from 25 March to 9 May to travel from Hangzhou to Beijing; even though the party spent a day's time in Suzhou, they still beat their deadline by two days, since 45 km (28 mi) was the courier system's standard traveling distance per day.
Choe Bu observed that, despite Hangzhou's greatness, it was no competition for Suzhou, while the former was merely a supplemental commercial feeder that served to enrich the Jiangnan region. After visiting Suzhou on 28 March, Choe Bu remarked on this economic hub of the southeast:
> Shops and markets one after another lined both river banks, and merchant junks were crowded together. It was well called an urban center of the southeast ... All the treasures of land and sea, such as thin silks, gauzes, gold, silver, jewels, crafts, arts, and rich and great merchants are there [and] ... merchantmen and junks from Henan, Hebei, and Fujian gather like clouds.
Describing the suburban sprawl around Suzhou and other cities of the Yangzi delta, Choe wrote (note, one li here is equal to 1.7 km or 1.05 miles): "Often for as much as twenty li around them, village gates crowd the ground, markets line the roads, towers look out on other towers, and boats ply stem to stern."
### Northern China
After departing from Suzhou and continuing up the Grand Canal, Choe's party reached the Lüliang Rapids on 13 April, which interrupted canal traffic in the northern part of South Zhili. He wrote that a teams of ten oxen were used to pull their boats through the rapids, while teams of 100 men were used at the next stage of river rapids, the Xuzhou Rapids. He noted the pound locks here that controlled water levels in sections of the canal for safe passage of ships. He described the bustling cities of Linqing and Dezhou in the northern province of Shandong, although he stated that the merchant activity and sizes of these two cities did not match the grandeur of Hangzhou and Suzhou in the south. In fact, Choe remarked that only these two and a handful of other cities in northern China matched the prosperity of southern China, stating that the north was quite poverty-stricken and underdeveloped compared with the south. He also believed that southern Chinese displayed a finer degree of cultivation, social order, literacy, and industriousness than those from the north. Choe wrote that while people of the south were well-dressed and had plenty to spare, people in the north often lacked supplies of everything and feared bandits. Brook writes:
> At the end of [Cho'e Bu's] diary he presents a litany of depressing contrasts: spacious tile-roofed houses south of the Yangzi, thatch-roof hovels north; sedan chairs south, horses and donkeys north; gold and silver in the markets south, copper cash north; diligence in farming, manufacturing, and commerce south, indolence north; pleasant dispositions south, quarrelsome tempers north; education south, illiteracy north.
Choe found that people all across China, and in nearly every social strata, participated in business affairs. He wrote that even Chinese scholar officials—who were traditionally scorned if they took part in any private business venture— would "carry balances in their own sleeves and will analyze a profit for pennies".
While traveling from Shandong into North Zhili, Choe noticed a multitude of boats passing by which held officials from the Ministries of War, Justice, and Personnel. When he questioned his escorts about this, Choe was told that the newly enthroned Hongzhi Emperor (r. 1488–1505) had recently impeached a large number of officials from office whom he considered inept and unworthy of their positions. Brook writes that it was quite a comfortable privilege for disgraced and dismissed officials to be escorted by the courier service, yet even this saving of face was still a firm reminder of their banishment from court.
The party spent a total of 11 days traversing the North China Plain via the Grand Canal before reaching Tongzhou District, where there was a large warehouse depot adjunct to the capital city. From there they left their courier ships and traveled by donkey and foot towards the capital Beijing, where they lodged at the Central Courier Hostel. The Ming court granted the Korean party gifts of fine clothes during their stay. On 3 June, the officer in charge of Choe's escort notified the transport office in Beijing that three carriages plus horses and donkeys would be needed in the journey to the Korean border; when these were granted in the morning, the party swiftly departed from Beijing. Choe was not sad to leave the sights of Beijing behind, as he found the people there to be obsessed with business and cared little for agriculture or farming, a clear indication of his Confucian-oriented values.
### Return to Korea
The party reached the capital of Liaodong on 2 July, left four days later on 6 July, and on 12 July Choe's party finally crossed the Yalu River and entered Joseon Korea. While the Grand Canal had its post stations, canal locks, ramps, moles, and paved towpaths, the land route from Beijing to the Yalu River was less elaborate but still featured the necessary distance markers and walled stations. Within a month of Choe's return to Korea, the Joseon court under King Seongjong (r. 1469–1494) sent an embassy to the Ming court of China in a gesture of thanks for the Ming court's cordial treatment of Choe and his crew and providing safe travel for them.
## Death
Choe became a victim of a political purge at court, was flogged in punishment by the rival faction who gained power and banished to Tanch'ŏn in the north in 1498 during the First Literati Purge of Yeonsangun's despotic reign (r. 1494–1506). Choe was ultimately executed in 1504 during the Second Literati Purge. However, he was exonerated after death and given posthumous honors by the Joseon court in 1506 with the demotion and exile of Yeonsangun and the raising of his half-brother Jungjong (r. 1506–1544) to the throne.
## Publication of Choe's diary
### Pre-modern publications
The accounts of Choe Bu's travels in China became famous after King Seongjong requested that Choe submit a written account of his experiences to the throne. His diary account, the Geumnam pyohaerok (), written in literary Chinese (hanmun), was stored away in the Korean archives. Although it is uncertain whether it was printed right after it was written, it is known that Choe's grandson Yu Huichun () had it widely printed in Korea in 1569. A copy of the original print by Choe's grandson is now in the Yōmei Bunko of Kyoto. Choe's diary became famous even in Japan during the 16th century when it was reprinted several times. A copy of the 1573 Japanese edition is now in the Kanazawa Bunko of Yokohama. These were woodblock print copies, but an early movable type print edition was made and is located in the Tōyō Bunko of Tokyo. There was a Japanese publication in 1769 of Choe's diary accounts in a partial translation into Japanese by the Neo-Confucian scholar Seita Tansō (1721–1785). Several Edo period manuscript copies of Choe's travel diary are also in Japan. Other works written by Choe were compiled and published under the title Geumnamjip (錦南集 · 금남집) in Korea.
### Modern utility
A complete translation of Choe's account into English was prepared by John Meskill as part of his Columbia University dissertation (1958). A slightly abbreviated version of Meskill's translation was published as a book in 1965 by the University of Arizona Press, for the Association for Asian Studies.
Choe wrote in the usual tone of a learned Confucian scholar, which provides insight into the values and attitudes of early Joseon Confucian scholars. Choe Bu's account is unique among foreign travel accounts in China, since it is from the perspective of a castaway, not a commonplace Korean ambassador to Ming China. Historian Eugene Newton Anderson notes that, while pre-modern Koreans tended to adulate China and associate it with everything that was positive, Choe regarded it with a more objective outsider's perspective. When curious Chinese pressed Choe about Korea's rituals of ancestor worship, Choe responded, "All my countrymen build shrines and sacrifice to their ancestors. They serve the gods and spirits they ought to serve and do not respect unorthodox sacrifices." Historian Laurel Kendall writes that this was perhaps wishful thinking, but it reveals what a 15th-century Korean Confucian thought the Chinese would consider proper and in accordance with the teaching of Confucius. When a certain Chinese scholar Wang Yiyuan sympathized with Choe and his party's plight and served him tea, he asked Choe if the Koreans revered the Buddha as the Chinese did. Choe answered, "my country does not revere the Buddhist law, it honors only the Confucian system. All its families make filial piety, fraternal duty, loyalty, and sincerity their concern."
Although Choe did not adulate China to the extent of his peers and viewed it as an outsider, he did express in his writing a close affinity towards the Chinese, noting that Korea and China's cultures were hardly distinguishable from one another in terms of parallel values. For example, Choe wrote of a conversation he had with a Chinese officer who had shown him a great deal of hospitality during his travels, saying to him:
> Certainly that shows your feelings that though my Korea is beyond the sea, its clothing and culture being the same as China's, it cannot be considered a foreign country ... All under Heaven are my brothers; how can we discriminate among people because of distance? That is particularly true of my country, which respectful serves the Celestial Court and pays tribute without fail. The Emperor, for his part, treats us punctiliously and tends us benevolently. The feeling of security he imparts is perfect.
However, through the written dialogue in his diary, Choe did express slight differences between the cultures of China and Korea. For example, when the Chinese asked him whether or not the Korean education system offered degrees for specialists who dealt with only one of the Five Classics, Choe wrote that a Korean student who only studied one of the Classics and not all five of them was doomed to failing his exam and never attaining the rank of a full-fledged Confucian scholar.
Choe's comments are valuable to historians seeking to better understand Chinese culture and civilization in the 15th century; for example, historians' seeking for clues about how widespread literacy was in China, Choe's comment "even village children, ferrymen, and sailors" were able to read serves as a valuable piece of evidence. Moreover, Choe asserted that they could describe for him the mountains, rivers, old ruins, and other places in their regions, along with the significance of dynastic changes. Choe also bothered to list items such as the generous provisions provided by regional commanders, which included in one instance a plate of pork, two ducks, four chickens, two fish, one beaker of wine, one plate of rice, one plate of walnuts, one plate of vegetables, one plate of bamboo shoots, one plate of wheat noodles, one plate of jujube fruit, and one plate of bean curd. Although he was offered wine in China, Choe asserts in his diary that he rejected the offer due to the continuing three-year mourning period for his late father. In addition to wine, he stated that he also abstained from eating "meat, garlic, oniony plants, or sweet things". This strict adherence to Confucian principles by a Korean pleased his Chinese hosts.
Choe also made observations about China's topography in each of the towns and villages he visited. His documenting of exact locations can aid historians in pinpointing old and lost places and structures. In his description of Suzhou, he wrote:
> In olden times, Suzhou was called Wukuai. It borders the sea in the east, commands three large rivers and five lakes, and has a thousand li of rich fields ... Le Bridge is inside the wall and separates Wu and Changzhou counties. Market quarters are scattered like stars. Many rivers and lakes flow through [the region], refreshing and purifying it.
### Similar publications
A similar episode to Choe Bu's shipwrecked travels in China occurred in 1644, when three Japanese ships headed for Hokkaidō became lost in a violent storm at sea. The 15 survivors led by Takeuchi Tōuemon (竹内藤右衛門) – those who were not murdered when they came to shore – drifted into a port in what is now Primorsky Krai, but what was then controlled by the newly established Qing dynasty of China. They were taken to the Manchu capital of Shenyang, and then escorted to the newly conquered city of Beijing. The Manchu prince Dorgon (1612–1650) treated these shipwrecked Japanese with respect, pitied them for their misfortune, and provided them with provisions and ships to return to Japan. When they returned to Japan, they were interrogated by Tokugawa authorities, and submitted a report to Tokugawa Iemitsu (r. 1623–1651) on their experiences in China. Just like in the case of Choe Bu, this account was published as the Dattan hyōryūki ("Account of drifting into the [Land of the] Tartars", Japanese: 韃靼漂流記) and as the Ikoku monogatari ("Stories from a Foreign Land", Japanese: 異国物語).
## See also
- Travel literature
- Ghiyāth al-dīn Naqqāsh, author of an account of a Central Asian embassy to China, ca. 1420
- Tomé Pires, a Portuguese envoy, whose imprisoned companions wrote some of the earliest European accounts about the interior of China (ca. 1524)
- Shin Suk-ju (1417–1475), a Korean scholar who authored one of the first descriptions of the Chinese phonetics as viewed from a foreign language's point of view
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Draining and development of the Everglades
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Development of the Florida Everglades
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[
"Environmental issues in Florida",
"Everglades",
"History of sugar",
"Hydraulic engineering"
] |
A national push for expansion and progress toward the latter part of the 19th century stimulated interest in draining the Everglades, a region of tropical wetlands in southern Florida, for agricultural use. According to historians, "From the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, the United States went through a period in which wetland removal was not questioned. Indeed, it was considered the proper thing to do."
A pattern of political and financial motivation, and a lack of understanding of the geography and ecology of the Everglades have plagued the history of drainage projects. The Everglades are a part of a massive watershed that originates near Orlando and drains into Lake Okeechobee, a vast and shallow lake. As the lake exceeds its capacity in the wet season, the water forms a flat and very wide river, about 100 miles (160 km) long and 60 miles (97 km) wide. As the land from Lake Okeechobee slopes gradually to Florida Bay, water flows at a rate of half a mile (0.8 km) a day. Before human activity in the Everglades, the system comprised the lower third of the Florida peninsula. The first attempt to drain the region was made by real estate developer Hamilton Disston in 1881. Disston's sponsored canals were unsuccessful, but the land he purchased for them stimulated economic and population growth that attracted railway developer Henry Flagler. Flagler built a railroad along the east coast of Florida and eventually to Key West; towns grew and farmland was cultivated along the rail line.
During his 1904 campaign to be elected governor, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward promised to drain the Everglades, and his later projects were more effective than Disston's. Broward's promises sparked a land boom facilitated by blatant errors in an engineer's report, pressure from real estate developers, and the burgeoning tourist industry throughout south Florida. The increased population brought hunters who went unchecked and had a devastating impact on the numbers of wading birds (hunted for their plumes), alligators, and other Everglades animals.
Severe hurricanes in 1926 and 1928 caused catastrophic damage and flooding from Lake Okeechobee that prompted the Army Corps of Engineers to build a dike around the lake. Further floods in 1947 prompted an unprecedented construction of canals throughout southern Florida. Following another population boom after World War II, and the creation of the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project, the Everglades was divided into sections separated by canals and water control devices that delivered water to agricultural and newly developed urban areas. However, in the late 1960s, following a proposal to construct a massive airport next to Everglades National Park, national attention turned from developing the land to restoring the Everglades.
## Exploration
American involvement in the Everglades began during the Second Seminole War (1836–42), a costly and very unpopular conflict. The United States spent between \$30 million and \$40 million and lost between 1,500 and 3,000 lives. The U.S. military drove the Seminoles into the Everglades and were charged with the task of finding them, defeating them, and moving them to Oklahoma Indian territory. Almost 4,000 Seminoles were killed in the war or were removed. The U.S. military was completely unprepared for the conditions they found in the Everglades. They tore their clothes on sawgrass, ruined their boots on the uneven limestone floor, and were plagued by mosquitoes. Soldiers' legs, feet, and arms were cut open on the sawgrass and gangrene infection set in, taking many lives and limbs. Many died of mosquito-borne illness. After slogging through mud, one private died in his tracks of exhaustion in 1842. General Thomas Jesup admitted the military was overwhelmed by the terrain when he wrote to the Secretary of War in 1838, trying to dissuade him from prolonging the war.
Opinion about the value of Florida to the Union was mixed: some thought it a useless land of swamps and horrible animals, while others thought it a gift from God for national prosperity. In 1838 comments in The Army and Navy Chronicle supported future development of southern Florida:
> [The] climate [is] most delightful; but, from want of actual observation, [it] could not speak so confidently of the soil, although, from the appearance of the surrounding vegetation, a portion of it, at least, must be rich. Whenever the aborigines shall be forced from their fastnesses, as eventually they must be, the enterprising spirit of our countrymen will very soon discover the sections best adapted to cultivation, and the now barren or unproductive everglades will be made to blossom like a garden. It is the general impression that these everglades are uninhabitable during the summer months, by reason of their being overflowed by the abundant rains of the season; but if it should prove that these inundations are caused or increased by obstructions to the natural courses of the rivers, as outlets to the numerous lakes, American industry will remove these obstructions.
The military penetration of southern Florida offered the opportunity to map a poorly understood part of the country. As late as 1823, official reports doubted the existence of a large inland lake, until the military met the Seminoles at the Battle of Lake Okeechobee in 1837. To avenge repeated surprise attacks on himself and ammunition stores, Colonel William Harney led an expedition into the Everglades in 1840, to hunt for a chief named Chekika. With Harney were 90 soldiers in 16 canoes. One soldier's account of the trip in the St. Augustine News was the first printed description of the Everglades available to the general public. The anonymous writer described the hunt for Chekika and the terrain they were crossing: "No country that I have ever heard of bears any resemblance to it; it seems like a vast sea filled with grass and green trees, and expressly intended as a retreat for the rascally Indian, from which the white man would never seek to drive them".
The final blame for the military stalemate was determined to lie not in military preparation, supplies, leadership, or superior tactics by the Seminoles, but in Florida's impenetrable terrain. An army surgeon wrote: "It is in fact a most hideous region to live in, a perfect paradise for Indians, alligators, serpents, frogs, and every other kind of loathsome reptile." The land seemed to inspire extreme reactions of wonder or hatred. In 1870, an author described the mangrove forests as a "waste of nature's grandest exhibition to have these carnivals of splendid vegetation occurring in isolated places where it is but seldom they are seen." A band of hunters, naturalists, and collectors ventured through in 1885, taking along with them the 17-year-old grandson of an early resident of Miami. The landscape unnerved the young man shortly after he entered the Shark River: "The place looked wild and lonely. About three o'clock it seemed to get on Henry's nerves and we saw him crying, he would not tell us why, he was just plain scared."
In 1897, Hugh L. Willoughby spent eight days canoeing with a party from the mouth of the Harney River to the Miami River. He wrote about his observations and sent them back to the New Orleans Times-Democrat. Willoughby described the water as healthy and wholesome, with numerous springs, and 10,000 alligators "more or less" in Lake Okeechobee. The party encountered thousands of birds near the Shark River, "killing hundreds, but they continued to return". Willoughby pointed out that much of the rest of the country had been mapped and explored except for this part of Florida, writing, "(w)e have a tract of land one hundred and thirty miles long and seventy miles wide that is as much unknown to the white man as the heart of Africa."
## Drainage
As early as 1837, a visitor to the Everglades suggested the value of the land without the water:
> Could it be drained by deepening the natural outlets? Would it not open to cultivation immense tracts of rich vegetable soil? Could the waterpower, obtained by draining, be improved to any useful purpose? Would such draining render the country unhealthy? ... Many queries like these passed through our minds. They can only be solved by a thorough examination of the whole country. Could the waters be lowered ten feet, it would probably drain six hundred thousand acres; should this prove to be a rich soil, as would seem probable, what a field it would open for tropical productions! What facilities for commerce!
Territorial representative David Levy proposed a resolution that was passed in Congress in 1842: "that the Secretary of War be directed to place before this House such information as can be obtained in relation to the practicability and probable expense of draining the everglades of Florida." From this directive Secretary of the Treasury Robert J. Walker requested Thomas Buckingham Smith from St. Augustine to consult those with experience in the Everglades on the feasibility of draining them, saying that he had been told two or three canals to the Gulf of Mexico would be sufficient. Smith asked officers who had served in the Seminole Wars to respond, and many favored the idea, promoting the land as a future agricultural asset to the South. A few disagreed, such as Captain John Sprague, who wrote he "never supposed the country would excite an inquiry, other than as a hiding place for Indians, and had it occurred to me that so great an undertaking, one so utterly impracticable, as draining the Ever Glades was to be discussed, I should not have destroyed the scratch of pen upon a subject so fruitful, and which cannot be understood but by those who have waded the water belly deep and examined carefully the western coast by land and by water."
Nevertheless, Smith returned a report to the Secretary of the Treasury asking for \$500,000 to do the job. The report is the first published study on the topic of the Everglades, and concluded with the statement:
> The Ever Glades are now suitable only for the haunt of noxious vermin or the resort of pestilent reptiles. The statesman whose exertions shall cause the millions of acres they contain, now worse than worthless, to teem with the products of agricultural industry; that man who thus adds to the resources of his country ... will merit a high place in public favor, not only with his own generation, but with posterity. He will have created a State!
Smith suggested cutting through the rim of the Everglades (known today as the Atlantic Coastal Ridge), connecting the heads of rivers to the coastline so that 4 feet (1.2 m) of water would be drained from the area. The result, Smith hoped, would yield farmland suitable for corn, sugar, rice, cotton, and tobacco.
In 1850 Congress passed a law that gave several states wetlands within their state boundaries. The Swamp Land Act of 1850 ensured that the state would be responsible for funding the attempts at developing wetlands into farmlands. Florida quickly formed a committee to consolidate grants to pay for such attempts, though attention and funds were diverted owing to the Civil War and Reconstruction. Not until after 1877 did attention return to the Everglades.
### Hamilton Disston's canals
After the Civil War, an agency named the Internal Improvement Fund (IIF), charged with using grant money to improve Florida's infrastructure through canals, rail lines, and roads, was eager to be rid of the debt incurred by the Civil War. IIF trustees found a Pennsylvania real estate developer named Hamilton Disston who was interested in implementing plans to drain the land for agriculture. Disston was persuaded to buy 4,000,000 acres (16,000 km<sup>2</sup>) of land for \$1 million in 1881 . The New York Times declared it the largest purchase of land ever by any individual. Disston began building canals near St. Cloud to lower the basin of the Caloosahatchee and Kissimmee Rivers. His workers and engineers faced conditions similar to those of the soldiers during the Seminole Wars; it was harrowing, backbreaking labor in dangerous conditions. The canals seemed at first to work in lowering the water levels in the wetlands surrounding the rivers. Another dredged waterway between the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Okeechobee was built, opening the region to steamboat traffic.
Disston's engineers focused on Lake Okeechobee as well. As one colleague put it, "Okeechobee is the point to attack"; the canals were to be "equal or greater than the inflow from the Kissimmee valley, which is the source of all the evil." Disston sponsored the digging of a canal 11 miles (18 km) long from Lake Okeechobee towards Miami, but it was abandoned when the rock proved denser than the engineers had expected. Though the canals lowered the groundwater, their capacity was inadequate for the wet season. A report that evaluated the failure of the project concluded: "The reduction of the waters is simply a question of sufficient capacity in the canals which may be dug for their relief".
Though Disston's canals did not drain, his purchase primed the economy of Florida. It made news and attracted tourists and land buyers alike. Within four years property values doubled, and the population increased significantly. One newcomer was the inventor Thomas Edison, who bought a home in Fort Myers. Disston opened real estate offices throughout the United States and Europe, and sold tracts of land for \$5 an acre, establishing towns on the west coast and in central Florida. English tourists in particular were targeted and responded in large numbers. Florida passed its first water laws to "build drains, ditches, or water courses upon petition of two or more landowners" in 1893.
### Henry Flagler's railroads
Due to Disston's purchase, the IIF was able to sponsor railroad projects, and the opportunity presented itself when oil tycoon Henry Flagler became enchanted with St. Augustine during a vacation. He built the opulent Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Augustine in 1888, and began buying land and building rail lines along the east coast of Florida, first from Jacksonville to Daytona, then as far south as Palm Beach in 1893. Flagler's establishment of "the Styx", a settlement for hotel and rail line workers across the river from the barrier island containing Palm Beach, became West Palm Beach. Along the way he built resort hotels, transforming territorial outposts into tourist destinations and the land bordering the rail lines into citrus farms.
The winter of 1894–1895 produced a bitter frost that killed citrus trees as far south as Palm Beach. Miami resident Julia Tuttle sent Flagler a pristine orange blossom and an invitation to visit Miami, to persuade him to build the railroad farther south. Although he had earlier turned her down several times, Flagler finally agreed, and by 1896 the rail line had been extended to Biscayne Bay. Three months after the first train arrived, the residents of Miami, 512 in all, voted to incorporate the town. Flagler publicized Miami as a "Magic City" throughout the United States and it became a prime destination for the extremely wealthy after the Royal Palm Hotel was opened.
### Broward's "Empire of the Everglades"
Despite the sale of 4,000,000 acres (16,000 km<sup>2</sup>) to Disston and the skyrocketing price of land, by the turn of the 20th century the IIF was bankrupt due to mismanagement. Legal battles ensued between the State of Florida and the railroad owners about who owned the rights to sell reclaimed land in the Everglades. In 1904 gubernatorial campaigning, the strongest candidate, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, made draining the Everglades a major plan. He called the future of south Florida the "Empire of the Everglades" and compared its potential to that of Holland and Egypt: "It would indeed be a commentary on the intelligence and energy of the State of Florida to confess that so simple an engineering feat as the drainage of a body of land above the sea was above their power", he wrote to voters. Soon after his election, he fulfilled his promise to "drain that abominable pestilence-ridden swamp" and pushed the Florida legislature to form a group of commissioners to oversee reclamation of flooded lands. They began by taxing counties that would be affected by the drainage attempts, at 5 cents an acre, and formed the Everglades Drainage District in 1907.
Broward asked James O. Wright—an engineer on loan to the State of Florida from the USDA's Bureau of Drainage Investigations—to draw up plans for drainage in 1906. Two dredges were built by 1908, but had cut only 6 miles (9.7 km) of canals. The project quickly ran out of money, so Broward sold real estate developer Richard "Dicky" J. Bolles a million dollars worth of land in the Everglades, 500,000 acres (2,000 km<sup>2</sup>), before the engineer's report had been submitted. Abstracts from Wright's report were given to the IIF stating that eight canals would be enough to drain 1,850,000 acres (7,500 km<sup>2</sup>) at a cost of a dollar an acre. The abstracts were released to real estate developers who used them in their advertisements, and Wright and the USDA were pressed by the real estate industry to publicize the report as quickly as possible. Wright's supervisor noted errors in the report, as well as undue enthusiasm for draining, and delayed its release in 1910. Different unofficial versions of the report circulated—some that had been altered by real estate interests—and a version hastily put together by Senator Duncan U. Fletcher called U.S. Senate Document 89 included early unrevised statements, causing a frenzy of speculation.
Wright's initial report concluded that drainage would not be difficult. Building canals would be more cost effective than constructing a dike around Lake Okeechobee. The soil would be fertile after drainage, the climate would not be adversely affected, and the enormous lake would be able to irrigate farmland in the dry season. Wright based his conclusions on 15 years of weather data since the recording of precipitation began in the 1890s. His calculations concentrated on the towns of Jupiter and Kissimmee. Since weather data had not been recorded for any area within the Everglades, none was included in the report. Furthermore, the heaviest year of rain on record, Wright assumed, was atypical, and he urged that canals should not be constructed to bear that amount of water due to the expense. Wright's calculations for what canals should be able to hold were off by 55 percent. His most fundamental mistake, however, was designing the canals for a maximum rainfall of 4 inches (10 cm) of water a day, based on flawed data for July and August rainfall, despite available data that indicated torrential downpours of 10 inches (25 cm) and 12 inches (30 cm) had occurred in 24-hour periods.
Though a few voices expressed skepticism of the report's conclusions—notably Frank Stoneman, editor of the Miami Evening Record and the later Miami Morning News-Record (predecessors of the Miami Herald)—the report was hailed as impeccable, coming from a branch of the U.S. government. In 1912 Florida appointed Wright to oversee the drainage, and the real estate industry energetically misrepresented this mid-level engineer as the world's foremost authority on wetlands drainage, in charge of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. However, the U.S. House of Representatives investigated Wright since no report had officially been published despite the money paid for it. Wright eventually retired when it was discovered that his colleagues disagreed with his conclusions and refused to approve the report's publication. One testified at the hearings: "I regard Mr. Wright as absolutely and completely incompetent for any engineering work".
Governor Broward ran for the U.S. Senate in 1908 but lost. Broward and his predecessor, William Jennings, were paid by Richard Bolles to tour the state to promote drainage. Broward was elected to the Senate in 1910, but died before he could take office. He was eulogized across Florida for his leadership and progressive inspiration. Rapidly growing Fort Lauderdale paid him tribute by naming Broward County after him (the town's original plan had been to name it Everglades County). Land in the Everglades was being sold for \$15 an acre a month after Broward died. Meanwhile, Henry Flagler continued to build railway stations at towns as soon as the populations warranted them. News of the Panama Canal inspired him to connect his rail line to the closest deep water port. Biscayne Bay was too shallow, so Flagler sent railway scouts to explore the possibility of building the line through to the tip of mainland Florida. The scouts reported that not enough land was present to build through the Everglades, so Flagler instead changed the plan to build to Key West in 1912.
## Boom and plume harvesting
Real estate companies continued to advertise and sell land along newly dug canals. In April 1912—the end of the dry season—reporters from all over the U.S. were given a tour of what had recently been drained, and they returned to their papers and raved about the progress. Land developers sold 20,000 lots in a few months. But as news about the Wright report continued to be negative, land values plummeted, and sales decreased. Developers were sued and arrested for mail fraud when people who had spent their life savings to buy land arrived in south Florida expecting to find a dry parcel of land to build upon and instead found it completely underwater. Advertisements promised land that would yield crops in eight weeks, but for many it took at least as long just to clear. Some burned off the sawgrass or other vegetation only to discover that the underlying peat continued to burn. Animals and tractors used for plowing got mired in the muck and were useless. When the muck dried, it turned to a fine black powder and created dust storms. Settlers encountered rodents, skinks, and biting insects, and faced dangers from mosquitoes, poisonous snakes and alligators. Though at first crops sprouted quickly and lushly, they just as quickly wilted and died, seemingly without reason. It was discovered later that the peat and muck lacked copper and other trace elements. The USDA released a pamphlet in 1915 that declared land along the New River Canal would be too costly to keep drained and fertilized; people in Ft. Lauderdale responded by collecting all of the pamphlets and burning them.
With the increasing population in towns near the Everglades came hunting opportunities. Even decades earlier, Harriet Beecher Stowe had been horrified at the hunting by visitors, and she wrote the first conservation publication for Florida in 1877: "[t]he decks of boats are crowded with men, whose only feeling amid our magnificent forests, seems to be a wild desire to shoot something and who fire at every living thing on shore." Otters and raccoons were the most widely hunted for their skins. Otter pelts could fetch between \$8 and \$15 each. Raccoons, more plentiful, only warranted 75 cents each in 1915 . Hunting often went unchecked; on a single trip, one Lake Okeechobee hunter killed 250 alligators and 172 otters.
Wading birds were a particular target. Their feathers were used in women's hats from the late 19th century until the 1920s. In 1886, five million birds were estimated to have been killed for their feathers. They were usually shot in the spring, when their feathers were colored for mating and nesting. Aigrettes, as the plumes were called in the millinery business, sold in 1915 for \$32 an ounce, also the price of gold. Millinery was a \$17-million-a-year industry that motivated plume harvesters to lie in wait at the nests of egrets and other large birds during the nesting season, shoot the parents with small-bore rifles, and leave the chicks to starve. Many hunters refused to participate after watching the gruesome results of a plume hunt. Still, plumes from Everglades wading birds could be found in Havana, New York City, London, and Paris. A dealer in New York paid at least 60 hunters to provide him with "almost anything that wore feathers, but particularly the Herons, Spoonbills, and showy birds". Hunters could collect plumes from a hundred birds on a good day.
Plume harvesting became a dangerous business. The Audubon Society became concerned with the amount of hunting being done in rookeries in the mangrove forests. In 1902, they hired a warden, Guy Bradley, to watch the rookeries around Cuthbert Lake. Bradley had lived in Flamingo within the Everglades, and was murdered in 1905 by one of his neighbors after he tried to prevent him from hunting. Protection of birds was the reason for establishing the first wildlife refuge when President Theodore Roosevelt set Pelican Island as a sanctuary in 1903.
In the 1920s, after birds were protected and alligators hunted nearly to extinction, Prohibition created a living for those willing to smuggle alcohol into the U.S. from Cuba. Rum-runners used the vast Everglades as a hiding spot: there were never enough law enforcement officers to patrol it. The advent of the fishing industry, the arrival of the railroad, and the discovery of the benefits of adding copper to Okeechobee muck soon created unprecedented numbers of residents in new towns like Moore Haven, Clewiston, and Belle Glade. By 1921, 2,000 people lived in 16 new towns around Lake Okeechobee. Sugarcane became the primary crop grown in south Florida and it began to be mass-produced. Miami experienced a second real estate boom that earned a developer in Coral Gables \$150 million and saw undeveloped land north of Miami sell for \$30,600 an acre. Miami became cosmopolitan and experienced a renaissance of architecture and culture. Hollywood movie stars vacationed in the area and industrialists built lavish homes. Miami's population multiplied fivefold, and Ft. Lauderdale and Palm Beach grew many times over as well. In 1925, Miami newspapers published editions weighing over 7 pounds (3.2 kg), most of it real estate advertising. Waterfront property was the most highly valued. Mangrove trees were cut down and replaced with palm trees to improve the view. Acres of south Florida slash pine were taken down, some for lumber, but the wood was found to be dense and it split apart when nails were driven into it. It was also termite-resistant, but homes were needed quickly. Most of the pine forests in Dade County were cleared for development.
## Hurricanes
The canals proposed by Wright were unsuccessful in making the lands south of Lake Okeechobee fulfill the promises made by real estate developers to local farmers. The winter of 1922 was unseasonably wet and the region was underwater. The town of Moore Haven received 46 inches (1,200 mm) of rain in six weeks in 1924. Engineers were pressured to regulate the water flow, not only for farmers but also for commercial fishers, who often requested conflicting water levels in the lake. Fred Elliot, who was in charge of building the canals after James Wright retired, commented: "A man on one side of the canal wants it raised for his particular use and a man on the other side wants it lowered for his particular use".
### 1926 Miami Hurricane
The 1920s brought several favorable conditions that helped the land and population boom, one of which was an absence of any severe storms. The last severe hurricane, in 1906, had struck the Florida Keys. Many homes were constructed hastily and poorly as a result of this lull in storms. However, on September 18, 1926, a storm that became known as the 1926 Miami Hurricane struck with winds over 140 miles per hour (230 km/h), and caused massive devastation. The storm surge was as high as 15 feet (4.6 m) in some places. Henry Flagler's opulent Royal Palm Hotel was destroyed along with many other hotels and buildings. Most people who died did so when they ran out into the street in disbelief while the eye of the hurricane passed over, not knowing the wind was coming in from the other direction. "The lull lasted 35 minutes, and during that time the streets of the city became crowded with people", wrote Richard Gray, the local weather chief. "As a result, many lives were lost during the second phase of the storm." In Miami alone, 115 people were counted dead—although the true figure may have been as high as 175, because death totals were racially segregated. More than 25,000 people were homeless in the city. The town of Moore Haven, bordering Lake Okeechobee, was hardest hit. A levee built of muck collapsed, drowning almost 400 of the town's entire 1,200 residents. The tops of Lake Okeechobee levees were only 18 to 24 inches (46 to 61 cm) above the lake itself and the engineers were aware of the danger. Two days before the hurricane, an engineer predicted, "[i]f we have a blow, even a gale, Moore Haven is going under water". The engineer lost his wife and daughter in the flood.
The City of Miami responded to the hurricane by downplaying its effects and turning down aid. The Miami Herald declared two weeks after the storm that almost everything in the city had returned to normal. The governor supported the efforts to minimize the appearance of the destruction by refusing to call a special legislative session to appropriate emergency funds for relief. As a result, the American Red Cross was able to collect only \$3 million of \$5 million needed. The 1926 hurricane effectively ended the land boom in Miami, despite the attempts at hiding the effects. It also forced drainage commissioners to re-evaluate the effectiveness of the canals. A \$20 million plan to build a dike around Lake Okeechobee, to be paid by property taxes, was turned down after a skeptical constituency sued to stop it; more than \$14 million had been spent on canals and they were ineffective in taking away excess water or delivering it when needed.
### 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane
The weather was unremarkable for two years. In 1928, construction was completed on the Tamiami Trail, named because it was the only road spanning between Tampa and Miami. The builders attempted to construct the road several times before they blasted the muck down to the limestone, filled it with rock and paved over it. Hard rains in the summer caused Lake Okeechobee to rise several feet; this was noticed by a local newspaper editor who demanded it be lowered. However, on September 16, 1928, came a massive storm, now known as the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane. Thousands drowned when Lake Okeechobee breached its levees; the range of estimates of the dead spanned from 1,770 (according to the Red Cross) to 3,000 or more. Many were swept away and never recovered. The majority of the dead were black migrant workers who had recently settled in or near Belle Glade. The catastrophe made national news, and although the governor again refused aid, after he toured the area and counted 126 bodies still unburied or uncollected a week after the storm, he activated the National Guard to assist in the cleanup, and declared in a telegram: "Without exaggeration, the situation in the storm area beggars description".
### Herbert Hoover Dike
The focus of government agencies quickly shifted to the control of floods rather than drainage. The Okeechobee Flood Control District, financed by both state and federal funds, was created in 1929. President Herbert Hoover toured the towns affected by the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane and, an engineer himself, ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to assist the communities surrounding the lake. Between 1930 and 1937, a dike 66 miles (106 km) long was built around the southern edge of the lake, and a shorter one around the northern edge. It was 34 feet (10 m) tall and 3.5 feet (1.1 m) thick on the lake side, 3 feet (0.91 m) thick on the top, and 2 feet (0.61 m) thick toward land. Control of the Hoover Dike and the waters of Lake Okeechobee were delegated to federal powers: the United States declared legal limits of the lake to be 14 feet (4.3 m) and 17 feet (5.2 m).
A massive canal 80 feet (24 m) wide and 6 feet (1.8 m) deep was also dug through the Caloosahatchee River; when the lake rose too high, the excess water left through the canal to the Gulf of Mexico. Exotic trees were planted along the north shore levee: Australian pines, Australian oaks, willows, and bamboo. More than \$20 million was spent on the entire project. Sugarcane production soared after the dike and canal were built. The populations of the small towns surrounding the lake jumped from 3,000 to 9,000 after World War II.
## Drought
The effects of the Hoover Dike were seen immediately. An extended drought occurred in the 1930s, and with the wall preventing water leaving Lake Okeechobee and canals and ditches removing other water, the Everglades became parched. Peat turned to dust, and salty ocean water entered Miami's wells. When the city brought in an expert to investigate, he discovered that the water in the Everglades was the area's groundwater—here, it appeared on the surface. Draining the Everglades removed this groundwater, which was replaced by ocean water seeping into the area's wells. In 1939, 1 million acres (4,000 km<sup>2</sup>) of Everglades burned, and the black clouds of peat and sawgrass fires hung over Miami. Underground peat fires burned roots of trees and plants without burning the plants in some places. Scientists who took soil samples before draining had not taken into account that the organic composition of peat and muck in the Everglades was mixed with bacteria that added little to the process of decomposition underwater because they were not mixed with oxygen. As soon as the water was drained and oxygen mixed with the soil, the bacteria began to break down the soil. In some places, homes had to be moved on to stilts and 8 feet (2.4 m) of topsoil was lost.
### Conservation attempts
Conservationists concerned about the Everglades have been a vocal minority ever since Miami was a young city. South Florida's first and perhaps most enthusiastic naturalist was Charles Torrey Simpson, who retired from the Smithsonian Institution to Miami in 1905 when he was 53. Nicknamed "the Sage of Biscayne Bay", Simpson wrote several books about tropical plant life around Miami. His backyard contained a tropical hardwood hammock, which he estimated he showed to about 50,000 people. Though he tended to avoid controversy regarding development, in Ornamental Gardening in Florida he wrote, "Mankind everywhere has an insane desire to waste and destroy the good and beautiful things this nature has lavished upon him".
Although the idea of protecting a portion of the Everglades arose in 1905, a crystallized effort was formed in 1928 when Miami landscape designer Ernest F. Coe established the Everglades Tropical National Park Association. It had enough support to be declared a national park by Congress in 1934, but there was not enough money during the Great Depression to buy the proposed 2,000,000 acres (8,100 km<sup>2</sup>) for the park. It took another 13 years for it to be dedicated on December 6, 1947.
`One month before the dedication of the park, the former editor of The Miami Herald and freelance writer Marjory Stoneman Douglas published her first book, The Everglades: River of Grass. After researching the region for five years, she described the history and ecology of the south of Florida in great detail, characterizing the Everglades as a river instead of a stagnant swamp. Douglas later wrote, "My colleague Art Marshall said that with [the words "River of Grass"] I changed everybody's knowledge and educated the world as to what the Everglades meant". The last chapter was titled "The Eleventh Hour" and warned that the Everglades were approaching death, although the course could be reversed. Its first printing sold out a month after its release.`
## Flood control
Coinciding with the dedication of Everglades National Park, 1947 in south Florida saw two hurricanes and a wet season responsible for 100 inches (250 cm) of rain, ending the decade-long drought. Although there were no human casualties, cattle and deer were drowned and standing water was left in suburban areas for months. Agricultural interests lost about \$59 million. The embattled head of the Everglades Drainage District carried a gun for protection after being threatened.
### Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project
In 1948 Congress approved the Central and Southern Florida Project for Flood Control and Other Purposes (C&SF) and consolidated the Everglades Drainage District and the Okeechobee Flood Control District under this. The C&SF used four methods in flood management: levees, water storage areas, canal improvements, and large pumps to assist gravity. Between 1952 and 1954 in cooperation with the state of Florida it built a levee 100 miles (160 km) long between the eastern Everglades and suburbs from Palm Beach to Homestead, and blocked the flow of water into populated areas. Between 1954 and 1963 it divided the Everglades into basins. In the northern Everglades were Water Conservation Areas (WCAs), and the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) bordering to the south of Lake Okeechobee. In the southern Everglades was Everglades National Park. Levees and pumping stations bordered each WCA, which released water in drier times and removed it and pumped it to the ocean or Gulf of Mexico in times of flood. The WCAs took up about 37 percent of the original Everglades.
During the 1950s and 1960s the South Florida metropolitan area grew four times as fast as the rest of the nation. Between 1940 and 1965, 6 million people moved to south Florida: 1,000 people moved to Miami every week. Urban development between the mid-1950s and the late 1960s quadrupled. Much of the water reclaimed from the Everglades was sent to newly developed areas. With metropolitan growth came urban problems associated with rapid expansion: traffic jams; school overcrowding; crime; overloaded sewage treatment plants; and, for the first time in south Florida's urban history, water shortages in times of drought.
The C&SF constructed over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of canals, and hundreds of pumping stations and levees within three decades. It produced a film, Waters of Destiny, characterized by author Michael Grunwald as propaganda, that likened nature to a villainous, shrieking force of rage and declared the C&SF's mission was to tame nature and make the Everglades useful. Everglades National Park management and Marjory Stoneman Douglas initially supported the C&SF, as it promised to maintain the Everglades and manage the water responsibly. However, an early report by the project reflected local attitudes about the Everglades as a priority to people in nearby developed areas: "The aesthetic appeal of the Park can never be as strong as the demands of home and livelihood. The manatee and the orchid mean something to people in an abstract way, but the former cannot line their purse, nor the latter fill their empty bellies."
Establishment of the C&SF made Everglades National Park completely dependent upon another political entity for its survival. One of the C&SF's projects was Levee 29, laid along the Tamiami Trail on the northern border of the park. Levee 29 featured four flood control gates that controlled all the water entering Everglades National Park; before construction, water flowed in through open drain pipes. The period from 1962 to 1965 was one of drought for the Everglades, and Levee 29 remained closed to allow the Biscayne Aquifer—the fresh water source for South Florida—to stay filled. Animals began to cross Tamiami Trail for the water held in WCA 3, and many were killed by cars. Biologists estimate the population of alligators in Everglades National Park was halved; otters nearly became extinct. The populations of wading birds had been reduced by 90 percent from the 1940s. When park management and the U.S. Department of the Interior asked the C&SF for assistance, the C&SF offered to build a levee along the southern border of Everglades National Park to retain waters that historically flowed through the mangroves and into Florida Bay. Though the C&SF refused to send the park more water, they constructed Canal 67, bordering the east side of the park and carrying excess water from Lake Okeechobee to the Atlantic.
### Everglades Agricultural Area
The C&SF established 470,000 acres (1,900 km<sup>2</sup>) for the Everglades Agricultural Area—27 percent of the Everglades before development. In the late 1920s, agricultural experiments indicated that adding large amounts of manganese sulfate to Everglades muck produced profitable vegetable harvests. Adding 100 pounds (45 kg) of the compound was more cost effective than adding 1 short ton (0.91 t) of manure. The primary cash crop in the EAA is sugarcane, though sod, beans, lettuce, celery, and rice are also grown. Sugarcane became more consolidated an industry than did any other crop; in 1940 the coalition of farms was renamed U.S. Sugar and this produced 86 percent of Everglades sugar. During the 1930s the sugarcane farmers' coalition came under investigation for labor practices that bordered on slavery. Potential employees—primarily young black men—were lured from all over the U.S. by the promise of jobs, but they were held financially responsible for training, transportation, room and board and other costs. Quitting while debts were owed was punishable with jail time. By 1942, U.S. Sugar was indicted for peonage in federal court, though the charges were eventually dismissed on a technicality. U.S. Sugar benefited significantly from the U.S. embargo on Cuban goods beginning in the early 1960s. In 1958, before the Castro regime, 47,000 acres (190 km<sup>2</sup>) of sugarcane were harvested in Florida; by the 1964–1965 season, 228,000 acres (920 km<sup>2</sup>) were harvested. From 1959 to 1962 the region went from two sugar mills to six, one of which in Belle Glade set several world records for sugar production.
Fields in the EAA are typically 40 acres (16 ha), on two sides bordered by canals that are connected to larger ones by which water is pumped in or out depending on the needs of the crops. The water level for sugarcane is ideally maintained at 20 inches (51 cm) below the surface soil, and after the cane is harvested, the stalks are burned. Vegetables require more fertilizer than sugarcane, though the fields may resemble the historic hydrology of the Everglades by being flooded in the wet season. Sugarcane, however, requires water in the dry season. The fertilizers used on vegetables, along with high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus that are the by-product of decayed soil necessary for sugarcane production, were pumped into WCAs south of the EAA, predominantly to Everglades National Park. The introduction of large amounts of these let exotic plants take hold in the Everglades. One of the defining characteristics of natural Everglades ecology is its ability to support itself in a nutrient-poor environment, and the introduction of fertilizers began to change this ecology.
## Turning point
A turning point for development in the Everglades came in 1969 when a replacement airport was proposed as Miami International Airport outgrew its capacities. Developers began acquiring land, paying \$180 an acre in 1968, and the Dade County Port Authority (DCPA) bought 39 square miles (100 km<sup>2</sup>) in the Big Cypress Swamp without consulting the C&SF, management of Everglades National Park or the Department of the Interior. Park management learned of the official purchase and agreement to build the jetport from The Miami Herald the day it was announced. The DCPA bulldozed the land it had bought, and laid a single runway it declared was for training pilots. The new jetport was planned to be larger than O'Hare, Dulles, JFK, and LAX airports combined; the location chosen was 6 miles (9.7 km) north of the Everglades National Park, within WCA 3. The deputy director of the DCPA declared: "This is going to be one of the great population centers of America. We will do our best to meet our responsibilities and the responsibilities of all men to exercise dominion over the land, sea, and air above us as the higher order of man intends."
The C&SF brought the jetport proposal to national attention by mailing letters about it to 100 conservation groups in the U.S. Initial local press reaction condemned conservation groups who immediately opposed the project. Business Week reported real estate prices jumped from \$200 to \$800 an acre surrounding the planned location, and Life wrote of the expectations of the commercial interests in the area. The U.S. Geological Survey's study of the environmental impact of the jetport started, "Development of the proposed jetport and its attendant facilities ... will inexorably destroy the south Florida ecosystem and thus the Everglades National Park". The jetport was intended to support a community of a million people and employ 60,000. The DCPA director was reported in Time saying, "I'm more interested in people than alligators. This is the ideal place as far as aviation is concerned."
When studies indicated the proposed jetport would create 4,000,000 US gallons (15,000,000 L) of raw sewage a day and 10,000 short tons (9,100 t) of jet engine pollutants a year, the national media snapped to attention. Science magazine wrote, in a series on environmental protection highlighting the jetport project, "Environmental scientists have become increasingly aware that, without careful planning, development of a region and the conservation of its natural resources do not go hand in hand". The New York Times called it a "blueprint for disaster", and Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson wrote to President Richard Nixon voicing his opposition: "It is a test of whether or not we are really committed in this country to protecting our environment." Governor Claude Kirk withdrew his support for the project, and the 78-year-old Marjory Stoneman Douglas was persuaded to go on tour to give hundreds of speeches against it. She established Friends of the Everglades and encouraged more than 3,000 members to join. Initially the U.S. Department of Transportation pledged funds to support the jetport, but after pressure, Nixon overruled the department. He instead established Big Cypress National Preserve, announcing it in the Special Message to the Congress Outlining the 1972 Environmental Program. Following the jetport proposition, restoration of the Everglades became not only a statewide priority, but an international one as well. In the 1970s the Everglades were declared an International Biosphere Reserve and a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, and a Wetland of International Importance by the Ramsar Convention, making it one of only three locations on earth that have appeared on all three lists.
## See also
- Environmental issues in Florida
- Indigenous people of the Everglades region
- Seminole
- History of Miami, Florida
- Restoration of the Everglades
- Swamp Land Act of 1850
- Clean Water Act (1972)
- North American Wetlands Conservation Act (1989)
- List of canals in the United States#Irrigation, industrial and drainage canals
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1,241,830 |
Mary Martha Sherwood
| 1,169,310,535 |
English children's author and editor (1775–1851)
|
[
"1775 births",
"1851 deaths",
"19th-century British writers",
"19th-century English women writers",
"Chapbook writers",
"English evangelicals",
"English religious writers",
"English women non-fiction writers",
"English women novelists",
"People from Malvern Hills District",
"Women religious writers"
] |
Mary Martha Sherwood (née Butt; 6 May 1775 – 22 September 1851) was a nineteenth-century English children's writer. Of her more than four hundred works, the best known include The History of Little Henry and his Bearer (1814) and the two series The History of Henry Milner (1822–1837) and The History of the Fairchild Family (1818–1847). Her evangelicalism permeated her early writings, but later works cover common Victorian themes such as domesticity.
Mary Martha Butt married Captain Henry Sherwood and moved to India for eleven years. She converted to evangelical Christianity, opened schools for the children of army officers and local Indian children, adopted neglected or orphaned children, and founded an orphanage. She was inspired to write fiction for the children in the military encampments. Her work was well received in Britain, where the Sherwoods returned in 1816 for medical reasons. She opened a boarding school, edited a children's magazine, and published hundreds of tracts, novels, and other works for children and the poor, which increased her popularity in both the United States and Britain. She died in 1851 in Twickenham, Middlesex.
Sherwood's career included three periods: her romantic period (1795–1805), her evangelical period (1810 – c. 1830), in which she produced her most popular and influential works, and her post-evangelical period (c. 1830–1851). Themes in her writing included "her conviction of inherent human corruption", her belief that literature "had a catechetical utility" for every rank of society, her belief that "the dynamics of family life" should reflect central Christian principles, and her "virulent" anti-Catholicism. Sherwood was called "one of the most significant authors of children's literature of the nineteenth century". Her depictions of domesticity and ties with India may have influenced many young readers, but her work fell from favour as children's literature broadened in the late nineteenth century.
## Early life
Mary Martha Butt was born on 6 May 1775 in Stanford-on-Teme, Worcestershire, the eldest daughter and second child of Martha Butt and Reverend George Butt, the chaplain in ordinary to George III. As a young child, before the age of six, Sherwood composed stories in her head before she could write and begged her mother to copy them down. Her brother was her constant companion. She was forced to stand in the stocks while doing her lessons:
> It was the fashion then for children to wear iron collars round the neck, with back-boards strapped over the shoulders. To one of these I was subjected from my sixth to my thirteenth year. I generally did all my lessons standing in stocks, with this same collar round my neck; it was put on in the morning, and seldom taken off till late in the evening. ... And yet I was a very happy child, and when relieved from my collars I not unseldom manifested my delight by starting from our hall-door and taking a run for half a mile through the woods.
Sherwood's and her sister Lucy Lyttelton's education was wide-ranging for girls in the late eighteenth century: Sherwood learnt Latin and Greek and was allowed to read freely in her father's library. Sherwood states in her autobiography that by the age of thirteen, she had reached her full height, but her mother continued to dress her like a child, so she hid in the woods with a book and a doll. Despite her lonely childhood, she seems to have enjoyed attending Madame St. Quentin's School for Girls at Reading Abbey, which was run by French émigrés and also attended by Jane Austen.
Sherwood spent some of her teenage years in Lichfield, where she enjoyed the company of the naturalist Erasmus Darwin, the educational reformer Richard Lovell Edgeworth, his daughter Maria Edgeworth, and the poet Anna Seward. Although she was intellectually stimulated by them, she was distressed by their lack of faith and later described Richard Edgeworth as an "infidel". She also criticized Seward's persona of the female author, writing in her autobiography that she would never model herself on a woman who wore a wig and accumulated male flatterers. She was determined to become a writer and her father encouraged her. When she was 17, her father helped her publish her first story, Traditions (1795).
When Sherwood's father died in 1795, her family retired from active social life, since her mother preferred seclusion, and moved to Bridgnorth, Shropshire, into "a somewhat uncomfortable house" in the town's High Street. At Bridgnorth Sherwood began writing sentimental novels; in 1802 she sold Margarita for £40 to Mr. Hazard of Bath, and The History of Susan Grey, a Pamela-like novel, for £10. She also taught at a local Sunday school.
## Marriage and India
In 1799, Sherwood married her cousin, Captain Henry Sherwood. For several years, she accompanied her husband and his regiment, the 53rd Foot, on postings throughout Britain. In 1804, he was promoted to paymaster, which slightly improved their finances. In 1805 the regiment was ordered to India and the Sherwoods were forced to leave behind their first child, Mary Henrietta, with Sherwood's mother and sister in England.
Sherwood's four-month voyage to India was hard; she was pregnant again and the regiment's ship was attacked by French warships. The Sherwoods stayed in India for eleven years, moving with the army and a growing family from Calcutta (Kolkata) to Dinapore (Danapur), Berhampore (Baharampur), Cawnpore (Kanpur) and Meerut. They had six children there: Henry (1805–1807), Lucy Martha (1807–1808), Lucy Elizabeth (1809–1835), Emily (1811–1833), Henry Martyn, who became a minister (1813 – 21 January 1912), and Sophia (born 1815).
After the death of her second child, Henry, of whooping cough, Sherwood began to consider converting to evangelical Christianity. The missionary Henry Martyn (after whom she had named her sixth child) finally convinced her, but it was the chaplain to the company who first made her aware of her "human depravity" and need for redemption. After her conversion, she was anxious to pursue evangelical missionary work in India, but she first had to persuade the East India Company that its policy of religious neutrality was ill-conceived. The social and political support for missionary programmes in Britain eventually persuaded the company to approve her endeavours. Sherwood set up schools for the children of army officers and for the local Indian children attached to the camp. They were often taught in her home because no buildings were available. The first school began with 13 children and grew to over 40, with pupils ranging from the very young to adolescents; uneducated soldiers attended at times. Sherwood discovered that traditional British teaching materials did not appeal to children raised in India and so wrote her own Indian and army-themed stories, such as The History of Little Henry and his Bearer (1814) and The Memoirs of Sergeant Dale, his Daughter and the Orphan Mary (1815).
Sherwood adopted neglected or orphaned children from the camp. In 1807 she adopted a three-year-old who had been given too much medicinal gin and in 1808 a malnourished two-year-old. She found homes for those she could not adopt and founded an orphanage. In 1816, on medical advice, she and her family returned to Britain. Sherwood relates in her autobiography that she was continually ill in India; it was believed at the time that neither she nor her children could survive in a tropical climate.
## Return to Britain and death
When the Sherwoods returned to Britain, they were financially strapped. Captain Sherwood, having been put on half-pay, opened a school in Henwick, Worcestershire. Relying on her fame as an author and her teaching experience in India, Sherwood decided to establish a boarding school for girls in Wick; it remained in operation for eight years. She taught English, French, astronomy, history, geography, grammar, writing and arithmetic. At the same time, she wrote hundreds of tracts, novels, and other works for children and the poor, increasing her popularity in both the United States and Britain. The History of Henry Milner (1822) was one of Sherwood's most successful books; children sent her fan mail, begging her to write a sequel; one child sent her "ornamental pens" with which to do so. Babies were named after the hero. Sherwood published much of what she wrote in The Youth's Magazine, a children's periodical that she edited for over 20 years.
By the 1830s, the Sherwoods had become more prosperous and the family decided to travel to the European continent. The texts that Sherwood wrote following this trip reflect her exposure to French culture. She also embarked on a large and complex Old Testament project at this time, for which she learned Hebrew. To assist her, her husband assembled, over the course of ten years, a large Hebrew-English concordance. Sherwood's autobiography provides few details of the last approximately forty years of her life, although even in her seventies, Sherwood wrote for four or five hours a day; many of the books were co-authored with Sherwood's daughter, Sophia. According to M. Nancy Cutt, a Sherwood scholar, this joint authorship led to a "watery sentimentality" not evident in Sherwood's earlier works as well as a greater emphasis on issues of class.
In 1849, the Sherwoods moved to Twickenham, Middlesex, and in December of that year Captain Sherwood died. Sherwood herself died almost two years later on 20 September 1851.
## Literary analysis
Sherwood scholar M. Nancy Cutt has argued that Sherwood's career divides into three periods: (1) her romantic period (1795–1805), in which she wrote a few sentimental novels, (2) her evangelical period (1810 – c. 1830), in which she produced her most popular and influential works, and (3) her post-evangelical period (c. 1830–1851). Several underlying themes pervade most of Sherwood's works through these periods: "her conviction of inherent human corruption", her belief that literature "had a catechetical utility" for every rank of society, her belief that "the dynamics of family life" should reflect central Christian principles, and her "virulent" anti-Catholicism.
### Early writings: Sentimental novels
Sherwood's earliest works are the sentimental novels Traditions (1795) and Margarita (1795). Both are more worldly than her later works, but neither received much recognition. By contrast, The History of Susan Gray, written for the girls of her Sunday school class in Bridgnorth, made Sherwood a famous author. Like Hannah More's tracts, it is designed to teach middle-class morality to the poor. This novel, which children's literature scholar Patricia Demers, describes as a "purified Pamela", tells the story of Susan, an orphaned servant girl who "resists the advances of a philandering soldier; though trembling with emotion at the man's declaration of love and promise of marriage". Susan's story is told from her deathbed, so the reader is regularly reminded of the "wages of sin". A separate narrator, seemingly Sherwood, often interrupts the tale to warn readers against particular actions, such as deceiving themselves that God will spare "bad women" because there are so many of them. Despite a didactic tone that is often distasteful to modern readers, Susan Gray was so popular at the time of its publication that it was pirated by several publishers. In 1816, Sherwood published a revised version, which Sarah Trimmer reviewed positively in The Guardian of Education. Sherwood wrote a companion story to Susan Gray, The History of Lucy Clare, which was published in 1810.
### French literary influences
Although Sherwood disagreed with the principles espoused by French revolutionaries, her own works are modelled on French children's literature, much of it infused with Rousseauvian ideals. For example, in The History of Henry Milner, Part I (1822) and The History of the Fairchild Family, Part I (1818), Sherwood adopts Arnaud Berquin's "habitual pattern of small domestic situations acted out by children under the eye of parents or fellows". Likewise, The Lady of the Manor (1823–1829) shares similar themes and structures with Madame de Genlis' Tales of the Castle (1785). David Hanson, a scholar of nineteenth-century literature, has questioned this interpretation, arguing that the tales told by the maternal figure in The Lady of the Manor demonstrate a "distrust of parents", and of mothers in particular, because they illustrate the folly of overly permissive parenting. In these inset stories, only outsiders discipline children correctly.
One of Sherwood's aims in her evangelically-themed The History of Henry Milner (1822–1837) was to challenge what she saw as the irreligion inherent in French pedagogy. Henry Milner was written in response to Thomas Day's The History of Sandford and Merton (1783–1789), a novel founded on the philosophy of Rousseau (whose writings Sherwood had lambasted as "the well-spring of infidelity"). The children's literature scholar Janis Dawson indicates that the structure and emphasis of Henry much resemble Rousseau's Emile (1762): their pedagogies are similar, even if their underlying assumptions about childhood conflict. Both books isolate the child in order to encourage learning from the natural world, but Sherwood's Henry is naturally depraved, while Rousseau's Emile is naturally good. As the series progressed, Sherwood's views of religion changed (she became a universalist), causing her to place greater emphasis on childhood innocence in later volumes.
### Evangelicalism
The strongest themes in Sherwood's early evangelical writings are the need to recognize one's innate "depravity" and the need to prepare for eternity. For Sherwood, her main themes emphasize "faith, resignation, and implicit obedience to the will of God". In her adaptation of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678), The Infant's Progress (1821), she represents original sin as a child named "In-bred Sin" who tempts the young pilgrims on their way to the Celestial City (Heaven). It is these battles with In-bred Sin that constitute the major conflict of the text. The allegory is complex and, as Demers admits, "tedious" for even the "willing reader". According to Demers, "some young readers may have found [In-bred Sin's] activities more interesting than the spiritual struggles of the little heroes, reading the book as an adventure story rather than as a guide to salvation". Such religious allegory, though not always so overt, continued to be a favourite literary device of Sherwood's.
Sherwood infused her works with political and social messages dear to evangelicals in the 1810s and 1820s, such as the crucial role of missions, the value of charity, the evils of slavery, and the need for Sabbath observance. She wrote biblically-based introductions to astronomy and ancient history so that children would have Christian textbooks. As Cutt argues, "the intent of these (as indeed of all Evangelical texts) was to offset the deistic tendency to consider knowledge an end in itself". She revised classic children's books on religious grounds, such as Sarah Fielding's The Governess (1749). These efforts to make religion more palatable through children's fiction were not always seen favourably by the evangelical community; The Evangelical Magazine reviewed harshly her Stories Explanatory of the Church Catechism (1817), complaining it was overly reliant on exciting fictional tales to convey its religious message.
#### The History of the Fairchild Family (1818–1847)
As Cutt argues, "the great overriding metaphor of all [Sherwood's] work is the representation of divine order by the harmonious family relationship (inevitably set in its own pastoral Eden). ... No writer made it clearer to her readers that the child who is dutiful within his family is blessed in the sight of God; or stressed more firmly that family bonds are but the earthly and visible end of a spiritual bond running up to the very throne of God". Demers has referred to this "consciously double vision" as the quintessentially Romantic element of Sherwood's writing.
Of all Sherwood's evangelically themed books, The History of the Fairchild Family was the most popular. It was published by John Hatchard of Piccadilly, which gave it and the other ten other books published with him a "social distinction" not attached to her other publications. The Fairchild Family tells the story of a family striving towards godliness and consists of a series of lessons taught by the Fairchild parents to their three children (Emily, Lucy and Henry) regarding not only the proper orientation of their souls towards Heaven but also the right earthly morality (envy, greed, lying, disobedience, and fighting are immoral). The overarching narrative of the tale includes a series of tract-like stories that illustrate these moral lessons. For example, stories of the deaths of two neighbourhood children, Charles Trueman and Miss Augusta Noble, help the Fairchild children to understand how and why they need to look to the state of their own hearts. The faithful and "true" Charles has a transcendent deathbed experience, suggesting he is saved; by contrast, the heedless, disobedient Augusta burns up while playing with candles and is presumably damned. Unlike previous allegorical literature with these themes, such as Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Sherwood domesticated her story with actions in the children's day-to-day lives, such as stealing fruit. These are important because they relate directly to their salvation. Each chapter includes thematically linked prayers and hymns, by Philip Doddridge, Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, William Cowper, Ann and Jane Taylor, and others.
The Fairchild Family remained in print until 1913, despite the increasingly popular Wordsworthian image of childhood innocence. Dickensian scholar Lois E. Chaney has suggested that it "influenced Dickens's depictions of Pip's fears of the convict, the gibbet, and 'the horrible young man' at the close of Chapter 1" in Great Expectations (1860–1861). The children's literature scholar Gillian Avery has argued that The Fairchild Family was "as much a part of English childhood as Alice was later to become". Although the book was popular, some scraps of evidence have survived suggesting that readers did not always interpret it as Sherwood would have wanted. Lord Frederic Hamilton writes, for instance, that "there was plenty about eating and drinking; one could always skip the prayers, and there were three or four very brightly written accounts of funerals in it". Although The Fairchild Family has gained a reputation in the twentieth century as didactic, in the early nineteenth century it was viewed as delightfully realistic. Charlotte Mary Yonge (1823–1901), a critic who also wrote children's literature, praised "the gusto with which [Sherwood] dwells on new dolls" and "the absolutely sensational naughtiness" of the children. Most twentieth-century critics, including George Orwell, who called it "an evil book", have condemned the book's harshness, pointing to the Fairchilds' moral-filled visit to a gibbet with a rotting corpse swinging from it; but Cutt and others argue that the positive depiction of the nuclear family in the text, particularly Sherwood's emphasis on parents' responsibility to educate their own children, was important to the book's appeal. She argues that Sherwood's "influence", through books such as the Fairchild Family, "upon the domestic pattern of Victorian life can hardly be overestimated".
The Fairchild Family was so successful that Sherwood wrote two sequels, in 1842 and 1847. These reflected her changing values as well as those of the Victorian period. Significantly, the servants in Part I, "who are almost part of the family, are pushed aside in Part III by their gossiping, flattering counterparts in the fine manor-house." The most extensive thematic change in the series was the disappearance of evangelicalism. Whereas all the lessons in Part I highlight the children's "human depravity" and encourage the reader to think in terms of the afterlife, in Parts II and III, other Victorian values such as "respectability" and filial obedience come to the fore. Dawson describes the difference in terms of parental indulgence; in Parts II and III, the Fairchild parents employ softer disciplinary tactics than in Part I.
#### Evangelical tract literature in the 1820s and 1830s
During the 1820s and 1830s, Sherwood wrote a great many tracts for the poor. Like her novels for the middle class, they "taught the lessons of personal endurance, reliance on Providence, and acceptance of one's earthly status". Emphasizing individual experience and one's personal relationship with God, they discouraged readers from attributing their successes or failures to "larger economic and political forces". In this, they resembled the Cheap Repository Tracts, many written by Hannah More. As Linda Peterson, a scholar of nineteenth-century women's literature, argues, Sherwood's tracts use a Biblical "interpretative frame" to highlight the fleetingness of earthly things. For example, in A Drive in the Coach through the Streets of London (1819), Julia is granted the privilege of shopping with her mother only if she will "behave wisely in the streets" and "not give [her] mind to self-pleasing". She cannot keep this promise and she eagerly peeks in at every store window and begs her mother to buy her everything she sees. Her mother, therefore, allows her to select one item from every shop. Julia, ecstatic, chooses blue satin boots, a penknife, and a new hat with flowers, and other items until the pair reach the undertaker's shop. There her mood droops considerably and she realizes the moral of the lesson, recited by her mother, as she picks out a coffin: "but she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth" (1 Timothy 5:6).
#### Anti-Catholicism in the 1830s
Sherwood's anti-Catholicism appears most obviously in her works from the 1820s and 1830s. During the 1820s in Britain, Catholics were agitating for greater civil rights and it was at this time that Sherwood wrote her most sustained attacks against them. When the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 was passed, Sherwood and many like her were frightened of the influence Catholics might gain in the government and wrote Victoria (1833), The Nun (1833), and The Monk of Cimies (1834) to illustrate some of the supposed dangers of Catholicism. The Monk narrates, in the first person, Edmund Etherington's decision to renounce the Church of England and join the Catholic church. While a monk, he ridicules his fellow brothers, plans a murder and debauches a young woman. Some evangelicals disagreed with her views on Catholic Emancipation and were uncomfortable with these books; one evangelical reviewer called The Monk of Cimies "unfair and unconvincing".
### Colonialism
While in India, Sherwood wrote a series of texts based on colonial life. Her most popular, The History of Little Henry and his Bearer (1814), tells of a young British boy who, on his deathbed, converts Boosy, the Indian man who has taken care of him throughout his childhood. The book was enormously successful; it reached 37 editions by 1850 and was translated into French, German, Spanish, Hindustani, Chinese, and Sinhalese. Sherwood's tale blends the realistic with the sentimental and introduces her readers to Hindustani words and descriptions of what she felt was authentic Indian life. As Cutt explains, "With this work, the obituary tract (which invariably stressed conversion and a Christian death) had assumed the colouring of romance." Sherwood also wrote a companion story titled Little Lucy and her Dhaye (1825) that told a similar tale.
The Indian Pilgrim (1818) demonstrates Sherwood's religious biases: "Muslims and Jews receive better treatment than Hindus because of their belief in one God, but Roman Catholics fare little better than the Hindu idolaters." The Indian Pilgrim, though never published in India, was popular in Britain and America. Sherwood also wrote texts for Indian servants of British families in the style of British writings for the poor. One such was The Ayah and Lady (1813) in which the ayah or maid is "portrayed as sly, selfish, lazy, and untrustworthy. Her employers are well aware of her faults, yet they tolerate her". A more culturally sensitive and realistic portrayal of Indians appears in The Last Days of Boosy (1842), a sequel to The History of Little Henry and his Bearer, where the converted Boosy is cast out of his family and community after his conversion to Christianity.
Sherwood's writings on India reveal her sense of superiority over the inhabitants of India; the subcontinent therefore appears in her works as a morally corrupt land in need of reformation. She wrote The History of George Desmond (1821) to warn young men of the dangers of emigrating to India. Sherwood's books shaped the minds of several generations of young Britons. According to Cutt, Sherwood's depictions of India were among the few available to young British readers; such children "acquired a strong conviction of the rightness of missions, which, while it inculcated sincere concern for, and a genuine kindness towards an alien people for whom Britain was responsible, quite destroyed any latent respect for Indian tradition."
Using a postcolonial analysis, Nandini Bhattacharya emphasizes the complex relationship between Sherwood's evangelicalism and her colonialism. She argues that Sherwood's evangelical stories demonstrate the deep colonial "mistrust of feminized agency", represented by a dying child in Little Henry and his Bearer. Henry "subvert[s] the colonialist's fantasy of universal identity by generating a subaltern identity that mimics and explodes that fantasy". But ultimately, Bhattacharya argues, Sherwood creates neither a wholly colonialist text nor a post-colonial text; the deaths of children such as Henry eliminate any possibility for an alternative consciousnesses to mature.
### Later writings: Victorianism
By 1830, Sherwood's works had drifted from evangelicalism and reflected more conventional Victorian plots and themes. For example, Gipsy Babes (1826), perhaps inspired by Walter Scott's Guy Mannering (1815), emphasizes "human affections". In 1835, she wrote a Gothic novel for adolescents entitled Shanty the Blacksmith, which Cutt calls "a gripping [and] exciting tale" and employs the tropes of the genre: "lost heir, ruined castle, humble helpers and faithful retainer, sinister and mysterious gypsies, prisoner and plot". In 1835, Sherwood published the novel Caroline Mordaunt, about a young woman forced to become a governess. Her parents die when she is young, but luckily relatives pay to educate her, so she can earn her own living. It follows her progress from a flighty, discontented girl to a reliable, content woman; she learns to accommodate herself to the whims of a proud nobility, silly literati, and dogmatic evangelicals. She realizes that in her dependent position she must be content with less than complete happiness. Once she recognizes this, though, she finds God, and in the last chapter an ideal husband, so granting her near-complete happiness after all. Cutt suggests that in these works, Sherwood drew on Jane Austen and Jane Taylor for a new "lively, humorous, and satirical strain".
In both later works such as Caroline Mordaunt and her earlier evangelical texts, Sherwood followed the Victorian project of prescribing gender roles; while her later works outlined ever more stringent and narrow roles for each sex, her early works such as The Fairchild Family suggested demarcations as well: Lucy and Emily learn to sew and keep house while Henry tends the garden and learns Latin.
## Legacy
As Britain's education system became more secular in the later nineteenth century, Sherwood's evangelical books were used mainly to teach the poor and in Sunday schools. Her missionary stories were the most influential of all her works, for according to Cutt, they "kept alive the missionary spirit and perpetuated that paternal attitude towards India that lasted into the [twentieth century], were widely imitated" and "an unfortunate assumption of racial superiority was fostered by the over-simplification of some of Mrs. Sherwood's successors". They influenced Charlotte Maria Tucker ("A.L.O.E.") and even perhaps Rudyard Kipling. In the United States, Sherwood's early works were popular and republished well into the 1840s; thereafter a tradition of specifically American children's literature began to develop with authors such as Louisa May Alcott. Sherwood was also instrumental in developing the ideology of the Victorian family. Cutt acknowledges that "the omniscient Victorian parent was not the creation of Mrs. Sherwood, but of the Victorians themselves; nevertheless, by presenting the parent as God's vicar in the family, she had planted and fostered the idea".
The prevalence of death in Sherwood's early stories and vivid portrayal of its worldly and otherworldly consequences have often caused twentieth-century critics to deride her works. However, Sherwood's stories influenced the styles for other writers such as Charles Kingsley and Charlotte Mary Yonge. It has been surmised that John Ruskin used Henry Milner as the basis for his imaginative autobiography Praeterita (1885–1889). Sherwood's narrative experiments with various genres allowed other writers to pursue innovative forms of children's fiction. Her imaginative use of tracts domesticated reformist literature and encouraged radicals such as Harriet Martineau to employ the same genre, although for opposite purposes. Due to the popularity of Sherwood's works and their impact on later writers, Janis Dawson writes: "Though her books are no longer widely read, she is regarded as one of the most significant authors of children's literature of the nineteenth century".
## Selected works
- The History of Little Henry and his Bearer, 1814
- The History of Susan Gray, 1815, revised
- Stories Explanatory of the Church Catechism, 1817
- The History of the Fairchild Family, 1818
- The Indian Pilgrim, 1818
- An Introduction to Geography, 1818
- The Governess, or The Little Female Academy, 1820
- The History of George Desmond, 1821
- The Infant's Progress, 1821, 2nd edition
- The History of Henry Milner, 1822
- The History of Little Lucy and her Dhaye, 1823
- The Lady of the Manor, 1823–1829
- Soffrona and her Cat Muff, 1828
- Scripture Prints, with Explanations in the Form of Familiar Dialogues, 1831
- The Monk of Cimies, 1834
- Caroline Mordaunt, or The Governess, 1835
- Shanty the Blacksmith, 1835
- The Last Days of Boosy, the Bearer of Little Henry 1842
- The Youth's Magazine (1822–1848) – "This periodical ... brought out tales, tracts, and articles by Mrs. Sherwood for over twenty-five years (signed at first M.M., and after 1827, M.M.S.) The earlier tales were rapidly reprinted by Houlston, Darton, Melrose, Knight and Lacey and the R.T.S. [Religious Tract Society], as well as by various American publishers".
- The Works of Mrs. Sherwood by Harper & Bros. (1834–1857) – collected works
|
18,918,781 |
SS Montanan
| 1,116,835,411 |
Cargo ship built in 1912 for the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company
|
[
"1913 ships",
"Cargo ships of the United States",
"Maritime incidents in 1918",
"Ships built in Sparrows Point, Maryland",
"Ships sunk by German submarines in World War I",
"Transport ships of the United States Army",
"World War I auxiliary ships of the United States",
"World War I merchant ships of the United States",
"World War I shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean"
] |
SS Montanan was a cargo ship built in 1912 for the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company. During World War I service for the United States Army Transport Service, she was known as USAT Montanan. Montanan was built by the Maryland Steel Company as one of eight sister ships for the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company, and was employed in inter-coastal service via the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Panama Canal after it opened.
In World War I, USAT Montanan carried cargo and animals to France, and was in the first American convoy to sail to France after the United States entered the war in April 1917. USAT Montanan was torpedoed and sunk by U-90 500 nmi (900 km) west of Le Verdon-sur-Mer, France, while it took part in another eastbound convoy in August 1918, Of the 86 men aboard the ship, 81 were rescued by a convoy escort; five men died in the attack.
## Design and construction
In September 1911, the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company placed an order with the Maryland Steel Company of Sparrows Point, Maryland, for four new cargo ships—Minnesotan, Dakotan, Montanan, and Pennsylvanian. The contract cost of the ships was set at the construction cost plus an 8% profit for Maryland Steel, but with a maximum cost of \$640,000 per ship. The construction was financed by Maryland Steel with a credit plan that called for a 5% down payment in cash, with nine monthly installments for the balance. The deal had provisions that allowed some of the nine installments to be converted into longer-term notes or mortgages. The final cost of Montanan, including financing costs, was \$73.62 per deadweight ton, which came out to just over \$692,000.
Montanan (Maryland Steel yard no. 126) was the second ship built under the original contract. She was launched on 25 January 1913, and delivered to American-Hawaiian in April. Montanan was 6,649 gross register tons (GRT), and was 428 ft 9 in (130.68 m) in length and 53 ft 7 in (16.33 m) abeam. She had a deadweight tonnage of , and her cargo holds, which had a storage capacity of 438,154 cu ft (12,407.1 m<sup>3</sup>), were outfitted with a complete refrigeration plant so that she could carry perishable products from the West Coast—such as fresh produce from Southern California farms—to the East Coast. Montanan had a single steam engine powered by oil-fired boilers which drove a single screw propeller at a speed of 15 kn (17 mph; 28 km/h).
## Early career
When Montanan began sailing for American-Hawaiian, the company shipped cargo from East Coast ports via the Tehuantepec Route to West Coast ports and Hawaii, and vice versa. Shipments on the Tehuantepec Route arrived at Mexican ports—Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, for eastbound cargo, and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, for westbound cargo—and traversed the Isthmus of Tehuantepec on the Tehuantepec National Railway. Eastbound shipments were primarily sugar and pineapple from Hawaii, while westbound cargoes were more general in nature. Montanan sailed in this service on the east side of North America.
While headed from New York to Coatzacoalcos in October 1913, Montanan ran aground on Mantanilla Reef, north of The Bahamas. Answering Montanan's distress calls, the Standard Oil Company tanker Rayo assisted in freeing Montanan from the reef. Although she was leaking slightly, Montanan continued on to her destination, and put in for repairs after a return trip to New York.
Following the United States occupation of Veracruz on 21 April 1914 (which took place while six American-Hawaiian ships were being held in various Mexican ports), the Huerta-led Mexican government closed the Tehuantepec National Railway to American shipping. This loss of access, coupled with the fact that the Panama Canal was not yet open, caused American-Hawaii to return to its historic route of sailing around South America via the Straits of Magellan in late April. With the opening of the Panama Canal on 15 August, American-Hawaiian ships switched to the canal route.
On 2 December, The Washington Post reported an incident involving Montanan. While headed down the Pacific coast of Mexico with a cargo of dried fruits and canned goods, Montanan was approached by a Japanese warship, which fired a warning shot for Montanan to stop. After doing so, a boarding party with Japanese officers in a launch headed to Montanan. When the American identity of Montanan was established to the satisfaction of the Japanese, they returned to their ship without boarding Montanan. The news report did not identify the type or the name of the Japanese warship, which had been searching for a German vessel thought to be operating in the area.
On Montanan's next trip, the ship collided with a wharf in Los Angeles Harbor. Montanan had arrived in Los Angeles from Puget Sound on 22 January 1915 to complete her load before sailing for New York and Boston. The almost fully loaded ship was slow to respond to the helm and ended up "ploughing through" 50 ft (15 m) of Municipal Pier A on Mormon Island channel before coming to a stop at a stone bulkhead. One hull plate on Montanan was dented, but the ship was otherwise undamaged. Montanan's captain, who had a local license, did not take on a harbor pilot and American-Hawaiian was liable for the damage, estimated by the harbor engineer to be \$2,500.
Contemporary news reports offer hints at cargoes that Montanan carried during this period. In April 1915, the Los Angeles Times reported on the sailing of Montanan with a full cargo. The majority of the cargo was rice—from Japan, China, and California—which was destined for the United Kingdom to feed Indian troops fighting in Europe. In June, The Wall Street Journal reported that Montanan and Santa Clara (of the Grace Line) had sailed from Tacoma, Washington, with 2,500 tons of copper between them.
In October 1915, landslides closed the Panama Canal and all American-Hawaiian ships, including Montanan, returned to the Straits of Magellan route again. Montanan's exact movements from this time through early 1917 are unclear. She may have been in the half of the American-Hawaiian fleet that was chartered for transatlantic service, or she may have been in the group of American-Hawaiian ships chartered for service to South America, delivering coal, gasoline, and steel in exchange for coffee, nitrates, cocoa, rubber, and manganese ore.
## U.S. Army service
After the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, the United States Army—needing transports to get its men and materiel to France—had a select committee of shipping executives pore over registries of American shipping. The committee selected Montanan, her sister ship Dakotan, and 12 other American-flagged ships that were sufficiently fast, could carry enough fuel in their bunkers for transatlantic crossings, and, most importantly, were in port or not far at sea. After Montanan discharged her last load of cargo, she was officially handed over to the Army on 29 May.
Before troop transportation began, all of the ships were hastily refitted. Of the fourteen ships, four, including Montanan and Dakotan, were designated to carry animals and other cargo; the other ten were designated to carry troops. Ramps and stalls were built on the four ships chosen to carry livestock. Gun platforms were installed on each ship before docking at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where the guns were put in place. All the ships were manned by merchant officers and crews but carried two U.S. Navy officers, Navy gun crews, quartermasters, signalmen, and wireless operators. The senior Navy officer on board would take control if a ship came under attack.
The American convoy carrying the first units of the American Expeditionary Force was separated into four groups; Montanan was in the fourth group with her sister ship Dakotan, Army transports and , and escorts consisting of cruiser St. Louis, U.S. Navy transport Hancock, and destroyers Shaw, Ammen, and Flusser. Montanan departed with her group on the morning of 17 June for Brest, France, steaming at an 11 kn (13 mph; 20 km/h) pace. A thwarted submarine attack on the first convoy group, and reports of heavy submarine activity off of Brest, resulted in a change in the convoy's destination to Saint-Nazaire where the convoy arrived 2 July.
Montanan departed Saint-Nazaire on 14 July in the company of her convoy mates El Occidente, Dakotan, and Edward Luckenbach. Joining the return trip were Army transport , Navy armed collier Cyclops, Navy oiler Kanawha, and cruiser Seattle, the flagship of Rear Admiral Albert Gleaves, the head of the Navy's Cruiser and Transport Force.
Sources do not reveal Montanan's movements over the next months, but on 1 August 1918, Montanan sailed in Convoy HB-8 with U.S. Navy cargo ships West Alsek, West Bridge, and 13 others for France. Escorted by armed yacht Noma, destroyers Burrows and Smith, and French cruiser Marseillaise, the convoy was 500 nmi (600 mi; 900 km) west of its destination of Le Verdon-sur-Mer by the end of the day on 15 August. At sundown, shortly before 18:00, German submarine U-90 launched three torpedoes at Montanan. The first two, spotted by lookouts aboard Montanan, missed, but a third, unseen torpedo struck Montanan amidships on her port side, opening a large hole. Montanan began to settle and was abandoned quickly. Two of Montanan's Naval Armed Guardsmen drowned when their lifeboat capsized in the heavy seas; three of her civilian crewmen also died in the attack. Montanan's 81 survivors were rescued by convoy escort Noma.
Shortly after Montanan was attacked, West Bridge, which had previously developed engine trouble and was drifting, was torpedoed by U-107 and abandoned. By the morning of 16 August both Montanan and West Bridge, with decks awash, were still afloat some 4 nmi (4.6 mi; 7.4 km) apart. Montanan's captain and several officers reboarded the ship the next morning for an attempt to get her under tow, but despite their efforts, the ship sank later that morning.
|
1,916,131 |
Blackburn Olympic F.C.
| 1,150,198,994 |
Association football club
|
[
"1878 establishments in England",
"1889 disestablishments in England",
"Association football clubs disestablished in 1889",
"Association football clubs established in 1878",
"Defunct football clubs in England",
"Defunct football clubs in Lancashire",
"FA Cup winners",
"Sport in Blackburn"
] |
Blackburn Olympic Football Club was an English football club based in Blackburn, Lancashire in the late 19th century. Although the club was only in existence for just over a decade, it is significant in the history of football in England as the first club from the north of the country and the first from a working-class background to win the country's leading competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup (FA Cup). The cup had previously been won only by teams of wealthy amateurs from the Home counties, and Olympic's victory marked a turning point in the sport's transition from a pastime for upper-class gentlemen to a professional sport.
The club was formed in 1878 and initially took part only in minor local competitions. In 1880, the club entered the FA Cup for the first time, and three years later defeated Old Etonians at Kennington Oval to win the trophy. Olympic, however, proved unable to compete with wealthier and better-supported clubs in the new professional era, and folded in 1889.
Most of Olympic's home matches took place at the Hole-i'-th'-Wall stadium, named after an adjacent public house. From 1880 onwards, the club's first-choice colours consisted of light blue shirts and white shorts. One Olympic player, James Ward, was selected for the England team and six other former or future England internationals played for the club, including Jack Hunter, who was the club's coach at the time of Olympic's FA Cup win.
## History
### Formation and early years
Association football was first codified in the 1860s in the south of England and played by teams of upper-class former public school pupils and Oxbridge graduates. However, the game spread to the industrial towns of the north by the following decade. The town of Blackburn in Lancashire had more than a dozen active football clubs by 1877, with Blackburn Rovers, founded in 1875, generally viewed as the leading team. Blackburn Olympic F.C. was founded in February 1878 when two of these clubs, Black Star and James Street, opted to merge. The name was chosen by James Edmondson, the club's first treasurer, and is believed to have been inspired by the recent excavation of Olympia, site of the ancient Olympic Games. The new club's first match was a friendly played on 9 February 1878 which resulted in a 2–0 win over local team St. John's.
In April 1878, the club entered its first competition, the Livesey United Cup. Olympic beat St. Mark's in the final to win the tournament, and, as the competition was not held again, the club retained the trophy in perpetuity. Over the next two seasons the club continued to play friendly matches and also entered the Blackburn Association Challenge Cup, a knock-out tournament open to all local clubs set up by the organisation which governed football within the town. Olympic won the cup in both 1879 and 1880, after which the competition was discontinued when the Blackburn Association was absorbed into the larger Lancashire County Football Association. As with the Livesey United Cup, the trophy remained in Olympic's possession for the remainder of the club's existence.
In 1880 the club's committee decided that Olympic should compete for greater prizes, and opted to enter two further competitions, the Lancashire Senior Cup and the Football Association Challenge Cup (FA Cup), the country's premier football competition. In the club's first FA Cup match, the "Light Blues" were defeated 5–4 by Sheffield, and the following season the team again lost in the first round, away to Darwen. The club's reputation within its home area was growing, however, and matches were now being arranged with teams from further afield, such as Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest, and even Scottish clubs such as Cowlairs and Hibernian. The club's increasing expenses were met with the help of Sydney Yates, a local iron foundry owner, who invested a large amount of money and continued to bankroll the club for most of its existence. At the end of the 1881–82 season, Olympic defeated Blackburn Rovers to win the East Lancashire Charity Cup.
### Success
In the 1882–83 FA Cup, Olympic defeated four other Lancashire clubs, Accrington, Lower Darwen, Darwen Ramblers, and Church, to reach the fifth round. At this stage the "Light Blues" were drawn to play Welsh team Druids. Olympic defeated the Ruabon-based team 4–1 to progress to the semi-final stage, where for the first time they faced opponents from the south of England — Old Carthusians. The Carthusians, the team for former pupils of Charterhouse School, had won the cup two years earlier and even the local newspapers in Blackburn considered them strong favourites to reach the final again. Olympic, however, won 4–0 in a match played at a neutral venue in Whalley Range, Manchester, to set up a match with another of the great amateur teams, Old Etonians, in the final at Kennington Oval. The Etonians had defeated Olympic's close rivals Blackburn Rovers in the final a year earlier, the first time a northern team had reached the final.
Before the final, former England player Jack Hunter, who had joined the club in 1882 in the twin roles of player and coach, arranged to take the team to Blackpool for several days' special training. Such an undertaking had never before been made by a club, and it was considered an extremely novel idea.
The Etonians took the lead in the final when Harry Goodhart scored during the first half, however Arthur Matthews equalised for Olympic in the second half. Soon afterwards, Arthur Dunn was injured and forced to leave the field, reducing the Etonians to ten men for the rest of the match. The scores remained level at the end of the regulation ninety minutes. Under the regulations of the FA Cup, thirty minutes of extra time could be played in the event of a draw, at the referee's discretion, and in response to the fervent mood of the crowd the captains asked to play on to try to secure a result. During the extra period, Olympic's superior stamina began to show. Around twenty minutes into extra time, Jimmy Costley received a pass from John Yates and kicked the ball past Etonian goalkeeper John Rawlinson to score the winning goal. Upon the team's return to Blackburn, the players took part in a celebratory parade and received a civic reception at which team captain Albert Warburton reportedly proclaimed "The Cup is very welcome to Lancashire. It'll have a good home and it'll never go back to London." Olympic were the first team from a working-class background to win the FA Cup.
In the south, however, Olympic's victory over one of the great amateur teams provoked consternation. At the time, The Football Association (the FA), the sport's governing body, prohibited clubs from paying their players. Despite this, working-class clubs, especially those based in Lancashire, had been widely suspected of making illicit payments to players since at least 1876. In the wake of Olympic's high-profile victory, journalists and officials affiliated with southern amateur clubs intensified their calls for the FA to investigate the finances of northern clubs. They focussed in particular on Olympic's training excursion to Blackpool, suggesting that the players would not have been able to take so much time off work unless the club was paying them some form of wage. Questions were also asked about players who had relocated from one town to another seemingly for the sole purpose of playing for a new football team. In Olympic's case Jack Hunter had moved from Sheffield to join the club. Ultimately no action was taken against Olympic, although punishments were imposed on other clubs, including Preston North End, who were expelled from the FA Cup. This in turn prompted the northern clubs to make plans to break away from the FA and form a rival governing body which would not impose the so-called "amateur ideal" on clubs.
### Decline and collapse
The following season, Olympic again reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup, as did Blackburn Rovers. When the draw for the semi-finals was made, Olympic were paired with Queen's Park in one match and Rovers with Notts County in the other, setting up the possibility of the two teams meeting in the final. The Olympic team, however, were outclassed and defeated 4–0 by their Scottish opponents. The club lodged an appeal with the FA based on the encroachment onto the pitch of some of the 16,000 spectators, but to no avail. Rovers went on to defeat Queen's Park in the final.
The club was never again able to achieve this level of success. In the 1884–85 season, Olympic lost in the second round of the FA Cup to rivals Rovers, who went on to cement their position as the town's leading team by winning the competition for the second consecutive season. The threat of a schism within the sport was averted in 1885 when the FA agreed to legalise professionalism. In a town the size of Blackburn, however, Olympic found it hard to compete for spectators and sponsors with the longer-established and more successful Rovers, and as a result could not pay wages on a par with those offered by that club or by other professional clubs in Lancashire. In 1886 the club's committee was forced to reduce the players' wages to a quarter of what was being offered by Preston North End. Many of the team's key players walked out in response and were quickly signed by wealthier clubs.
The Football League, the world's first association football league, was formed in 1888 by the leading clubs of the Midlands and North. Aston Villa chairman William McGregor, the driving force behind the new competition, put in place a rule stating that only one club from each town or city could join, and chose Rovers, rather than Olympic, to be Blackburn's entrant. Some of the clubs not invited to join the League, including Olympic, formed The Combination, but this was a poorly organised competition which attracted only small crowds and collapsed before the end of the 1888–89 season. Beset by heavy debts, the club's committee announced in early 1889 that all professional players were being released from their contracts with immediate effect and that henceforth the club would employ only amateur players. This desperate measure came too late to save the club, which closed down in September 1889. Blackburn Olympic's last match was a defeat away to Everton.
## Stadia and supporters
Olympic's first match took place on a pitch owned by the Blackburn Cricket Club, situated in open countryside at Higher Oozebooth. For the first eighteen months of the club's existence, Olympic played home matches at various sites in Blackburn, including Roe Lee and Cob Wall. In 1879 the club's committee secured the lease on a pitch adjacent to the Hole-i'-th'-Wall public house, at the top of the Shear Brow hill. The site had previously been used by another club, Queen's Own, but had been left vacant when that club folded after most of its players defected to Blackburn Rovers.
The playing surface sloped downwards and was initially known for being exceptionally muddy, but in 1880 the club's committee spent £100 improving the drainage. Facilities were minimal and most spectators simply stood around the perimeter of the pitch, as was the case at most football grounds at the time. A grandstand was erected behind one goal in 1881, but it was severely damaged in a storm in 1884 and was replaced by a more elaborate structure along one of the long sides of the playing area. At the same time several other shelters were erected to give spectators in other areas cover from the elements. The largest crowd registered at Hole-i'-th'-Wall was approximately 10,000 for a match against Preston North End in November 1884, but crowds of between 1,000 and 2,000 spectators were the norm at Olympic matches. After the club's demise the pitch was taken over by the Blackburn Railway Clerks Club. It is now the site of St. Mary's College.
## Colours
At the start of the club's existence, the players usually wore magenta shirts, although the rules regarding kits were less rigid at the time, and half-back Tommy Gibson insisted on wearing a supposedly lucky amber and black hooped shirt, a practice later copied by teammate Alf Astley. When the club entered the FA Cup for the first time in 1880, competition regulations meant that all the players in the team had to wear matching colours, and a new combination of light blue shirts and white shorts was chosen. When there was a clash of colours with the opposition and Olympic were the team obliged to change, the players wore dark blue shirts and white shorts. There is no record of the club having a badge or crest, although photographs of the FA Cup-winning team show several players with the crest of the Lancashire FA sewn onto their shirts, indicating that they had represented Lancashire in inter-county matches.
## Players
The club's FA Cup winning team of 1883 comprised eleven players born in England, the first time an all-English XI had won the competition. The team lined up as follows:
James Ward was the only player to be selected for the England team while on the books of the club. He won one cap, against Wales in 1885. Tommy Dewhurst was originally chosen for an international match in 1884, but was deselected after he was involved in a fight with an opposition player during a match between Olympic and Northwich Victoria. Six other Olympic players represented England either before or after their time with the club: Joe Beverley, Edgar Chadwick, Jack Hunter, Jack Southworth, William Townley and John Yates.
## Officials
The concept of a football manager did not exist in the 19th century, although some modern sources identify Jack Hunter as having been the team's manager. Hunter's main responsibility was for the coaching of the players, although in the club's later years he also took charge of seeking out and signing promising amateur players. The club's benefactor, Sydney Yates, held the post of president and his brother Fred served as chairman of the club's committee. The majority of the administration of the club was handled by the secretary, a post held for most of the club's existence by Bill Bramham.
## Honours
The club won the following trophies:
FA Cup
- 1883
East Lancashire Charity Cup
- 1882
Blackburn Association Challenge Cup
- 1879, 1880
Livesey United Cup
- 1878
The only competition the club entered but never won, other than the unfinished Combination, was the Lancashire Senior Cup.
## Rivalries
Blackburn Olympic's chief rivalry was with Blackburn Rovers. The first match between the two clubs was a game in February 1879, which resulted in a 3–1 win for Olympic. The clubs played each other forty times, but Olympic won only six of these matches. The rivalry became especially fierce in September 1884, when, amid accusations that the clubs were using underhand tactics in attempts to "poach" each other's star players, the Rovers' secretary sent a telegram to his opposite number stating that his club would play no matches against Olympic in the 1884–85 season. In December, however, the clubs were drawn against each other in the FA Cup, and matches between the rivals resumed later that season. Their final meeting was a benefit match for Olympic in February 1889, which Rovers won 6–1. Rovers agreed to allow the financially embarrassed Olympic to keep all available gate money, instead of sharing it.
## In popular culture
A Blackburn-based team and its victory in the 1883 FA Cup final is the focus of the 2020 Netflix mini-series The English Game, although the club is only referred to as "Blackburn" and includes players who, although genuine, did not actually play for Olympic.
|
4,277,081 |
1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?)
| 1,171,927,137 |
Debut album of The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu
|
[
"1987 debut albums",
"Albums produced by the KLF",
"Hip hop albums by British artists",
"House music albums by British artists",
"KLF Communications albums",
"Recalled publications",
"Sampling controversies",
"The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu albums"
] |
1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) is the debut studio album by British electronic band The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (the JAMs), later known as the KLF. 1987 was produced using extensive unauthorised samples that plagiarised a wide range of musical works, continuing a theme begun in the JAMs' debut single "All You Need Is Love". These samples provided a deliberately provocative backdrop for beatbox rhythms and cryptic, political raps.
Shortly after independent release in June 1987, the JAMs were ordered by the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society to destroy all unsold copies of the album, following a complaint from ABBA. In response, the JAMs disposed of many copies of 1987 in unorthodox, publicised ways. They also released a version of the album titled 1987 (The JAMs 45 Edits), stripped of all unauthorised samples to leave periods of protracted silence and so little audible content that it was formally classed as a 12-inch single.
## Background and recording
On New Year's Day 1987, Bill Drummond decided to make a hip hop record under the pseudonym "the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu". Knowing little about modern music technology, he invited Jimmy Cauty, a former member of the band Brilliant, to join him. Cauty agreed, and the JAMs' debut single "All You Need Is Love" was independently released on 9 March 1987 as a limited-edition one-sided white label 12-inch. Cauty became "Rockman Rock", and Drummond used the nickname "King Boy D".
The reaction to "All You Need Is Love" was positive; the British music newspaper Sounds listed it as the single of the week, and lauded The JAMs as "the hottest, most exhilarating band this year". The song's reliance on uncleared, often illegal samples made commercial release impossible. In response, the JAMs re-edited the single, removing or doctoring the most antagonistic samples, and re-released it as "All You Need Is Love (106 bpm)" in May 1987. According to Drummond, profits from this re-release funded the recording of their first album. The JAMs had completed and pressed copies of the album by early May 1987, but did not have a distributor.
Like "All You Need Is Love", the album was made using an Apple II computer, a Greengate DS3 digital sampler peripheral card, and a Roland TR-808 drum machine. Several songs were liberally plagiarised, using portions from existing works and pasting them into new contexts, with the duo stealing "everything" and "taking... plagiarism to its absurd conclusion". This mashup of samples was underpinned by rudimentary beatbox rhythms and overlaid with Drummond's raps of social commentary, esoteric metaphors, and mockery. Drummond later said that:
> We'd just got ourselves a sampler, and we went sample-crazy. We just ... went through my whole collection of records, sampling tons of stuff and putting it all together, and it ... was a real rush of excitement, when we were doing it.... When we put that record out, we knew what we were doing was illegal, but we thought it was gonna be such an underground record, nobody would ever hear about it. So the first thing that shocked us is that British rock papers gave a big review.
## Composition
1987 is built around samples of other artists' work, "to the point where the presence of original material becomes questionable". The album is raw and unpolished, the sound contrasting sharply with the meticulous production and tight house rhythms of the duo's later work as the KLF. The beatbox rhythms are basic (described as "weedy" by Q magazine), samples often cut abruptly, and distinctive plagiarised melodies are often played with a high-pitched rasping accompaniment. The plagiarised works are arranged so as to juxtapose with each other as a backdrop for the JAMs' rebellious messages and social comments. The lyrics include self-referential statements of the JAMs' agenda, imbued with their fictional backstory adopted from The Illuminatus! Trilogy.
### Side one
The album's opening song, "Hey Hey We Are Not The Monkees", begins with simulated human sexual intercourse noises (which Drummond later referred to as "sampled breathing stuff") arranged as a rhythm. The album's first sample is "Here we come..." from the Monkees' theme. It progresses into a cryptic and bleak spoken verse from Drummond: "Here we come, crawling out of the mud, from chaos primeval to the burned out sun, dragging our bad selves from one end of time, with nothing to declare but some half-written rhymes". A cacophone of further samples from The Monkees' theme and Drummond's voice follow – "We're not The Monkees, I don't even like The Monkees!" – before it gets interrupted by an original a cappella vocal line that later became The KLF's "Justified and Ancient" – "We're justified/And we're ancient ... We don't want to upset the apple cart/And we don't wanna cause any harm".
The track is followed by a long sample of a London Underground train arriving at and leaving a tube station, with its recorded warning to passengers, "Mind the gap...". "Don't Take Five (Take What You Want)" follows, featuring The JAMs' associates Chike (rapper) and DJ Cesare (scratches). Built around The Dave Brubeck Quartet's "Take Five" and Fred Wesley's "Same Beat", the lyrics are mostly unconventional, with the majority of the song containing references to food: "I was pushing my trolley from detergent to cheese when I first saw the man with antler ears. I tried to ignore but his gaze held my eyes when he told me the truth about the basket of lies". Sounds considered the message of the song (if any) to be a modern version of Robin Hood: "This is piracy in action, with the venerable music industry figure, King Boy D, setting himself up as the Robin Hood of rap as he steals from the rich vaults of recording history".
The first side of the LP closes with "Rockman Rock (Parts 2 and 3)", a homage to Jimmy Cauty that plagiarises from an array of sources, including the "Bo Diddley Beat" and "Sunrise Sunset" from the Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack. Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" (interspersed with Jimi Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower"), "Since I've Been Loving You" and "Houses of the Holy" can be also heard in this track. Side one would not close until "Why Did You Throw Away Your Giro?", a track consisting of a question in reference to a line from "Rockman Rock" from a female adult jokingly answered by a male person, ended in 20 seconds.
### Side two
The second side begins with "Me Ru Con", a traditional Vietnamese song performed a cappella by the JAMs' friend Duy Khiem. According to Drummond, it was a spontaneous recital by Khiem, who was in the studio contributing clarinet and tenor sax to the album. Khiem's vocal performance was later sampled by The KLF on the ambient house soundtrack to their movie, The Rites of Mu.
"The Queen and I" features extensive samples from ABBA's "Dancing Queen", often overlain with a rasping detuned accompaniment. These lead into Drummond's satirical and discontent rapping, a fictional account of his march into the British House of Commons and Buckingham Palace to demand answers. The song also protests the involvement of cigarette companies in sport ("When cancer is the killer/John Player run the league") and lambasts the "tabloid mentality" ("They all keep talking about Princess Di's dress"). The Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen" is briefly sampled. After nearly three minutes of samples from the television show Top of the Pops, as well as sound clips from programmes and advertisements on other TV channels, Drummond cries "Fuck that, let's have The JAMs!". The acerbic "All You Need Is Love (106 bpm)" follows. A "stunning audio collage" featuring an AIDS public information film, a rerecording of glamour model Samantha Fox's "Touch Me (I Want Your Body)", and the nursery rhyme "Ring a Ring o' Roses", "All You Need Is Love" comments on sex and the British media's reaction to the AIDS crisis.
The final track on the album is "Next", which Drummond describes as "the only angst-er on the album", with "imagery of war and sordid sex". The track samples Stevie Wonder's "Superstition", Scott Walker's "Next" from Scott 2, the Fall's "Totally Wired," and Julie Andrews' "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music, alongside Khiem's original melancholy clarinet and tenor saxophone contributions ("a saxophone of stupefying tediosity", according to Danny Kelly).
Bill Drummond summed up The JAMs' approach to composition in the first "KLF Information Sheet", sent out in October 1987: "We made [the album] not giving a shit for soul boy snob values or any other values, we just went in and made the noise we wanted to hear and the stuff that came out of our mouths.... Not a pleasant sound but it's the noise we had. We pressed it up and stuck it out. A celebration of sorts." Jimmy Cauty defended sampling as an artistic practice: "It's not as if we're taking anything away, just borrowing and making things bigger. If you're creative you aren't going to stop working just because there is a law against what you are doing."
In 1991, Drummond admitted: "We didn't listen to 1987 What The Fuck's Going On for a long time, and when we did we were embarrassed by it because it was so badly recorded. But I still felt we were able to get a lot out of ourselves through it."
## Release and controversy
1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) was released in June 1987 on The JAMs' own record label, "The Sound of Mu(sic)".
1987 was met with mixed reviews in most of the major British music publications, including Melody Maker, NME, Sounds, and Q, and the album came to the attention of the management of Swedish pop group ABBA: The JAMs had sampled large portions of the ABBA single "Dancing Queen" on the track "The Queen And I". A legal showdown with ABBA and the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) followed, 1987 was forcibly withdrawn from sale, and The JAMs were ordered to "deliver up the master tape, mothers, stampers and any other parts commensurate with manufacture of the record".
King Boy D and Rockman Rock travelled to ABBA's home country of Sweden, in the hope of meeting with ABBA personally, taking an NME journalist and photographer with them, along with most of the remaining copies of the LP and a gold disc of the album. Failing to find ABBA in residence at Polar Studios in Stockholm, they instead presented the gold disc to a blonde prostitute they pretended was Agnetha "fallen on hard times". Of the original LP's stock, some copies were disposed overboard on the North Sea ferry trip across, and the remainder were burned in a field in Gothenburg before dawn (as shown on the cover of their next album, Who Killed The JAMs?, and detailed in that album's single "Burn the Bastards"). The JAMs also played a recording of "The Queen and I" loudly outside the offices of ABBA's record label, Polar Music. The trip was unexpectedly eventful, the JAMs accidentally hitting and killing a moose, and later being shot at by a farmer, a bullet cracking the engine of their Ford Galaxie police car. They were, by their own account, towed back to England by the AA.
The JAMs were not entirely sure what they would have said to ABBA if they had been able to meet them. Rockman told NME: "We were hoping to explain [our artistic justification] to them and that maybe we'd come out of it friends, you know, them producing our album and us producing theirs—the kind of thing that often happens at these meetings." King Boy: "Yeah, we'd have said, 'Look, you haven't had many hits lately, you don't really wanna bother with all this West End musical shit do you? Come and do the new JAMMS [sic] album.'" In 1994, The Guardian looked back on the Swedish sojourn as "a grand, futile, attention-grabbing gesture, the kind that would come to characterise [the duo's] collaborative career... "We were being totally stupid about it" Drummond later acknowledged."
The JAMs offered what they claimed were "the last five" copies of 1987 for sale at £1000 each in a full-page advertisement in the April 1988 edition of The Face. Drummond argued that the offer exploited a loophole in The JAMs' agreement with the MCPS: "We were browsing around this record shop and came across these five copies of 1987.... We made it perfectly clear to the MCPS that we couldn't actually force the shops to send our LPs back.... [B]ecause we bought them in a shop, these LPs don't come into the agreement and we can do what we like with them and not break any laws." The master acetate and all of the band's other masters were donated to the British Library in 2023.
## Critical response
Q magazine had mixed reactions to 1987, saying that there are "too few ideas being spread too thin". The magazine criticised some songs as "overlong" and questioned the overuse of sampling as "the impression of a random hotchpotch". Q also unfavourably commented that The JAMs' "use of the beatbox is altogether weedy". It liked some of its tracks: "there are some wickedly amusing ideas and moments of pure poetry in the lyrics while some of the musical juxtapositions are both killingly funny and strong enough to stand repeated listenings".
A reviewer for Melody Maker found 1987 "inspirational", and "the most exciting, most original record [he'd] heard in years". He also argued that: "Some snatches [of plagiarised music] rather outstay their welcome, tugging tell-tale glitz away from the clifftop and dangerously close to smug obviousness, but when the blows are kept short, sharp and very bloody, they make anything else you're very likely to hear on the radio dull and desperately humourless." "It's easy to dismiss The JAMs frolics as little more than a brightly coloured sideshow to the shabbiest circus in town", a later article said, but "believe me, it's far more than a gimmick".
In awarding 1987 the highest rating, a maximum five stars, Sounds—a publication that offered the duo's work consistent approval—mused, "Taking the sound of the moment (hip hop) as a backbone, 1987 steals sound artefacts from anywhere ... and meshes them together with King Boy's hysterical 'Clydeside' rap method with bewildering effect. ... [Y]ou could call this sampling technology's answer to T. S. Eliot's arch cut up work, The Wasteland. " "What's so good about The JAMs", the magazine said, "is the way they are capturing on disc the whole social and musical confusion and instability of 1987 Britain".
NME'''s Danny Kelly was not so impressed. He also felt that the record was underdeveloped and The JAMs were not the most skilled of practitioners. "Audacity, completely unfounded self-confidence, utter ruthlessness and a fast car will, of course, be useful attributes to the go-ahead noise-pirate of the 90s, but skill, feel, instinct, vision—y'know, boring old talent—will still be bottom line compulsories... it's in these latter commodities that the JAMs seem conspicuously undertooled." Compared to the output of DJ Code Money or Cut Creator ("all humour, vibrancy and colour... – aerosoled version[s] of The Book of Kells") Kelly felt Drummond's efforts to be a "glitter-crusted charity Christmas card". A later NME item called 1987 "the best comment on sampling culture ever made".
A retrospective review by AllMusic commented that 1987 is "a hilarious record" filled with "comments on music terrorism and [The JAMs'] own unique take on the Run-D.M.C. type of old-school rapping"; and The Penguin Price Guide for Record & CD Collectors called 1987 an "entirely brilliant example of the art of disc-jockey-as-producer". Giving another retrospective review from across the Atlantic, Trouser Press described 1987 as "energetic" and "a loopy dance album that isn't unlike a lot of sampled records, but proceeds from an entirely different cultural understanding."
## Personnel
Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty were responsible for the concept and production of 1987, its lyrics and the TR-808 beatbox rhythms. Drummond provided rap, and an additional rapper introduced as 'Chike' appears on "Don't Take Five (Take What You Want)" and "Rockman Rock (Parts 2 and 3)". Duy Khiem contributed lead vocals to "Mẹ Ru Con", as well as clarinet and tenor sax to "Rockman Rock (Parts 2 and 3)" and "Next".
## Track listing
Side one
Side two
## "1987: The JAMs 45 Edits"
Following the enforced deletion of the 1987 album, the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu released an edited version as a 12" single, with all of the unauthorised samples removed, leaving sparse instrumentation, Drummond's social commentary and, in several cases, long periods of silence; the "Top of the Pops" section of the original LP yielded three minutes of silence on 45 Edits, and the only sample remaining from the original was The Fall's "Totally Wired."
The edited single was sold through normal retail channels and also offered as a "reward" to anyone who returned a copy of the LP to The JAMs' post office box. The single was released on 16 October 1987, and on 31 October 1987 The JAMs announced that the case with ABBA "is now closed". The sleevenotes to "1987: The JAMs 45 Edits" explain to the purchaser in a rather tongue-in-cheek fashion how to recreate the original 1987'' album for themselves:
> This record is a version of our now deleted and illegal LP '1987, What The Fuck Is Going On?' with all of the copyright infringing 'samples' edited out. As this leaves less than 25 minutes of music we are able to sell it as a 12-inch 45. If you follow the instructions below you will, after some practice, be able to simulate the sound of our original record. To do this you will need 3 wired-up record decks, a pile of selected discs, one t.v. set and a video machine loaded with a cassette of edited highlights of last weeks 'Top of the Pops'. Deck one is to play this record on, the other two are to scratch in the missing parts using the selected records. For added authentic effect you could use a Roland 808 drum machine (well cheap and what we used in the original recordings) to play along behind your scratching.
|
72,709,329 |
Logan (novel)
| 1,165,855,526 |
1822 Gothic novel by John Neal
|
[
"19th-century American novels",
"American gothic novels",
"American historical novels",
"Books by John Neal (writer)",
"Native Americans in popular culture",
"Novels set in England",
"Novels set in Virginia",
"Novels set in the 1770s",
"Novels set in the American colonial era",
"Works published anonymously"
] |
Logan, a Family History is a Gothic novel of historical fiction by American writer John Neal. Published anonymously in Baltimore in 1822, the book is loosely inspired by the true story of Mingo leader Logan the Orator, while weaving a highly fictionalized story of interactions between Anglo-American colonists and Indigenous peoples on the western frontier of colonial Virginia. Set just before the Revolutionary War, it depicts the genocide of Native Americans as the heart of the American story and follows a long cast of characters connected to each other in a complex web of overlapping love interests, family relations, rape, and (sometimes incestuous) sexual activity.
Logan was Neal's second novel, but his first notable success, attracting generally favorable reviews in both the US and UK. He wrote the story over a six-to-eight-week stretch at a time when he was producing more novels and juggling more responsibilities than any other period of his life. Likely a commercial failure for the publisher, who refused to work with Neal in the future, the book nevertheless saw three printings in the UK. Scholars criticize the story's profound excessiveness and incoherence, but praise its pioneering and successful experimentation with psychological horror, verisimilitude, sexual guilt in male characters, impacts of intergenerational violence, and documentation of interracial relationships and intersections between sex and violence on the American frontier.
These experimentations influenced later American writers and foreshadowed fiction by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, Robert Montgomery Bird, and Edgar Allan Poe. The novel is considered important by scholars studying the roles of Gothic literature and Indigenous identities in fashioning an American national identity. It advanced the American literary nationalist goal of developing a new native literature by experimenting with natural diction, distinctly American characters, regional American colloquialism, and fiercely independent rhetoric. It is considered unique amongst contemporary fiction for the preponderance of sexually explicit content and gratuitous violence.
## Plot
The story begins in the colony of Virginia in 1774. Mingo chief Logan enters the chamber of the governor of Virginia and overpowers him. The governor is saved by Harold, a young man of mixed English and Indigenous descent who lives among the Mingo. Harold impregnates the half-asleep governor's wife Elvira, who is infatuated with Logan and finds Harold similarly attractive.
The Virginia Governor's Council meets with Native Americans; Logan demands a treaty and decries the Yellow Creek massacre by white frontiersmen from Virginia. Suspicious of Logan's Indigenous identity, Mohawks realize he is actually an English aristocrat from Salisbury named George Clarence. They follow and attack him in the woods. Logan escapes, seriously injured.
The governor learns about Harold's sexual relationship with Elvira and banishes him to the woods. There he meets Logan and the two realize they are both in love with a Mingo woman named Loena. They threaten each other, then realize Logan is Harold's father. Logan dies after securing a promise from Harold that he will lead the Mingos to "pursue the whites to extermination, day and night, forever and ever".
Harold arranges a funeral for Logan, though his body has disappeared. The funeral is attacked by Native Americans, who injure both Harold and Elvira. They reveal romantic feelings for each other, though Elvira is unconsciously attracted to Harold as a surrogate for her attraction to Logan. Harold decides to leave Virginia, but stays for Elvira. He visits her at night and the two have sex, leaving Harold racked with remorse, and running to Loena for consolation.
Harold leads the Mingo into battle against a combined force of Mohawks and British colonists. He is reunited with Loena and convinces her to join him on a trip to Europe to prepare himself for leadership of the Mingo tribe. They start by traveling to Quebec City, where Loena remains, parting with Harold on poor terms after she learns about his relationship with Elvira.
While sailing to Europe, Harold is haunted by his own thoughts of Loena and meets a child named Leopold, who grows attached to him. Harold also meets an intellectual genius named Oscar, who has long conversations with Harold, opining on capital punishment, religious freedom, American slavery, moral double standards, ancient societies, and Shakespeare. Harold witnesses him leaping overboard in a crazed fit over a former lover. Harold then learns that Elvira is on board, that Leopold is her son, and his as well. Harold was originally traveling to France, but decides to accompany her and Leopold to England, where he discovers his familial connections to British nobility.
Harold learns that his father left behind children in England and moved to North America to live a double life as Logan. Harold meets his sister Caroline and learns that Oscar was his brother and Loena is his sister. Oscar, Harold learns, was crazed by the belief that he murdered Elvira, who was once his lover. Leopold dies. Harold confesses to Elvira that he loves another woman and she confesses to him that she has loved him for his resemblance to Oscar.
Harold champions the cause of Native Americans before the British Parliament before he and Elvira return to North America. Just before they are married, Harold leaves Elvira for Loena, but learns that Loena is in love with Oscar, who did not die, but was rescued after jumping ship in the Atlantic. On a moonlit night, all four visit the spot where Harold met Logan and where the latter died. Harold is shot by a figure in the distance, who turns out to be Logan, who is still alive, but delirious. Upon learning that he has killed his son, Logan cries out, then is killed by Oscar, his other son. Loena kisses Harold's corpse and dies. Elvira confesses to Oscar her sexual history with Harold and Oscar goes mad, then dies. The narrator ends by asking English readers to "acknowledge us, as we are, the strongest (though boastful and arrogant) progeny of yourselves ... when your nation was a colossus".
## Themes
### American Indians and US nationhood
John Neal wrote Logan as white American authors were beginning to look toward American Indians as a dominant source of inspiration. Scholars have pointed to the way Logan can be understood as portraying Indians as the originators of American nationhood, with white Americans as the inheritors of that legacy. Harold calling for America's Indigenous nations to unify against British colonization seemingly parallels calls by Anglo-Americans for revolution just a few years after the novel takes place. The historical Logan was an Indigenous leader of the Mingo people, but the Logan of Logan is revealed to be an English aristocrat assuming an Indigenous identity, suggesting that such an identity can be assumed by one's will. Once assumed, Indigenous identity can be used to differentiate white Americans from the British in a manner similar to that used by instigators of the Boston Tea Party or the Improved Order of Red Men. This would place Patriot colonists as inheritors of Indigenous territory for the making of the new American nation.
Scholars see Neal's blurring of racial boundaries in family relationships as a testament to humanity's commonality. This interpretation is reinforced by the characters' habit of confusing identities: Elvira mistakes Harold for Oscar, Harold mistakes Elvira for Leona, and Harold and Oscar are fashioned as character doubles. It was common in nineteenth-century literature to portray American Indians as vanishing to make way for a new American national identity. This novel's uncommonly excessive and incoherent narrative could be Neal's way of indicating the contradiction inherent in this portrayal. In this view, Neal's national identity of the new United States is neither Indigenous nor white, but both. Writing interracial relationships and sexual fantasies into a novel in 1822 was taboo, and this pioneering effort foreshadowed future works by Nathaniel Hawthorne and other American authors.
Harold being of mixed ancestry, exploring both his Indigenous identity in America and his English roots overseas, may also be a tool for Neal to question the emerging concept of manifest destiny and to paint the US as a multinational, cosmopolitan nation with permeable boundaries. Acknowledging the contradictory reality of racial separation in the US may be Neal's reason for ending the novel with disaster and death for all major characters: "a place of broken hearts, and shattered intellects", as he states in the novel. The novel's Gothic depiction of the genocide of Native Americans as central to the American story can be seen as an indictment of American imperialism. Logan's lack of coherence and cohesiveness may reflect Neal's disdain for institutional structures generally and his belief that the US, like all nations, has a finite lifespan. Alternatively, it may be that Neal meant for this mass death scene at the novel's conclusion to symbolize the American Revolution's function of renewing various colonial-era allegiances into a single American nation.
### Sexual guilt
When he was temporarily living with the family of his business partner in 1818, Neal snuck into the bedroom of that business partner's sister, and into her bed. She cried out and Neal returned to his room before her family came to her assistance. This event, alternately described by scholars as either a failed seduction or an attempted rape, was fictionalized in different forms in all of Neal's four novels published between 1822 and 1823. The theme of sexual guilt running through all four novels is seen as Neal processing this personal trauma. In Logan, this materialized as the dream-like and questionably-consensual sex scene between Harold and Elvira, leaving the protagonist shrouded in intense sexual guilt, which he considers ending with suicide, but then channels into a war he leads against the Mohawk and British colonists. This is one of multiple instances of male protagonists in Neal's novels committing sexual crimes and dealing with consequences that scholars Benjamin Lease and Hans-Joachim Lang claim "reflect a sophisticated awareness on Neal's part of male chauvinism in a male-dominated world". The preponderance of complicated sexual activity and love triangles between related characters can also be interpreted as supporting the theme of American national disunity. This explicitly sexual content, sometimes interracial, and exhibiting both men and women as sexually motivated, is unique for the period and likely influenced Hawthorne's focus on sexual guilt in his fiction.
## Style
Like many of Neal's novels, Logan exhibits stylistic choices meant to advance American literary nationalism: natural diction, distinctly American characters, regional American colloquialism, and rhetoric of independence. This is made explicit in the preface: "I hate prefaces. I hate dedications. Enough ... to say, that here is an American story". This rejection of the preface's customary purpose can be read as a rejection of British literary convention that Neal sought in order to form a distinctly American literature. Possibly to point out the absurdity of American novelists employing British Gothic conventions, he included those conventions only while the story had moved to England in the second volume.
Logan represents Neal's effort to Americanize the Gothic style, otherwise associated with British literature, by rejecting British conventions and developing new ones based on America's history of racial persecution. In a nation bereft of ancient architecture, Neal uses natural landmarks as witnesses to colonial violence. Neal was inspired by the "haunted elm" in Charles Brockden Brown's novel Edgar Huntly (1799) as a Gothic American natural landmark. Logan advanced the device by using a haunted tree visited by Harold that has stood witness to violence since long before recorded or oral histories, but most recently, that which has been committed by Anglo-American colonizers against Native Americans. These Gothic devices foreshadowed future works by American authors: intermingling romance and violence in American border regions in Nick of the Woods (1837) by Robert Montgomery Bird; impacts of crimes by the father on the life of the son in multiple works by Hawthorne; and maniacal psychology in multiple works by Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe, particularly Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.
Scholar Theresa A. Goddu refers to the novel as "Neal's wildest gothic experiment", which relies heavily on gratuitous and incessant descriptions of violence: scalping, murder, hatred, rape, and incest. This was unique for the period and was matched neither by Brown, Neal's inspiration in this regard, or by Poe, his best-known immediate successor. The novel's conclusion, according to scholar Lillie Deming Loshe, is "an epidemic of death and insanity". This brand of Gothicism also relies on loose structure and unrestrained emotional intensity to the point of incoherence. Neal avoided dialogue tags "said he" and "said she" whenever possible to heighten the sense of immediacy in characters' actions. His repetitive statements at moments of emotional intensity are what scholar Jonathan Elmer refers to as "spastic iteration", as in: "Yes, I saw him ... alone, alone! All, all alone!" and "Not dead!—no, no, not dead!—not dead!"[^1] Neal used dashes of variable lengths, varying types of ellipses, and abundant parentheses, italics, and exclamations to excite and exhaust the reader. Scholars have referred to these techniques as resulting in "off-putting disjointedness", "melancholic Byronism", and a "hyperkinetic and sometimes hyperbolic sense of energy". In his 877-page study of American literature from the Revolutionary War through 1940, scholar Alexander Cowie found that only Bird's The Hawks of Hawk Hollow (1835) could compare with Logan's level of incoherence. Neal himself warned readers: "It should be taken, as people take opium. A grain may exhilarate—more may stupify—much will be death."
## Background
Stylistically, Logan bears the influence of Wieland (1798) and Edgar Huntly (1799) by Charles Brockden Brown, whom Neal saw as his literary father and one of only two American authors beside himself who by 1825 had successfully contributed toward developing a distinctively American literature. However, Neal drew the novel's core concept from "Logan's Lament", a speech delivered after the conclusion of Lord Dunmore's War by an American Indian figure referred to variably as Logan or Ta-gah-jute. The speech was first published in 1775, but made famous by Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson in 1787. It was commonly known by Neal's childhood, but his attention may have been directed to it by the epic poem Logan, an Indian Tale (1821) by Samuel Webber (1797–1880). Neal likely believed the speech to be genuine when he wrote the novel, though in 1826 he called its provenance into question, referring to it in The London Magazine as "altogether a humbug".
Neal wrote Logan in Baltimore during the busiest part of his life between the bankruptcy of his dry goods business in 1816 and his departure for England in 1823. He spent between six and eight weeks writing it, finishing on November 17, 1821. By March 1822 he had written three more novels, which he considered "a complete series; a course of experiment" in declamation (Logan), narrative (Seventy-Six), epistolary (Randolph), and colloquialism (Errata). This was the most productive period of Neal's life as a novelist, shortly after he passed the bar and began practicing law in 1820. Whereas Keep Cool (1817) was his first serious attempt at producing literature, Logan was published after Neal had gained a considerable reputation as an author and critic, and had worked for years on refining his theory of poetry to the point that he came to see the novel as the highest form of literature, able to communicate a poetic prose superior to formal poetry.
Between the two novels, Neal labored for years reading law and supporting himself with other literary ventures: the epic poem Battle of Niagara (1818), the index to the first twelve volumes of Niles' Weekly Register (1818), the play Otho (1819), and the nonfiction History of the American Revolution (1819), as well as serving as the editor and daily columnist for the daily newspaper Federal Republican and Baltimore Telegraph for about half of 1819. Neal also actively advocated many reform issues at the time and used his novels to express his opinions. In Logan, he supported the rights of American Indians and condemned debtors' prisons, slavery, and capital punishment. His depiction of public executions in the novel may have factored into the national movement to remove them to private settings. He also attacked lotteries in the novel, depicting them as mechanisms for robbing the poor.
Neal published the novel anonymously, but hinted at his authorship in Blackwood's Magazine in 1825, saying he could neither "acknowledge or deny" the claim. In his 1830 anonymously-published novel Authorship, the protagonist refers to Logan as the product of Carter Holmes, the pen name he used for Blackwood's. Neal's anonymously-published novel Seventy-Six is credited to "the author of Logan". When Logan was republished in 1840, it was credited to "the author of Seventy-Six".
## Publication history
In 1821, Neal approached well-known Philadelphia-based publishers Carey and Lea with the manuscript of Logan. They delayed publication for months because of printing issues and their own reservations concerning the novel's profanity, "wildness", and "incoherence", which they claimed made the story "not well calculated for the novel readers of our day". The first edition was released in two volumes in April 1822. Published five years after Keep Cool, Logan was Neal's second novel, but his first of notable success. It was pirated in London three times: under the original title by A. K. Newman and Company in 1823 and as Logan, the Mingo Chief. A Family History by J. Cunningham in 1840 and 1845. It was Neal's first novel published outside the US and the only one ever published abroad more than once. Despite the considerable influence it had on successive generations of American writers, Logan was never republished in the US. Carey and Lea refused to publish anything else by Neal, likely because of the novel's poor sales. Neal nevertheless enjoyed encouragement enough to continue his career as a novelist.
## Reception
### Period critique
Logan received generally favorable criticism in both the US and UK, though British reviews were more often mixed in praising it as the work of a genius while criticizing it as erratic. Philadelphia journalist Stephen Simpson issued ecstatic praise: "In all the productions of the human understanding, that we have ever heard of ... we remember nothing, we know of nothing, we can conceive of nothing equal to this romance." Comparing to Neal's chief rival, James Fenimore Cooper, Simpson expresses "astonishment that the still life of the Pioneers, should be read and applauded in the same age that produced Logan!" A British journalist in The Literary Gazette made a similar comparison to Cooper, noting that Logan and Neal's subsequent novels Seventy-Six and Brother Jonathan are "three of about as extraordinary works as ever appeared—full of faults, but still full of power; if we except these, there is no rival near Mr. Cooper's throne." The British Literary Chronicle and Weekly Review praised Neal's lifelike depiction of Indigenous dialogue and claimed that Logan "possesses considerable interest, and the work will be no discredit to the shelves of a modern circulating library". The British Magazine of Foreign Literature claimed that the novel failed because of its rejection of established British literary conventions:
> It would be difficult, indeed, to guess what end he purposed to accomplish by his singular work. It could not be to amuse his readers, because it is intelligible; if he wished to frighten them he has failed of his end, for he only makes them laugh ... We laugh not with him, but at him. His style is the most singular that can be imagined—it is like the raving of a bedlamite. There are words in it, but no sense ... We have taken some pains to inquire who the author may be, but without success;—it is, perhaps, as well that we are in ignorance of his name; the knowledge must be painful, as we have no doubt that the poor gentleman is at this time suffering the wholesome restraint of a straw cell and a strait waistcoat. If he is not, there is no justice in America.
Neal's self-criticism acknowledges the novel's fatal excesses. The preface to Seventy-Six (1823) bemoans Logan's "rambling incoherency, passion, and extravagance" and expresses Neal's hope (writing anonymously) that he showed improvement with that novel. His next (also anonymously-published) novel after that, Randolph (1823), includes this criticism of Logan from the protagonist: "Nobody can read it through, deliberately, as novels are to be read. You are fagged and fretted to death, long and long before you foresee the termination." Two years after that, he wrote under an English pen name in the Scottish Blackwood's Magazine: "Logan is full of power–eloquence–poetry–instinct ... Yet so crowded—so incoherent— ... so outrageously overdone, that no-body can read it through. Parts are without parallel for passionate beauty;—power of language: deep tenderness, poetry—yet every page ... is rank with corruption—the terrible corruption of genius." Writing under his own name in his autobiography almost a half century later, he called Logan "a wild, passionate, extravagant affair with some ... of the most eloquent and fervid writing I was ever guilty of, either in prose or poetry".
### Modern views
The majority of modern scholars agree that Logan is too incoherent to enjoy. Cowie found the novel confusing for all of Neal's attempts at exuding high energy and emotion. Biographer Irving T. Richards felt similarly about the novel's excessive Gothic features and added that he considered the characters unrealistic: "They are swept by emotional waves over which they have no control and for which they are not accountable." Scholar Fritz Fleischmann feels the novel is "oversized and excessive" and full of "lacerating thoughts [that] pass by the reader, often without much rhyme or reason." Biographer Benjamin Lease dubs it "an incoherent failure" of "high pitched absurdity" with "scarcely a plot". Authors of the Literary History of the United States claimed Neal must have been too busy with his law studies and other simultaneous literary pursuits to be original: "He snatched high-minded villains from Godwin and low-minded heroes from Byron, then sent them roaring and murdering through the hackneyed routines of cheap melodramas". Literary historian Fred Lewis Pattee, who collected a series of Neal's literary criticism for publication in 1937, remarked on Neal's rapidity in drafting novels like Logan: "Two-volume novels thrown off in a month! Hard to believe—until one reads the novels."
Scholars Edward Carlson and David J. Carlson nevertheless claim Logan to be one of Neal's four best novels. Richards felt that its plot structure showed a clear improvement over Neal's first novel, Keep Cool, with better use of characters, tone, structure, and suspense. Cowie felt that there was particular strength in the novel's psychological horror that foreshadowed later works by Poe. Arthur Hobson Quinn felt similarly, pointing to the fact that the publishers were challenged to prove that the novel was not a copy of the celebrated William Godwin, because Godwin's novel The Pirate was published just months prior. Goddu went further to say that those Gothic elements surpassed anything by either Poe or Brown. Also comparing to Neal's peers, scholar Philip F. Gura called the novel "remarkable" for documenting the historic reality of interracial relationships that contemporaries like Cooper avoided. Fleischmann praised Logan's verisimilitude: "Spurning the adornments of past literary styles, it succeeds by spontaneity ..., by recreating the tumble of emotions present in real life."
[^1]: Elmer 2006–2007, p. 167, quoting Logan. sfn error: no target: CITEREFElmer2006–2007 (help)
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Loveless (album)
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[
"1991 albums",
"Albums produced by Kevin Shields",
"Creation Records albums",
"My Bloody Valentine (band) albums",
"Sire Records albums"
] |
Loveless (stylized in lowercase) is the second studio album by the Irish-English rock band My Bloody Valentine. It was released on 4 November 1991 in the United Kingdom by Creation Records and in the United States by Sire Records. The album was recorded between February 1989 and September 1991, with vocalist and guitarist Kevin Shields leading sessions and experimenting with guitar vibrato, nonstandard tunings, digital samplers, and meticulous production methods. The band hired nineteen different studios and several engineers during the album's prolonged recording, with its final production cost rumoured to have reached £250,000 (equivalent to £480,000 in 2021).
Preceded by the EPs Glider (1990) and Tremolo (1991), Loveless reached number 24 on the UK Albums Chart and was widely praised by critics for its sonic innovations and Shields' "virtual reinvention of the guitar". However, after its release, Creation owner Alan McGee dropped the band from the label as he found Shields too difficult to work with, a factor alleged to have contributed to the label's eventual bankruptcy. My Bloody Valentine struggled to record a follow-up to the album and broke up in 1997, making Loveless their last full-length release until their eventual reunited effort m b v in 2013.
Since its release, Loveless has been widely cited by critics as one of the greatest albums of all time, a landmark work of the shoegaze subgenre, and as a significant influence on various subsequent artists. In 2012, it was reissued as a two-CD set, including remastered tracks and a previously unreleased half-inch analogue tape version, and peaked on several international charts. In 2013, Loveless was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry.
## Recording
My Bloody Valentine were scheduled to record at Blackwing Studios in Southwark, London for February 1989, and intended to conceptualise a new, more studio-based sound for their second album. Guitarist Kevin Shields said their label Creation Records believed the album could be recorded in five days. According to Shields, "when it became clear that wasn't going to happen, they freaked". After several unproductive months, the band relocated in September to the basement studio The Elephant in Wapping, where they spent eight unproductive weeks. In-house engineer Nick Robbins said Shields made it clear from the outset that Robbins "was just there to press the buttons". Robbins was quickly replaced by Harold Burgon, but according to Shields, Burgon's main contribution was to show the group how to use the in-studio computer.
Burgon and Shields spent three weeks at the Woodcray studio in Berkshire working on the Glider EP, which Shields and Creation owner Alan McGee agreed would be released in advance of the album. Alan Moulder was hired to mix the Glider song "Soon" at Trident 2 studio in Victoria; the song later appeared as the closing track on Loveless. Shields said of Moulder, "As soon as we worked with him we realized we'd love to some more!" When the group returned to work on the album, Moulder was the sole engineer Shields trusted to perform tasks such as micing the amplifiers; all the other credited engineers were told "We're so on top of this you don't even have to come to work." Shields said that "these engineers – with the exception of Alan Moulder and later Anjali Dutt – were all just the people who came with the studio ... everything we wanted to do was wrong, according to them." The band gave credit on the album sleeve to all present during the recordings, "even if all they did was fix tea", according to Shields.
During the spring of 1990, Anjali Dutt was hired to replace Moulder, who had left to work with the bands Shakespears Sister and Ride. Dutt assisted in the recording of vocals and several guitar tracks. During this period, the band recorded in various studios, often spending a single day at a studio before deciding it was unsuitable. In May 1990, My Bloody Valentine settled on Protocol in Holloway as their primary location, and work began in earnest on the album, as well as a second EP titled Tremolo. Like Glider, Tremolo contained a song – "To Here Knows When" – that later appeared on Loveless. The band stopped recording during the summer of 1990 to tour in support of the release of Glider. When Moulder returned to the project in August, he was surprised by how little work had been completed. By that point, Creation was concerned by how much the album was costing. Moulder left again in March 1991 to work for the Jesus and Mary Chain. In an interview with Select, Shields explained the stop-start nature of his recording, using "When You Sleep" as an example:
> We recorded the drums in September '89. The guitar was done in December. The bass was done in April. 1990 we're in, now. Then nothing happens for a year really. So it doesn't have vocals at this stage? No. Does it have words? No. Does it even have a title? No. It has a song number. "Song 12" it was called. And ... I'm trying to remember ... the melody line was done in '91. The vocals were '91. There were huge gaps though. Months and months of not touching songs. Years. I used to forget what tunings I'd used.
The vocals were taped in Britannia Row and Protocol studios between May and June 1991, the first time vocalist Bilinda Butcher was involved in the recording. Shields and Butcher hung curtains on the window between the studio control room and the vocal booth, and communicated with the engineers only when they would acknowledge a good take by opening the curtain and waving. According to engineer Guy Fixsen, "We weren't allowed to listen while either of them were doing a vocal. You'd have to watch the meters on the tape machine to see if anyone was singing. If it stopped, you knew you had to stop the tape and take it back to the top." On most days, the couple arrived without having written the lyrics for the song they were to record. Dutt recalled: "Kevin would sing a track, and then Bilinda would get the tape and write down words she thought he might have sung".
In July 1991, Creation agreed to relocate the production to Eastcote studio, following unexplained complaints from Shields. However, the cash-poor Creation Records was unable to pay the bill for their time at Britannia Row, and the studio refused to return the band's equipment. Dutt recalled, "I don't know what excuse Kevin gave them for leaving. He had to raise the money himself to get the gear out." Shields' unpredictable behavior, the constant delays, and studio changes were having a material effect on Creation's finances and the health of their staff. Dutt later said she had been desperate to leave the project, while Creation's second-in-command Dick Green had a nervous breakdown. Green recalled, "It was two years into the album, and I phoned Shields up in tears. I was going 'You have to deliver me this record.'"
Shields and Butcher became afflicted with tinnitus, and had to delay recording for further weeks while they recovered. Concerned friends and band members suggested this was a result of the unusually loud volumes the group played at their shows, which Shields dismissed as "ill-informed hysteria". Although Alan McGee was still positive about his investment, the 29-year-old Green, who by this time was opening the label's morning post "shaking with fear", became a concern to his co-workers. Publicist Laurence Verfaillie, aware of the label's inability to cover further studio bills, recalled Green's hair turning grey overnight, which she attributed to the album.
With the vocal tracks completed, a final mix of the album was undertaken with engineers Dick Meaney (the Jesus and Mary Chain) and Darren Allison (Spiritualized) at the Church in Crouch End, the nineteenth studio in which Loveless had been worked on. The album was edited on an aged machine that had been used to cut together dialog for movies in the 1970s; its computer threw the entire album out of phase. Shields was able to put it back together from memory, but took thirteen days to master the album rather than the usual one, to Creation's dismay.
As the previously prolific band were unusually quiet, the British music press began to speculate. Melody Maker calculated that the total recording cost had come close to £250,000; however, McGee, Green, and Shields dispute this. Shields argued that the estimated cost and Creation's near-bankruptcy were a myth exaggerated by McGee. According to Shields, "the amount we spent nobody knows because we never counted. But we worked it out ourselves just by working out how much the studios cost and how much all the engineers cost. £160,000 was the most we could come to as the actual money that was spent". In Green's opinion, the estimate made by Melody Maker was understated by £20,000, and that "once you'd even got it recorded and mixed, the very act of compiling, EQ-ing, et cetera took weeks on its own". In December 1991, Shields said that most of the money claimed to have been spent on the album was simply "money to live on" over three years, with the album itself costing only "a few thousand". He also claimed that the album represented only four months' work over two years. He said that most of the money spent came from the band's own funds, while "Creation probably spent fifteen to twenty thousand pounds of their own money on it, and that's it. They never showed us any accounts, and then they got bought out by Sony".
## Music
While Butcher contributed about a third of its lyrics, most of the music on Loveless was written and performed by Shields; according to Shields, he is the only musician on the album apart from "Touched". Shields assumed Butcher's guitarist duties during the recording process; Butcher said she had not minded because she felt she "was never a great guitarist". Bassist Debbie Googe did not perform on the album, though she received a credit. Googe said, "At the beginning I used to go down [to the studio] most days but after a while I began to feel pretty superfluous so I went down less." Butcher explained, "for Kevin to actually translate to Debbie what he had in his head and play it right would have been an agonizing process." Moulder said "It wasn't collaborative at all ... Kevin had a clear view of what he wanted, but he never explained it."
Loveless was largely recorded in mono sound, as Shields felt it important that the album's sound consisted of "the guitar smack bang in the middle and no chorus, no modulation effect". Shields wavers his guitar's tremolo bar as he strums, which contributes to the band's distinctive sound. This technique – nicknamed "glide guitar" – bends the guitar strings slightly in and out of tune. Shields said, "People were thinking it's hundreds of guitars, when it's actually got less guitar tracks than most people's demo tapes have." Unlike other bands of the shoegazing movement of the early 1990s, My Bloody Valentine did not use chorus or flanger pedals; Shields said, "No other band played that guitar like me [...] We did everything solely with the tremolo arm."
Shields aimed to use "very simple minimal effects", which often were the result of involved studio work. He stated, "The songs are really simply structured. A lot of them are purposely like that. That way you can get away with a lot more when you mess around with the contents." In a 1992 Guitar World interview, Shields described how he achieved a sound akin to a wah-wah pedal on "I Only Said" by playing his guitar through an amplifier with a graphic equaliser preamp. After recording the track, he bounced it to another track through a parametric equaliser while he adjusted the EQ levels manually. Asked if he could have achieved the effect more easily using a wah-wah pedal, Shields said, "In attitude toward sound, yes. But not in approach."
All but two of the drum tracks were built from samples of tracks performed by drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig. Because Ó Cíosóig was suffering from physical ailments during the recording, he recorded samples of various drum patterns he was able to perform. According to Shields, "[i]t's exactly what Colm would have done, it just took longer to do." Ó Cíosóig recovered enough to play live on two songs: "Touched", which was composed and performed entirely by him, and "Only Shallow". Shields believes that listeners are unable to tell the difference between Ó Cíosóig's live drumming and the drum loops aside from the tracks intended to have an obviously "sampled" sound, such as the dance-oriented "Soon". The album makes extensive use of samples; according to Shields, "Most of the samples are feedback. We learnt from guitar feedback, with lots of distortion, that you can make any instrument, any one that you can imagine."
The vocals, equally provided by Shields and Butcher, are kept relatively low in the mix. They are for the most part highly pitched, although at times Shields sang the higher register and Butcher the lower. According to Shields, because the band had spent so long working on the album's vocals, he "couldn't tolerate really clear vocals, where you just hear one voice", thus "it had to be more like a sound." Butcher said of her "dreamy, sensual" style vocals: "Often when we do vocals, it's 7:30 in the morning; I've usually just fallen asleep and have to be woken up to sing." To aid this effect, Shields and Ó Cíosóig sampled Butcher's voice and reused it as instrumentation. The layered vocals on "When You Sleep" were born out of frustration with trying to get the right take. Shields commented that "The vocals sound like that because it became boring and too destructive trying to get the right vocal. So I decided to put all the vocals in. (It had been sung 12 or 13 times)." He explained:
> On "When You Sleep" it sounds like me and Bilinda singing together, but it's just me – me slowed down and me speeded up at the same time. Some songs we sang over and over until we got bored – usually between 12 and 18 times. I started sorting through the tapes and it did my head in, so I just played them all together and it was really good – like one, vaguely distinct voice.
The lyrics are deliberately obscure; Shields joked that he considered rating various attempts to decipher the words on the band's website according to accuracy. He claims that he and Butcher "spent way more time on the lyrics than ever on the music". The words were often written in late-night eight- to ten-hour-long sessions before the pair were due to record the vocals. They worked diligently to ensure the lyrics were not lacklustre, but made few changes; Shields said, "There's nothing worse than bad lyrics." Nonetheless, pressed by Select's David Cavanagh to reveal just the first line of "Loomer", Butcher refused, and Shields claimed to have "absolutely no idea" what she was singing.
## Tour
After the album's release, My Bloody Valentine toured Europe, an event music critic David Cavanagh described as a "unique chapter in live music". To recreate the higher tones from Loveless, Shields employed American flautist Anna Quimby. According to a friend of the band, "She had a little skirt on, black tights ... she was a little indie girl. But when she blew into the flute, it was like fucking Woodstock."
The tour became infamous for its volume. NME editor Danny Kelly attended a show he described as "more like torture than entertainment ... I had a half pint of lager; they hit their first note and it was so loud that it sent the glass hurtling". During the following US tour, Shields and Butcher tested their audiences' ability to sustain noise played at high volumes. According to critic Mark Kemp; "After about thirty seconds the adrenaline set in, people are screaming and shaking their fists. After a minute you wonder what's going on. After another minute it's total confusion. The noise starts hurting. The noise continues. After three minutes you begin to take deep breaths. After four minutes, a calm takes over." The tour saw My Bloody Valentine accused of criminal negligence by the music press, who took exception to the long period of extreme white noise played during "You Made Me Realise". In December 2000, Mojo rated the tour the second loudest in history.
## Aftermath
Despite expectations for the band to break through in the wake of the critical success of Loveless, they fell apart soon after and recorded only sporadically in the following two decades. Unable to deliver a third album, Shields isolated himself and "went crazy," drawing comparisons in the music press to the behavior of musicians such as Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd. The other band members went their own ways; Butcher contributed vocals to Collapsed Lung's 1996 single "Board Game" and two tracks ("Ballad Night" and "Casino Kisschase") from the band's 1996 album Cooler. Googe was sighted working as a cab driver in London and formed the supergroup Snowpony in 1996. Ó Cíosóig joined Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions, while Shields collaborated with Yo La Tengo, Primal Scream and Dinosaur Jr.
Shields recorded new music in his home studio, but abandoned it. According to sources, some of the music was possibly influenced by jungle music. Shields said, "We did an album's worth of half-finished stuff, and it did just get dumped, but it was worth dumping. It was dead. It hadn't got that spirit, that life in it." He said later, "I just stopped making records myself, and I suppose that must just seem weird to people. 'Why'd you do that?' The answer is, it wasn't as good [as Loveless]. And I always promised myself I'd never do that, put out a worse record." He told Magnet of his certainty in recording another My Bloody Valentine album, and attributed the sparse output to a lack of inspiration. A third My Bloody Valentine album, m b v, was finally released in 2013, 22 years after Loveless.
## Critical reception
Although Shields feared a critical panning, Loveless received critical acclaim. "An album without parallel", wrote Andrew Perry in Select. "Its creative inspiration defies belief. Though 'To Here Knows When' is pretty well the weirdest track of the eleven, that glorious distortion gives a fair signal of what to expect – the unexpected. Everything you hear confounds your idea of how a pop song should be played, arranged and produced." Martin Aston in Q wrote that "The instrumental 'Touched' is especially startling, like a drunken fight between a syrupy Disney soundtrack and an Eastern mantra. All in all, Loveless amounts to a virtual reinvention of the guitar."
NME reviewer Dele Fadele saw My Bloody Valentine as the "blueprint" for the shoegaze genre, and wrote: "with Loveless you could've expected the Irish / English partnership to succumb to self-parody or mimic The Scene That's Delighted To Eat Quiche [...] But no, Loveless fires a silver-coated bullet into the future, daring all-comers to try and recreate its mixture of moods, feelings, emotion, styles and, yes, innovations." While Fadele expressed some disappointment that the group seemed to disassociate themselves from dance music and reggae basslines, he concluded: "Loveless ups the ante, and, however decadent one might find the idea of elevating other human beings to deities, My Bloody Valentine, failings and all, deserve more than your respect." Melody Maker writer Simon Reynolds praised the album, and wrote that Loveless "[reaffirms] how unique, how peerless MBV are." He wrote, "Along with Mercury Rev's Yerself is Steam, 'Loveless' is the outermost, innermost, uttermost rock record of 1991." Reynolds noted that his only criticism was that "while My Bloody Valentine have amplified and refined what they already were, they've failed to mutate or leap into any kind of beyond."
In a review for Rolling Stone, Ira Robbins wrote that "despite the record's intense ability to disorient – this is real do-not-adjust-your-set stuff – the effect is strangely uplifting. Loveless oozes a sonic balm that first embraces and then softly pulverizes the frantic stress of life." Chicago Tribune critic Greg Kot wrote that the band had "written a new vocabulary for the guitar, and perhaps given it another 10 years of life as rock's central instrument". Spin gave Loveless a mixed review; writer Jim Greer felt it was "standard-ish and dull ... The warped music is a cool idea and I recommend the album – but not on the basis of the singing or the songs."
While Creation were pleased with the final album, and the initial music press reviews were positive, the label soon realised that although, in the words of plugger James Kyllo, "it was such a beautiful record, and it was wonderful to have it ... it just didn't sound like a record that was going to recoup all the money that had been spent on it." Alan McGee liked the record, but said, "It was quite clear that we couldn't bear the idea of going through that again, because there was just nothing to say that [Shields] wouldn't do exactly the same again. That's enough. Lets step back". Despite a severe shortage of money, Creation funded a short tour of the north of England late in 1991. At the time the band were making the marketing of Loveless difficult – there would be no singles, and the band's name was forbidden to appear on the record sleeve. McGee was by now exhausted and frustrated. He recalled, "I thought: I went to the wall for you. If this record bombs, I've stolen my father's money. And they were so ... not understanding of anybody else's position." Alan McGee dropped My Bloody Valentine from Creation soon after the album's release because he could not bear working with Shields again; "It was either him or me," he told The Guardian in 2004. Loveless peaked at number 24 on the UK Albums Chart, and failed to chart in the United States, where it was distributed by Sire Records. In 2003, Rolling Stone estimated that Loveless had sold 225,000 copies.
### Accolades
Loveless has been a consistent critical favourite. It came in at number 14 in the 1991 Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics' poll. In 1999, Pitchfork named Loveless the best album of the 1990s. However, in its 2003 revision of the list, the album was moved to number two, swapping places with Radiohead's OK Computer. A 2022 listing restored it to the top spot. Pitchfork also named Loveless the greatest shoegaze album of all time. In 2000, the album was voted number 63 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked it number 219 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, 221 in a 2012 revised list and 73 in another revised list published in 2020. In 2004, The Observer ranked it at number 20 in its "100 Greatest British Albums" list, declaring it "the last great extreme rock album."
The album was ranked at number 22 on Spin's list of "100 Greatest Albums 1985–2005," with Chuck Klosterman writing that "whenever anyone uses the phrase swirling guitars, this record is why. A testament to studio production and single-minded perfectionism, Loveless has a layered, inverted thickness that makes harsh sounds soft and fragile moments vast." In 2008, Loveless topped The Irish Times' "Top 40 Irish Albums of All Time" critics' list, and in 2013, it placed third in the Irish Independent's "Top 30 Irish Albums of All Time" list. In 2014, it placed ninth on the Alternative Nation site's "Top 10 Underrated 90's Alternative Rock Albums" list. In 2013, NME ranked the album at number 18 on its "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2020, Paste named it the eighth-best album of the 1990s and the second-best dream pop album of all time.
## Legacy
Loveless has been influential on a large number of genres and artists. Clash called the album "the magnum opus of the shoegazing genre ... it raised the bar so high that it subsequently collapsed under its own weight," leading to the dissipation of the style. Critic Jim DeRogatis wrote that "the forward-looking sounds of this unique disc have positioned the band as one of the most influential and inspiring bands since the Velvet Underground." Authors Paul Hegarty and Martin Halliwell wrote that the album "might be so progressive that nothing else will ever match it." Metro Times called the album "the high-water mark of shoegaze," writing that its "dense production and hypnotic atmosphere drugged listeners with its sound's lovely oxymoron: at once hard and soft, up-tempo and languid, lascivious and frigid." Paul Lester of The Guardian called it "the Pet Sounds of UK avant-rock."
Musician Brian Eno said that "Soon" "set a new standard for pop. It's the vaguest music ever to have been a hit." Robert Smith of the Cure discovered Loveless after a period of almost exclusively listening to disco and/or Irish bands such as the Dubliners as a means of avoiding his contemporaries and said, "[My Bloody Valentine] was the first band I heard who quite clearly pissed all over us, and their album Loveless is certainly one of my all-time three favourite records. It's the sound of someone [Shields] who is so driven that they're demented. And the fact that they spent so much time and money on it is so excellent." Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins told Spin: "It's rare in guitar-based music that somebody does something new [...] At the time, everybody was like, 'How the fuck are they doing this?' And, of course, it's way simpler than anybody would imagine." Greg Puciato of the Dillinger Escape Plan named Loveless one of the albums that changed his life, recalling: "When I was younger, I only listened to riffs and vocals and a more traditional style of composition. So when I heard this My Bloody Valentine record it was so abstract and strange in artistic terms that it ended up taking me on other musical paths."
The band Japancakes recorded a cover album of "Loveless" which includes every song from the original in the same sequence. The cover album was released on Darla Records in 2007.
In 2013 Kenny Feinstein of the bluegrass band Water Tower released a solo cover album of Loveless entitled Loveless: Hurts to Love (Fluff & Gravy). The album is mostly acoustic and features a wide assortment of instruments including guitar, piano, mandolin, violin, bass, cello, harmonium, and dobro. Feinstein plays most of the instruments on the album himself and provides lead vocals. Also appearing on the album are musician Jeff Kazor of The Crooked Jades and engineer Bruce Kaphan who helped Feinstein create an "acoustic wall of sound" that emulates the original album's distorted layers.
## Track listing
## Personnel
All personnel credits adapted from Loveless's liner notes.
My Bloody Valentine
- Colm Ó Cíosóig – drums, sampling keyboard
- Bilinda Butcher – vocals; guitar (credited, does not perform)
- Debbie Googe – bass (credited, does not perform)
- Kevin Shields – guitar, vocals, sampling keyboard; bass (uncredited)
Production and mixing
- Kevin Shields (except on "Touched")
- Colm Ó Cíosóig (on "Touched")
Artwork and release
- My Bloody Valentine – cover concept
- Angus Cameron – photography
- Ann Marie Shields – coordination
## Charts
## Certifications
|
71,068,782 |
Takin' It Back
| 1,173,521,724 |
2022 studio album by Meghan Trainor
|
[
"2022 albums",
"Albums produced by Meghan Trainor",
"Albums produced by Stint (producer)",
"Bubblegum pop albums",
"Doo-wop albums",
"Epic Records albums",
"Meghan Trainor albums"
] |
Takin' It Back is the fifth major-label studio album by American singer-songwriter Meghan Trainor. Epic Records released the album on October 21, 2022. Trainor worked with producers including Federico Vindver, Gian Stone, Kid Harpoon, and Tyler Johnson. Featured artists include Scott Hoying, Teddy Swims, Theron Theron, Natti Natasha, and Arturo Sandoval. It is a doo-wop and bubblegum pop album, which Trainor conceived as a return to the sound of her debut major-label studio album, Title (2015), after its title track went viral on TikTok. Takin' It Back's lyrical themes revolve around motherhood and self-acceptance.
Trainor promoted Takin' It Back with public appearances and televised performances on programs such as The Today Show and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. The album was supported by two singles, "Bad for Me" and "Made You Look". The latter peaked at number 11 on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming Trainor's first song to enter its top 20 since 2016, and reached the top 10 in other countries. Reviewers thought the album effectively showcased Trainor's maturity and growth over her career as well as her musicality, but they were divided on whether it was a progression from her earlier work. Takin' It Back debuted at number 16 on the US Billboard 200 and reached the top 40 in Australia, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway. A deluxe edition of the album, supported by the single "Mother", was released on March 10, 2023.
## Background and development
Meghan Trainor achieved commercial success with her debut major-label studio album, Title (2015), which produced three top-10 singles on the US Billboard Hot 100. She struggled while creating her third album with Epic Records, Treat Myself (2020), and rewrote it four times in an attempt to respond to market shifts in the music industry after the preceding singles underperformed. After the song "Title" attained viral popularity on video-sharing service TikTok in 2021, Trainor announced her intention to return to its parent album's doo-wop sound on her fifth major-label studio album. TikTok was highly influential on her creative process, and she began writing material that would resonate with audiences on it. Trainor gained popularity on it while regularly sharing clips and other content with influencer Chris Olsen. She used TikTok to engage with global audiences, after traditional methods of promotion were ineffective for her last album, and started planning "TikTok days" on which she would film videos.
Producers of Takin' It Back include Trainor and her brother Justin, Federico Vindver, Gian Stone, Teddy Geiger, Afterhrs, Rafa, Kid Harpoon, and Tyler Johnson. Vindver, producer of three tracks for Trainor's Christmas album A Very Trainor Christmas (2020), contributed eight tracks. Stone, whom she had wished to work with since hearing his production on Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber's 2020 single "Stuck with U", produced four tracks for the standard edition of Takin' It Back. Trainor would write a chorus for each song before going into sessions, but she doubted the quality. Her collaborators on previous albums would dismiss ideas she had conceived prior to sessions, but Trainor started the material worked on for Takin' It Back alone. Trainor believed her songwriting improved since having a caesarean section during the birth of her son, as she learned to love her body again after sustaining stretch marks and a scar.
After songwriter Mozella told Trainor that other artists wished to emulate her signature doo-wop sound, they wrote the song "Don't I Make It Look Easy". Trainor felt the song would delight listeners, reminiscent of her feelings after writing "Dear Future Husband" (2015), and she decided on Takin' It Back as the album title. She described the album's material as "big, powerful songs that mean a lot"; the subject matter revolves around her experiences with motherhood and embracing "not [being] perfect all the time". Trainor stated: "it's true to myself in all the weird genres that I go to, but also modern with my doo-wop in there. The lyrics are stronger than ever, and it's still a party."
## Composition
The digital edition of Takin' It Back contains 16 tracks; on physical editions, the track "Remind Me" is exclusive to the Target version. It predominantly has a doo-wop and bubblegum pop sound. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that Takin' It Back minimally employs electronic elements and comprises mainly old-timey but contemporarily presented tracks. Peter Piatkowski of PopMatters thought that along with the 1950s, the album was influenced by Motown, Carole King's Brill Building music, and the 1970s.
The opening track, "Sensitive", is a 1950s-influenced a cappella song, built on harmonies and featuring vocals by American singer Scott Hoying. "Made You Look" is a doo-wop song that recalls earlier styles of popular music, inspired by Trainor's body image insecurities after pregnancy and a challenge from her therapist to look at herself naked for five minutes. She wrote the title track about bringing back old-school music which featured more real instruments. Its production incorporates digital components and modern R&B beats. The fourth track, "Don't I Make It Look Easy", has percussion instrumentation and R&B elements; its lyrics are about how Trainor makes her duties as a new mother look easy, akin to people only posting their best experiences on social media. "Shook" is about her confidence in her looks and references her posterior. "Bad for Me", featuring Teddy Swims, is a pop song with gospel influences and an instrumentation of piano and an acoustic guitar. It is about distancing oneself from a toxic family member. The seventh track, "Superwoman", is a ballad on which Trainor emphasizes the various identities and spaces women steer through. Piatkowski described it as "an achingly open and vulnerable poem about a woman trying to be everything to everyone", that dismisses typical narratives about women being "girlboss[es]" and acknowledges difficulties faced by them. "Rainbow", a song about coming out and self-acceptance, opens as a slow piano ballad and transitions into a doo-wop song midway.
The ninth track, "Breezy", is a reggae song which features Theron Theron, incorporating debonair horns and clinking piano riffs. "Mama Wanna Mambo" features guest appearances by Natti Natasha and Arturo Sandoval, and was inspired by Perry Como's 1954 single "Papa Loves Mambo". It is a reggaeton song about mothers wanting a dance break in the middle of caring for their children. Trainor demands loyalty from her partner and assures him that her excessively dramatic behavior is "all out of love" on "Drama Queen". On the 12th track, "While You're Young", she assures her adolescent self her dreams will come true and asks people who feel inadequate and face insecurities to learn through experience: "Make mistakes, give your heart a break." "Lucky" is about the gratitude one feels for having someone else in their life. "Dance About It" is a 1970s-influenced midtempo disco funk song, which has a "glitter-ball disco pulse" according to Erlewine.
"Remind Me" was the first song Trainor wrote for the album at a time when she was struggling with self-doubt: "I was like, I'm lost. I feel like I lost my power. I can't look at myself right now. I'm struggling more than ever. And I need my husband and people who love me to remind me that I'm awesome because I don't feel awesome." Takin' It Back closes with "Final Breath", a downtempo love song which Piatkowski described as "moody, ruminative"; inspired by death anxiety, Trainor contemplates spending her final moments with her husband after living a long life: "If I could, I'd do it all over again". The doo-wop-influenced deluxe edition track "Mother" samples the Chordettes's 1954 single "Mr. Sandman". In the song, Trainor addresses men who dismiss her opinions and asks them to stop mansplaining and to listen to her. This edition also includes "Special Delivery" featuring Max, "Grow Up", and a remix of "Made You Look" featuring Kim Petras.
## Release and promotion
On May 11, 2022, Trainor uploaded an episode dedicated to the album's creation process, titled "Workin' on Making an Album", on her podcast Workin on It. On June 22, 2022, Rolling Stone announced the album, titled Takin' It Back, would be released on October 21, 2022, and Trainor shared its official artwork on social media. "Bad for Me" was released as its lead single two days later. The song reached the top 30 on the Adult Contemporary and Adult Top 40 radio-format charts in the US, and entered digital sales charts in Canada and the UK. Trainor and Swims performed it on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Late Late Show with James Corden in the summer of 2022. The second single, "Made You Look" impacted hot adult contemporary radio stations in the US on October 31, 2022. The song went viral on TikTok. It peaked at number 11 on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming Trainor's first song to enter its top 20 since 2016, and reached the top 10 in other countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK.
On October 21, 2022, Trainor performed "Bad for Me", "Don't I Make It Look Easy", and "Made You Look" on The Today Show. She reprised "Made You Look" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, The Wonderful World of Disney: Magical Holiday Celebration, The Drew Barrymore Show, and Australian Idol. The deluxe edition was released on March 10, 2023. Its lead single, "Mother", was sent to hot adult contemporary radio stations in the US on March 27, 2023, and it reached the top 40 in Ireland and the UK. The song's music video includes an appearance from Kris Jenner.
## Critical reception
According to Martina Inchingolo of the Associated Press, Takin' It Back featured a more adult version of Trainor, showcasing her growth since marriage and motherhood; Inchingolo described it as an edifying therapy session and a "fluctuation of genres and feelings" that made the listener feel less solitary. Renowned for Sound's Max Akass described it as Trainor's "most complete album to date" and appreciated her intention to take more power over her career after being controlled on previous releases; he considered that Trainor ventured into new musical territory and took her music to "more interesting places". Piatkowski felt that Takin' It Back reflected the confidence Trainor had gained from becoming a "major pop star" and believed it inaccurate to label it a retread of her debut record. He wrote that the album did not constitute a definitive return to form for Trainor, some of its catchier parts sounding flimsy and breezy "to the point of candy floss", but that its ballads were more meaningful and the high points of the album.
Erlewine wrote that Takin' It Back was not necessarily a cutting-edge pop album, as Trainor's commitment to resurrecting Title's spirit "means that the attitude and melody can occasionally seem preserved in amber", but that overall it effectively demonstrated her gift for hooks and musical theater flair. Writing for Riff, Piper Westrom opined that the album "largely sticks to what [Trainor] knows" and would not shock fans of her previous work, "check[ing] all the boxes for listeners and mak[ing] for a solid pop album".
## Commercial performance
Takin' It Back was Trainor's highest-charting album since her second major-label studio album, Thank You (2016), in some countries. In the US, Takin' It Back debuted at number 16 on the Billboard 200. The album debuted at number 21 and charted for 20 weeks on the Canadian Albums Chart, recording an improvement from her last two albums which only charted two weeks each. It reached number 30 in Australia and number 67 in the UK. Takin' It Back charted at number 12 in Norway and number 19 in the Netherlands, becoming Trainor's highest-peaking album since Title in both countries. The album peaked at number 37 in Denmark, number 82 in Spain, number 98 in Switzerland, and number 99 in Ireland.
## Track listing
Notes
- signifies an additional producer
- "Remind Me" is only included on digital and Target compact disc editions of the album.
## Personnel
Credits are adapted from the liner notes of Takin' It Back.
Musicians
- Meghan Trainor – lead vocals, background vocals (all tracks); vocal arrangement (1, 6), programming (7, 16), keyboards (13), piano (16)
- Scott Hoying – background vocals (1, 6, 8), vocal arrangement (1, 6)
- Federico Vindver – keyboards (2, 3, 6, 9, 11, 14), programming (2–4, 6, 9, 11, 13, 14); drums, percussion (2); guitar (3, 4, 6, 11, 13, 14), bass (6), piano (6, 8, 11, 14), background vocals (10)
- Jesse McGinty – baritone saxophone, trombone (2)
- Mike Cordone – trumpet (2)
- Guillermo Vadalá – bass (3, 4, 9, 11)
- Drew Taubenfeld – electric guitar (3), acoustic guitar (7), guitar (11, 13)
- Justin Trainor – background vocals (3, 5, 6, 10–12), keyboards (3), programming (3, 7, 13, 14)
- Tristan Hurd – trumpet (3, 12, 14)
- Kiel Feher – drums (4)
- Andrew Synowiec – guitar (4)
- Daryl Sabara – background vocals (5, 6, 10, 11, 13)
- Chris Pepe – background vocals (5, 13)
- Gian Stone – background vocals (5, 10, 13), programming (5, 9, 13), bass (8, 13); guitar, keyboards (13)
- Ryan Trainor – background vocals (5, 10, 14)
- Sean Douglas – background vocals (5, 10, 11, 13), keyboards (13)
- Ivan Jackson – trumpet (5), horn (9, 13)
- Teddy Swims – lead vocals, background vocals (6)
- Ajay Bhattacharyya – background vocals (6)
- Isaiah Gage – strings (7)
- Ian Franzino – background vocals, programming (8)
- Andrew Haas – background vocals, guitar, piano, programming (8)
- Teddy Geiger – background vocals, guitar, piano, programming (8)
- The Regiment – horn (8)
- Kurt Thum – organ (8, 9)
- John Arndt – piano (8)
- Theron Theron – lead vocals (9)
- Brian Letiecq – guitar (9)
- Morgan Price – horn (9, 13)
- Angel Torres – alto saxophone (10)
- Ramon Sanchez – arrangement (10)
- Natti Natasha – lead vocals, background vocals (10)
- Sammy Vélez – baritone saxophone (10)
- Pedro Pérez – bass (10)
- Pedro "Pete" Perignon – bongos (10)
- William "Kachiro" Thompson – congas (10)
- Josué Urbiba – tenor saxophone (10)
- Jean Carlos Camuñas – timbales (10)
- Lester Pérez – trombone (10)
- Anthony Rosado – trombone (10)
- Jésus Alonso – trumpet (10)
- Arturo Sandoval – trumpet (10)
- Luis Angel Figueroa – trumpet (10)
- Kid Harpoon – programming (12, 16); acoustic guitar, bass, electric guitar, piano, synthesizer (12)
- Aaron Sterling – drums (12)
- Tyler Johnson – programming (12, 16), keyboards (12)
- Cole Kamen-Green – trumpet (12)
- Greg Wieczorek – drums (13)
- Ben Rice – guitar, keyboards (13)
Technical
- Randy Merrill – mastering
- Meghan Trainor – mixing (1, 7, 14), engineering (1), vocal production (all tracks)
- Justin Trainor – mixing (1, 7, 14), engineering (1–14, 16)
- Jeremie Inhaber – mixing (2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 13, 14)
- Josh Gudwin – mixing (4)
- Gian Stone – mixing (8), engineering (5, 8, 9, 13), vocal production (5, 9, 13)
- Kevin Davis – mixing (9)
- Spike Stent – mixing (12)
- Federico Vindver – engineering (2–4, 6, 9–11, 14), vocal production (4, 10, 14)
- Peter Hanaman – engineering (4, 14)
- Ian Franzino – engineering (8)
- Andrew Haas – engineering (8)
- Chad Copelin – engineering (8)
- Carlitos Vélasquez – engineering (10)
- Jeremy Hatcher – engineering (12, 16)
- Brian Rajaratnam – engineering (12, 16)
- Scott Hoying – vocal production (6)
- Heidi Wang – engineering assistance (4)
- Matt Wolach – engineering assistance (12, 16)
## Charts
## Release history
|
56,065,235 |
2007 AT&T 250
| 1,106,350,893 |
2007 NASCAR stock car race
|
[
"2007 controversies in the United States",
"2007 in NASCAR",
"2007 in sports in Wisconsin",
"June 2007 sports events in the United States",
"NASCAR controversies",
"NASCAR races at the Milwaukee Mile"
] |
The 2007 AT&T 250 was a NASCAR Busch Series stock car race that took place on June 23, 2007. Held at the Milwaukee Mile in West Allis, Wisconsin, the race was the 17th of 35 in the 2007 NASCAR Busch Series season. Aric Almirola of Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) was the listed winner of the race, Richard Childress Racing's Scott Wimmer finished second, and Braun Racing's Jason Leffler finished third.
The race became controversial because of a driver change made by the No. 20 JGR team. Almirola qualified the car on pole position, though Gibbs intended to have NASCAR Nextel Cup Series regular Denny Hamlin run the race. The Cup Series was racing that weekend at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California, and Hamlin's helicopter could not find a landing spot at Milwaukee Mile in time for the start of the race. Almirola was thus forced to start the race and ran the first 59 laps before he was pulled out of the car under caution; Hamlin finished the race and came from behind to win after losing a lap to the leaders during the driver change. NASCAR rules say the driver who starts the race gets credit for the result, making Almirola the official race winner. The driver change frustrated Almirola, who proceeded to leave the track before the race ended, and it was further criticized by ESPN writer Terry Blount, who called the substitution "a Busch-league move".
The win for which Almirola was given credit was the first of his Busch Series career. Carl Edwards, who led nearly half of the race for Roush Fenway Racing (RFR), recovered from a flat tire to finish eighth, maintaining a significant lead in the Drivers' Championship. Edwards's No. 60 RFR team also maintained their Owners' Championship lead, and Chevrolet continued to lead the Manufacturers' Championship.
## Background
The Busch Series first came to the Milwaukee Mile in the 1984 and 1985 seasons before taking a seven-year absence from visiting the track. It returned to the schedule in 1993 and had been on the series calendar every year since then leading up to the 2007 edition of the race. The track itself was originally built as a horse racing track, and it later held its first automobile race in 1903, making it the oldest motor racing track in the United States.
Entering the race, the last two Busch Series races at Milwaukee had been won by Johnny Sauter and Paul Menard, both from Wisconsin. Four Wisconsin-born drivers entered the race hoping to continue the trend: Scott Wimmer, Todd Kluever, Kelly Bires, and Frank Kreyer. Wimmer, who entered the race with three consecutive top-five finishes and five straight top-tens, stated, "It's really exciting anytime I go back to Wisconsin for racing, especially The Milwaukee Mile. I've been going there since I can remember and watching a lot of great drivers racing out there." He also expressed excitement at the prospect of winning the upcoming race, saying, "It would really be neat to win a race there. I think that any Wisconsin driver, no matter what series, wants to win there."
Carl Edwards led the Drivers' Championship entering the race with 2,534 points. Dave Blaney followed in second with 1,833, while Kevin Harvick was third with 1,798. David Reutimann, Regan Smith, David Ragan, Greg Biffle, Marcos Ambrose, Bobby Hamilton Jr., and Jason Leffler rounded out the top ten. Jack Roush, owner of Edwards' No. 60 car, led the Owners' Championship, also with 2,534 points. Richard Childress's No. 29 team, shared by Wimmer and Jeff Burton, followed in second with 2,323, while Joe Gibbs's No. 20, Childress's No. 21, and DeLana Harvick's No. 33 teams completed the top-five. Chevrolet led the Manufacturers' Championship with 115 points; Ford, Dodge, and Toyota followed with 109, 69, and 59 respectively. Menard, the defending race winner, did not participate.
### Standings before the race
- Note: Only the top ten and five positions are included for the driver and owner standings respectively.
## Report
### Practice and qualifying
Two practice sessions were held in the morning and in the afternoon before the evening race. With a time of 29.981 seconds, Wimmer was the quickest in the opening session ahead of Aric Almirola, Stephen Leicht, Reutimann, and Shane Huffman. Positions six through ten were occupied by Hamilton, Erik Darnell, Travis Kvapil, Todd Bodine, and Kelly Bires. In the second practice session, Wimmer was once again quickest with a lap time of 29.821 seconds, followed by Almirola, Johnny Benson Jr., Brad Coleman, Jason Keller, Leffler, Darnell, Huffman, Scott Lagasse Jr., and Leicht.
Forty-four cars entered qualifying; due to NASCAR's qualifying procedure, only forty-three could race. Almirola qualified his No. 20 car on pole position with a time of 29.608 seconds. Almirola was set to step aside for the race, however, as Nextel Cup Series regular Denny Hamlin was scheduled to travel from Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California to compete in the Saturday night event in Milwaukee. Almirola, who also qualified Hamlin's car on the pole the year before, commented, "Man, two poles in a row at Milwaukee and I don't get to race. Something's got to be set for that. I'll sit on the pit box and watch. I've got a lot to learn about racing these Busch cars and Denny is really, really good, so I'll just sit there and listen and learn all I can from Denny."
Almirola was joined on the front row by Leffler, while Wimmer, Coleman, and Huffman rounded out the top-five qualifiers. Bodine, Benson, Reutimann, Edwards, and Lagasse made up positions six through ten. Danny Efland was the only driver who failed to qualify as he did not set a qualifying time. Edwards replaced Kvapil in the No. 60 car after practice, qualifying in ninth. Like Hamlin, Edwards was also traveling from Sonoma and nearly missed qualifying, later remarking, "One minute later, we wouldn't have made it."
### Race
The 250-lap race began at 8:00 p.m. EDT, and was televised live in the United States on ESPN2. Hamlin's helicopter could not find a place to land in the infield; the helicopter pad was blocked by parked cars, forcing Hamlin to land elsewhere and arrive late via ground transportation. Hamlin was thus unable to start the race in Almirola's car, forcing Almirola to start the race himself. Ragan, the third Nextel Cup regular traveling to the track from Sonoma along with Hamlin and Edwards, replaced Darnell in Roush's No. 6 car; Ragan was forced to move to the rear of the field because of the driver swap and an engine change, as was Chase Miller who went to a backup car.
Almirola maintained his lead from pole position for the first 43 laps before being passed by Edwards. The caution had been displayed on lap 30 due to oil on the track in turn four, and shortly after the lap 43 restart, Edwards took over the lead of the race. On lap 57, Ron Hornaday Jr. was involved in an accident, prompting another caution period. It was under this caution period that the Gibbs team elected to make the driver change, and Hamlin took over driving the car for the remainder of the race.
Hamlin lost a lap and fell to 34th place, remaining a lap down until lap 149 when he received the free pass, allowing him to return to the lead lap. Edwards, meanwhile, continued to lead the race for a total of 123 laps, before Mike Wallace assumed the race lead. Six laps later, on lap 173, Hamlin completed his comeback drive to retake the lead for the No. 20 team. Edwards, meanwhile, suffered misfortune in the form of a flat right rear tire around the same period in the race, forcing him to pit with 77 laps remaining.
On lap 223, Kreyer was involved in an accident, causing the caution to be displayed again. Wimmer assumed the lead after pit stops, holding it until the caution came out again for Kevin Hamlin's accident. On the restart, Wimmer battled for the lead with Leffler, while Hamlin made it three-wide to retake the lead with thirteen laps to go. Marc Mitchell, Richard Johns, and Brent Sherman crashed on lap 244, requiring another caution to be displayed. The race restarted with four laps remaining, with Hamlin retaining the lead to the finish. Since NASCAR rules credit the finishing position to the starting driver, Almirola was awarded the win. Wimmer, Leffler, and Coleman followed in second through fourth, while Keller, Bodine, Reutimann, Edwards, Benson, and Huffman completed the top-ten. Hamlin's margin of victory over Wimmer was .502 seconds.
### Post-race comments
Hamlin appeared in Victory Lane to represent Almirola's first career win in front of a crowd of 41,900 attendants, earning \$66,823 for the victory; both the win and the prize money were credited to Almirola, while team president J. D. Gibbs confirmed that Almirola would receive the winner's check. Hamlin credited Almirola for putting the team in a good position prior to the race, saying Almirola "did all the hard work". Runner-up Wimmer was taken aback that Gibbs elected to make the driver change: "I was surprised they did it, because Aric was running a good race." He also believed fewer caution periods may have given him a better chance to win the race, saying, "I just drove as hard as I could, and unfortunately we weren't as good on the short runs. We'd get going after twenty laps, and I didn't need those cautions. Maybe we'll get a win one day. Maybe we won't. I don't know." Gibbs explained that Almirola was frustrated after being taken out of the car: "He's upset. I left a message for him [Saturday] night. I know he's upset. I would be too if I'm in his shoes." He also expressed relief that Hamlin was able to win the race, arguing, "Thank goodness he won. It would have looked bad if he didn't."
When explaining why the team made the decision to put Hamlin in the car, Gibbs said, "I told those guys as a group, if you think Denny can get in the car and win the race, let's go. Let's do that. If you don't think he can do that, let Aric run it out. Our guys kind of thought about it as a group and said, 'OK, we think Denny can run well and we're fast enough to win the race.' That was a huge discouragement of course to Aric." Other reasons included sponsorship obligations with Rockwell Automation, which sponsored the No. 20 car. Coleman, a Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, believed, "That might have had something to do with it." Almirola also expressed his belief that Rockwell, who are headquartered in Wisconsin, wanted Hamlin to drive during the race. "I totally understand the Gibbs side of the situation. You need that Cup superstar to sell sponsorship. It's not easy to sell sponsorship for somebody who hasn't proven themselves yet, and I understand that. At the time, in the heat of the moment, I was deep in the battle of the race. I didn't totally agree and understand the situation. But looking back on it now, I understand it. Rockwell's invested a lot in Denny Hamlin and Joe Gibbs Racing, so they deserved everything they got there at Milwaukee. They deserved to have their racecar in the spotlight and I was happy that I got the pole for them and that Denny won the race." He also said he did not consider himself to have won his first career race. "I feel like I was a part of it, but by no way, shape or form do I feel like that was my first victory. I feel like my first victory is still to come and I'll actually be in the car when it crosses the start-finish line for that one."
The driver change also attracted criticism from ESPN journalist Terry Blount, who called it "a Busch-league move", writing: "As if we don't have enough Cup dominance in the Busch Series, now they're replacing Busch drivers after a race starts." He continued, "Almirola was furious. Good for him. He should be furious. If a driver isn't angry about getting pulled from the car in the middle of a race, then he needs to take up another profession."
Edwards, who led the most laps and recovered to finish eighth after dominating the early stages of the race, insisted the night was "still fun", saying: "It was pretty frustrating. But you know what's cool? We raced hard and we had a lot of fun racing here at Milwaukee. Congratulations to Denny Hamlin. I can't believe they did a driver switch and he still won the race; that's pretty awesome ... we just kind of had a bad luck night."
The result kept Edwards in the lead in the Drivers' Championship with a new total of 2,686 points. Reutimann and Ragan improved their positions to second and third (albeit 776 and 846 points behind) respectively, while Blaney and Kevin Harvick fell to fourth and fifth. Leffler, Ambrose, Hamilton, Smith, and Leicht rounded out the top ten. Roush's No. 60 team also maintained the lead in a much closer Owners' Championship with 2,686 points; Wimmer's strong second-place finish left Childress's No. 29 team only 188 points behind Roush, while Gibbs's No. 20, Childress's No. 21, and DeLana Harvick's No. 33 remained third, fourth, and fifth. Chevrolet maintained their lead in the Manufacturers' Championship with 124 points; Ford, Dodge, and Toyota followed with 113, 72, and 65 respective points.
## Results
### Qualifying
### Race results
## Standings after the race
- Note: Only the top ten and five positions are included for the driver and owner standings respectively.
|
5,404,557 |
Russian battleship Rostislav
| 1,102,015,094 |
Russian battleship
|
[
"1896 ships",
"Battleships of the Imperial Russian Navy",
"Maritime incidents in 1920",
"Potemkin mutiny",
"Scuttled vessels",
"Shipwrecks in the Black Sea",
"Shipwrecks of Russia",
"World War I battleships of Russia"
] |
Rostislav was a pre-dreadnought battleship built by the Nikolaev Admiralty Shipyard in the 1890s for the Black Sea Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy. She was conceived as a small, inexpensive coastal defence ship, but the Navy abandoned the concept in favor of a compact, seagoing battleship with a displacement of 8,880 long tons (9,020 t). Poor design and construction practices increased her actual displacement by more than 1,600 long tons (1,600 t). Rostislav became the world's first capital ship to burn fuel oil, rather than coal. Her combat ability was compromised by the use of 10-inch (254 mm) main guns instead of the de facto Russian standard of 12 inches (305 mm).
Her hull was launched in September 1896, but non-delivery of the ship's main guns delayed her maiden voyage until 1899 and her completion until 1900. In May 1899 Rostislav became the first ship of the Imperial Navy to be commanded by a member of the House of Romanov, Captain Alexander Mikhailovich. From 1903 to 1912 the ship was the flagship of the second-in-command of the Black Sea Fleet. During the 1905 Russian Revolution her crew was on the verge of mutiny, but ultimately remained loyal to the regime, and actively suppressed the mutiny of the cruiser Ochakov.
Rostislav was actively engaged in World War I until the collapse of the Black Sea Fleet in the beginning of 1918. She was the first Russian ship to fire on enemy targets on land during World War I, the first to be hit by a German airstrike, and the first to destroy a submarine, albeit a Russian one. In April 1918 the fleeing Bolsheviks abandoned Rostislav in Sevastopol. A year later the British occupation forces disabled her engines. The White forces used the ship as a towed floating battery, then scuttled her in the Kerch Strait in November 1920.
## Design and description
Similar in size to earlier coastal defence ships but seaworthy for operations in the Black Sea, Rostislav was conceived in 1892 as a cheap and compact platform for 12-inch guns. Admiral Nikolay Chikhachov, Chief of the Ministry of the Navy, envisioned a squadron of such ships, each displacing 4,000 to 5,000 long tons (4,100 to 5,100 t), that would fit into his total desired displacement target of 24,000 long tons (24,400 t). Chief designer of the Nikolaev Shipyard, Sergey Ratnik, evaluated Chikhachov's request for proposals, and advised against the idea in general. The Naval Technical Committee (NTC) concurred: any meaningful combination of firepower, armor, speed and stability required at least 6,000 long tons (6,100 t). The NTC discarded Ratnik's advice to build an improved copy of the battleship Sissoi Veliky of 8,880 long tons (9,020 t), but did not present a definite alternative. The NTC declined to discuss tactical matters, leaving the choice of armament to Chikhachov.
Chikhachov instructed Andrey Toropov of the Nikolaev Shipyard to draft two proposals, one armed with 10-inch and the other with 12-inch guns. Toropov estimated that the ship should have displaced at least 8,880 tons. Chikhachov admitted the fact and presented the two options to the NTC. The admiral himself and the active fleet commanders voted for the 12-inch caliber, which had already become a worldwide battleship standard, but the NTC strongly advised against it. The Navy brass spent April and May 1893 in lengthy debates. They agreed to increase displacement to 8,880 tons and were leaning toward accepting 12-inch guns when General Admiral Grand Duke Alexey resolved the discussion in favor of the smaller caliber.
Rostislav had the same hull as Sissoi Veliky, protected with the newly developed Harvey armor. She was also the first Russian battleship to use electric power instead of older hydraulic systems to train her guns.
### General characteristics
Rostislav was 345 feet 6 inches (105.3 m) long at the waterline and 351 feet 10 inches (107.2 m) long overall. She had a beam of 68 feet (20.7 m) and a draft of 25 feet 2 inches (7.7 m). She displaced 10,520 long tons (10,690 t), over 1,500 long tons (1,500 t) more than her designed displacement of 8,880 long tons (9,020 t). This weight gain increased her draft by about 3 feet (0.9 m), submerging most, if not all, of her waterline armored belt.
### Propulsion
Rostislav had two vertical triple-expansion steam engines, identical to those of Sissoi Veliky, that had a total designed output of 8,500 indicated horsepower (6,300 kW). Eight cylindrical fire-tube boilers provided steam to the engines, each of which drove one propeller. Half of the boilers were coal-fired and the other half were oil-fired, making Rostislav the first capital ship in the world to use fuel oil. This was done in order to substitute cheap oil from Baku for expensive imported coal. On sea trials, the power plant produced a total of 8,816 ihp (6,574 kW) and a top speed of 15.8 knots (29.3 km/h; 18.2 mph). She carried a maximum of 820 long tons (830 t) of fuel oil and coal at full load that provided a range of 3,100 nautical miles (5,700 km; 3,600 mi) at a speed of 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph).
### Armament
The main armament consisted of two pairs of 10-inch (254 mm) 45-caliber Model 1891 guns mounted in French-style, center-pivot twin gun turrets fore and aft. Each turret had an arc of fire of 240°. These guns had a maximum elevation of +15° and could depress to −5°. They fired a 496.5-pound (225.2 kg) shell at a muzzle velocity of 2,273 ft/s (693 m/s). At an elevation of +6° the guns had a range 7,320 metres (8,010 yd). All eight of the 45-caliber, 6-inch (152 mm) Canet Pattern 1891 guns were mounted in twin-gun turrets on the main deck. Each turret was positioned at a corner of the superstructure and had an arc of fire of 110°. They fired shells that weighed 91.4 lb (41.46 kg) with a muzzle velocity of 2,600 ft/s (792 m/s). They had a maximum range of 12,602 yards (11,523 m) when fired at an elevation of +20°.
The anti-torpedo boat armament consisted of twelve 47-millimetre (1.9 in) Hotchkiss guns. Eight of these were mounted in the superstructure and the locations of the remaining four are unclear. They fired a 2.2-pound (1.00 kg) shell at a muzzle velocity of 1,400 ft/s (430 m/s). The ship also mounted sixteen 37-millimetre (1.5 in) Hotchkiss guns, eight of which were carried in the fighting top. The locations of the other eight are unknown. They fired a 1.1-pound (0.50 kg) shell at a muzzle velocity of 2,150 ft/s (660 m/s).
Rostislav carried six 15-inch (381 mm) torpedo tubes. The bow and stern tubes and the aft pair of broadside tubes were above water. The forward broadside tubes were underwater. The ship carried 50 mines to be used to protect her anchorage.
### Protection
The maximum thickness of the Rostislav's waterline belt was 14.5 inches (368 mm), tapering to 10 inches (254 mm) abreast the magazines. It covered 227 feet (69.2 m) of the ship's length and was 7 feet (2.1 m) high. While the exact height of the belt above the designed waterline is unknown, much of it, if not all, would have been below the waterline as the ship's draft was over 3 feet (0.9 m) deeper than designed. The belt terminated forward in a 9-inch (229 mm) transverse bulkhead and aft in a 5-inch (127 mm) bulkhead. The upper belt was 5 inches thick, 7 feet 6 inches (2.3 m) high and covered 160 feet (48.8 m) of the ship's side. The sides of the main gun turrets were 10 inches thick and they had 2.5-inch (64 mm) roofs. The sides of the 6-inch turrets were 6 inches thick as were the sides of the conning tower. The armor deck was flat and located at the upper edge of the main belt. It was 2 inches (51 mm) thick. Below the waterline, forward and aft of the armored citadel, were 3-inch (76 mm) decks.
## Construction
Work on Rostislav commenced on January 30, 1894. The ship was officially christened May 20, 1894; in line with Russian tradition, the formal laying down ceremony was delayed until May 19, 1895. The contract for oil-firing boilers and engines was awarded to Baltic Works. The armor was rolled in the United States by Bethlehem Steel within the framework of an earlier contract for Petropavlovsk-class battleships. Bethlehem Steel faced the scrutiny of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs for charging the Russians an unusually low "introductory" price of \$250 to \$300 per ton, compared to \$600 to \$660 paid by the United States Navy. Senator Benjamin Tillman publicly accused Bethlehem and Carnegie of price fixing and robbing the American taxpayer.
Rostislav's hull was launched on September 2, 1896. Lack of proper cranes in Nikolaev made the installation of its engines exceedingly difficult, to the point that the navy even considered towing the hull to Sevastopol for completion. The Nikolaev engineers eventually resolved the problem and the ship was ready to sail in July 1897. Rostislav conducted her speed trials on October 21, 1898, still missing her main guns. Her power plant performed flawlessly, but its weight exceeded the design target by more than 295 long tons (300 t).
Non-delivery of the new 10-inch Model 1897 guns, made by the Obukhov Factory in Saint Petersburg for Rostislav, Admiral Ushakov-class coastal defense ships and Peresvet-class battleships, delayed the completion of the ship by two years. One of these guns, earmarked for Admiral Ushakov, exploded at the proving ground and the whole batch was subjected to exhaustive tests and, when possible, repairs. Guns Number 16 through Number 19 passed the tests and were delivered to Sevastopol in July and August 1899. Rostislav was able to sail to her first gunnery trial on April 12, 1900. On the second day of shooting practice the recoil mechanisms of her forward turret failed and more defects were discovered back at the base. Rostislav spent the rest of the spring having her gun mounts repaired, but the problem persisted and the Navy "solved" it by prohibiting them from being used. The gun mounts were rebuilt along the pattern of those used by the armored cruiser Admiral Nakhimov in 1901 and 1902, and Rostislav successfully passed the gunnery tests in June 1902. The ship's electrical turret controls, with their 332 contact pairs, required tedious maintenance and proved too complex for most of the enlisted men.
## Service
On May 1, 1899, Captain Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich assumed command of Rostislav, becoming the first Romanov since Peter I to command a combat ship. Another Romanov, Grand Duke Kirill, spent a few uneventful months on board Rostislav in 1900. Alexander's guests, parties and diplomatic visits to Istanbul regularly interfered with the crew's duties, but he personally managed the repairs and alterations of the ship's equipment. Shipyards and contractors treated Rostislav as a priority customer. Alexander, based on his experience with Sissoi Veliky, persuaded the NTC to reinforce Rostislav's rudder frame and supervised installation of a backup control post deep under the conning tower. In 1903 Alexander was promoted to rear admiral and returned to his ship as a squadron commander. Rostislav served as the junior flagship of the Black Sea Fleet until September 1912.
The 1900 season revealed grave problems with Rostislav's boilers. Black smoke from burning oil was more conspicuous than coal smoke. Uneven distribution of heat inside the boilers caused severe local overheating, buckling of fireboxes and sudden backdrafts. For three and a half months the boilers failed one by one, starting with small auxiliary power units and ending with the main boilers. Oil delivered by the Rothschild-controlled Russian Standard Oil was not at fault; similar problems were experienced by oil-fired ships of the Baltic Fleet. Repairs and alterations of the power plant continued until 1904, when the continuing boiler failures compelled the Navy to dispense with oil fuel and convert Rostislav to coal in 1904 and 1905. Each round of repairs and alterations added more weight to the already overweight ship, and by 1907 the ship's belt armor was completely below the waterline.
The Tsentralka, the group plotting a mutiny of the Black Sea Fleet, decided on June 25, 1905, that the mutiny should start on Potemkin rather than Rostislav. On June 27, 1905, the day of the battleship Potemkin mutiny, Rostislav was sailing under the ensign of Vice Admiral Alexander Krieger. Nicholas II ordered Krieger and his superior, fleet commander Grigory Chukhnin, to destroy the rebels by force, but the admirals refrained from shooting. They let the rebels flee to Odessa and later to Romania. Krieger's own crew was on the verge of open mutiny. On July 2, 1905, a military council held on board Rostislav decided to moor the ships in Odessa, disconnect the engines from the propellers and let the enlisted men walk ashore at will. By the time of the Ochakov mutiny in November 1905, fleet morale had improved and Krieger did not hesitate to fire two 10-inch and fourteen 6-inch shells against the rebels.
### Exercises and casualties
After the Battle of Tsushima the Imperial Navy concentrated on improving their gunnery skills and fire-control practices. In 1908 Alexei Krylov and Yevgeny Berkalov led Rostislav on an unprecedented long-range gunnery shoot: Rostislav fired 330 ten-inch shells at a distance of 8 to 10 miles (13 to 16 km) in a few days. The experiment proved that the older ballistic tables used by the Navy were inaccurate. Berkalov compiled the data from the 1908 exercise into the new tables adopted by the Navy. Another of Krylov's initiatives, rapid counter-flooding, was standardized in 1909.
Two plans for modernizing the ship were put forward before World War I. In 1907 the Naval General Staff proposed a major reconstruction aimed at reducing her draft and raising her armor belt higher out of the water. Her above-water torpedo tubes, torpedo nets, auxiliary boilers and 47-millimeter guns would have been removed, her superstructure cut down and her rigging reduced to a single pole mast. These changes would have reduced her displacement by 250 long tons (250 t), but the plan was rejected due to a shortage of money. Her above-water torpedo tubes, however, were removed about this time. In 1912 the staff of the Black Sea Fleet proposed to replace all of her 47 mm guns with four 75-millimetre (3 in) guns and to remove the auxiliary boilers and the submerged torpedo tubes to offset the additional weight. The Naval General Staff did not think that this was worth the cost and rejected the plan. Even though these plans did not come to fruition, other alterations were made to Rostislav before the war. A dozen of her 37 mm guns were removed in 1906, and she was fitted with 15-foot (4.6 m) rangefinders, probably made by Barr and Stroud, in 1907 and 1908.
In 1909 and 1910, Rostislav and the rest of the Black Sea Fleet prepared for joint operations with submarines. She was scheduled for an installation of the first Russian underwater acoustic communication system, but the installation was interrupted and her hardware was installed on the battleship Panteleimon (the former Potemkin) instead. During an anti-submarine exercise on the night of June 11, 1909, Rostislav accidentally rammed and sank the submarine Kambala. Twenty men of Kambala and two rescue divers died. The accident was blamed on reckless maneuvering by the submarine, and Rostislav's captain was cleared of any negligence or wrongdoing.
### Diplomatic incidents
Before the outbreak of World War I Rostislav was involved in two minor international incidents. On August 11, 1911, Evstafi and Panteleimon, two of the Black Sea Fleet battleships paying a state visit to Romania, ran aground on a shoal just off the port of Constanța. Rostislav's officers had detected the hazard and steered her to safety, but did not alert the other ships. The international embarrassment that followed led to the resignation of fleet commander Admiral Ivan Bostrem. During the First Balkan War Rostislav sailed into the Sea of Marmara to protect the Russian Embassy in Istanbul from a mob. Rostislav accidentally fired a live shell into the Turkish defenses. No one was injured during the incident, and the captain defused the situation with a personal apology to the Ottoman government.
### World War I
Rostislav spent the winter of 1913–14 refitting, and in April 1914 she returned to the active fleet with newly overhauled machinery, new rangefinders and new gun sights. The ship made 15.37 knots (28.47 km/h; 17.69 mph) on her post-refit trials.
On November 4, 1914, the Black Sea Fleet sailed out on its first combat operation of the war: the bombardment of Zonguldak. The operation was conceived as a retaliation against the Turkish-German attack on Sevastopol. Rostislav, captained by Kazimierz Porębski, was the "designated gunboat" while other Russian battleships formed a defensive screen around her. On November 6 she fired 251 shells at the port of Zonguldak, reducing it to rubble. On November 18 the ship faced Goeben during the Battle of Cape Sarych, but the German ship broke contact before Rostislav, trailing behind the Russian formation, even spotted her. Rostislav had other encounters with Goeben in 1915 and 1916, but did not engage her directly. In 1915 the ship received four 75 mm anti-aircraft guns.
After the commissioning of the Imperatritsa Mariya-class dreadnoughts, the old battleships were split into independent combat groups. Rostislav became the flagship of the Batumi Group tasked with supporting the ground operations of the Caucasus Army. Their first joint action began February 5, 1916, near Arhavi. On the first day alone the ship fired 400 shells against the Turks. On March 4 Rostislav and the gunboats Kubanetz and Donetz supported the amphibious landing at Atina. Three days later she supported the landing of marines that ended in the capture of Rize. At the end of March Rostislav and Panteleimon forced the Turks to evacuate Trabzon.
In the summer of 1916 the Navy seriously considered an all-out amphibious assault on the Bosphorus. Fleet commander Andrei Eberhardt anticipated a high risk of naval mine and torpedo hits in the coastal waters and suggested equipping all pre-dreadnought battleships with anti-torpedo bulges. Sinop had her bulges fitted in Nikolaev in July 1916, and Rostislav was next in line, but the work was cancelled in August, and she was transferred to the Romanian coast as flagship of the Constanța Group. Constanța temporarily became an important logistical hub for the Russian troops heading to the Romanian Front, and the base for minelayers, submarines and destroyers harassing the enemy in the Bosphorus area. The Germans responded with air raids; their first aerial success against a Russian naval target was scored against Rostislav. The bomb hit the edge of the aft 10-inch turret and injured sixteen sailors. The turret itself remained fully operational. The collapse of the Romanian Front in October 1916 forced the Navy to evacuate Constanța. Rostislav returned to Sevastopol for a much-needed overhaul.
### Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 did not demoralize the Black Sea Fleet as quickly as the Baltic Fleet. Captain Fyodor Stark, a former destroyer commander, maintained Rostislav in combat-ready condition until the end of the year. The battleship sailed out for her last voyage to Batumi in September and October. Stark managed to contain the radical politics, anti-German sentiment and Ukrainization of the crew, but nevertheless raised the flag of Ukraine on his return to Sevastopol on October 25. From this moment desertion and "volunteering" into the Red Guards intensified, and by December 21 the crew was reduced to 460 enlisted men and 28 officers. In January 1918 the fleet disintegrated completely: the officers fled from the enraged enlisted men, then the enlisted men abandoned the ships and fled from the advancing German Army. On April 29, 1918, the Bolsheviks managed to extricate two battleships and sixteen destroyers from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk, but Rostislav and the rest of the fleet remained in Sevastopol.
The German occupation of Crimea from May to November 1918 did not affect the abandoned ship. The Anglo-French forces that replaced the Germans stayed in Sevastopol until April 1919. Before leaving, the British wrecked Rostislav's engines on April 25 to prevent the ship from being any use to the advancing Soviets. The White forces of Baron Wrangel used the disabled ship as a floating battery in the Sea of Azov. The ship, manned by a ragtag volunteer crew, was stationed in the shallow waters of the Kerch Strait to harass the Reds in Taman and prevent a landing in the Crimea. After the defeat of Wrangel's land forces, the crew scuttled Rostislav in the Kerch Strait to prevent the Red forces from breaking through to the Black Sea.
When Rostislav sank in the shallows her superstructure remained above water. In 1930, the EPRON (a Soviet salvage unit) retrieved the ship's guns and partially dismantled the hull. According to diver Alexander Yolkin, the remains of the hull are still lying in the strait, around 1,200 metres (1,300 yd) from the Ukrainian coast, and gradually sinking into the silt.
|
1,123,257 |
1995 Japanese Grand Prix
| 1,138,400,672 |
Formula One motor race
|
[
"1995 Formula One races",
"1995 in Japanese motorsport",
"Japanese Grand Prix",
"October 1995 sports events in Asia"
] |
The 1995 Japanese Grand Prix (formally the XXI Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held at the Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka on 29 October 1995. It was the sixteenth and penultimate race of the 1995 Formula One World Championship. The 53-lap race was won from pole position by German Michael Schumacher, driving a Benetton-Renault, with Finn Mika Häkkinen second in a McLaren-Mercedes and Schumacher's British teammate Johnny Herbert third.
Jean Alesi, driving for Ferrari, started second, alongside Schumacher. However, Alesi was forced to serve a 10-second stop-and-go penalty because his car moved forward before the start. Alesi climbed back up to second, before retiring on lap 25. Schumacher's rival in the Drivers' Championship, Damon Hill, started fourth amidst pressure from the British media after poor performances at previous races. Hill moved up to second because of Alesi's retirement, but spun off the track on lap 40.
Schumacher's win was his ninth of the season, matching the record set in 1992 by Nigel Mansell. Benetton was confirmed Constructors' Champions as Williams could not pass its points total in the one remaining race.
## Background
Heading into the penultimate race of the season, Benetton driver Michael Schumacher had already won the season's Drivers' Championship, having clinched the title at the previous race, the . Schumacher led the championship with 92 points; Damon Hill was second with 59 points. A maximum of 20 points were available for the remaining two races, which meant that Hill could not catch Schumacher. Although the Drivers' Championship was decided, the Constructors' Championship was not. Benetton were leading on 123 points and Williams were second with 102 points heading into the 16th race, with a maximum of 32 points available. In the week leading up to the race, Hill was criticised by the British media after poor performances in previous races; there was continued speculation that Williams were going to replace him with Heinz-Harald Frentzen or Gerhard Berger for the 1996 season. Despite the rumours, Williams team boss Frank Williams gave Hill "an unequivocal vote of confidence" heading into the race.
There were two driver changes heading into the race. Having been in one of the two Sauber cars since the fifth race of the season at Monaco, Jean-Christophe Boullion was released from the team and replaced by Karl Wendlinger. The Austrian was given another chance to prove himself after suffering an accident at the 1994 Monaco Grand Prix, which left him in a coma for weeks. The second driver change was Mika Häkkinen's return to McLaren after missing the Pacific Grand Prix because of an operation for appendicitis.
## Practice and qualifying
Two practice sessions were held before the race; the first was held on Friday morning and the second on Saturday morning. Both sessions lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes with weather conditions dry throughout. Schumacher was fastest in the first session, posting a time of 1:40.410, two-tenths of a second quicker than Häkkinen. The Williams and Ferrari cars occupied the remaining top six positions; Williams drivers Hill and David Coulthard third and fifth respectively. The Ferrari cars were fourth and sixth fastest; Jean Alesi ahead of Berger. Häkkinen lapped faster than Schumacher in the second practice session with a time of 1:40.389. Eddie Irvine took second place in the Jordan car, three-tenths of a second behind Häkkinen. Hill was third in the Williams, two-tenths behind Häkkinen, with Schumacher fourth behind Hill. The Ferrari cars were fifth and eighth; Alesi in front of Berger. Frentzen's Sauber and Coulthard's Williams split the Ferrari drivers. Despite both the Williams cars going off into the gravel, Hill and Coulthard made the top 10.
The qualifying session was split into two one-hour sessions; the first was held on Friday afternoon with the second held on Saturday afternoon. The fastest time from either sessions counted towards their final grid position. Schumacher clinched his tenth career pole position, in his Benetton B195, with a time of 1:38.023. He was joined on the front row by Alesi, who was eight-tenths of a second behind. Schumacher was particularly pleased with the performance of his Benetton, saying that "I have rarely had such a good car ... I think I can be confident for the race". Alesi was satisfied about his performance, but worried about a mechanical problem which had caused him to crash on Friday, accusing the Ferrari team of withholding information from him. Alesi was scheduled to leave Ferrari for Benetton in a swap with Schumacher at the end of the season, and the relationship between him and the team was becoming increasingly strained. Häkkinen was third in the McLaren, with Hill fourth, a second slower than Schumacher. Despite Häkkinen's best qualifying effort of the season alongside his Belgium third place, his teammate, Mark Blundell, had a disappointing qualifying session. In the first part of qualifying, Blundell crashed into the wall, meaning he could not set a time as his car was too badly damaged. Blundell had his second crash of the weekend at the 130R corner in Saturday practice, which was more serious than the first. Following medical advice, Blundell did not participate in the second qualifying session. He was unable to set a time, leaving him at the back of the grid. Aguri Suzuki crashed his Ligier during Saturday qualifying; he was unable to start the race since he was in a hospital with a broken rib.
### Qualifying classification
## Warm-up
The drivers took to the track at 09:30 JST (GMT +9) for a 30-minute warmup session. Despite underperforming in qualifying, both Williams cars performed better in the wet weather warmup session; Hill had the fastest time of 2:00.025. Coulthard was third in the other Williams car; Schumacher split them in second position. Alesi completed the top four, eight-tenths of a second behind Hill.
## Race
The track surface was damp for most of the race, which meant that lap times were slower than the previous days' qualifying sessions. Though 24 cars qualified for the race, only 22 took the start: Suzuki was unable to start because of his crash in qualifying and Roberto Moreno's Forti car suffered a gearbox problem. For the first time since the Japanese Grand Prix was held at Suzuka in 1987, tickets for the race did not sell out, despite the fact that three Japanese drivers entered the race.
The race started at 14:00 JST. All of the drivers opted to start on wet-weather tyres as the track was damp from the morning rain. Schumacher, from pole position on the grid, held onto the lead into the first corner. Alesi, who started alongside Schumacher, was judged to have jumped the start, and served a 10-second stop-and-go penalty on lap three, from which he returned to the race in tenth place. Alesi's teammate Berger also jumped the start and received the same penalty. Gianni Morbidelli, near the back of the field in one of the Footwork cars, spun at the first corner on lap one after being hit from behind by Wendlinger's Sauber. Morbidelli stalled his car in the process, forcing him to retire from the race. On lap seven, Alesi stopped at the pits to change to dry weather slick tyres, as the track was beginning to dry. On returning to the race, he began to make his way through the field constantly recording fastest laps; the first of which was 1:54.416, five seconds faster than the remainder of the field. Schumacher made a pit stop on lap 10 for slicks, handing the lead to Häkkinen for a lap before he too pitted. Alesi's progress was interrupted when he spun attempting to pass Pedro Lamy's Minardi for 15th place, but he made his way up to second by lap 10, overtaking Hill around the outside in the final chicane to take the place. Alerted by Alesi's pace on the slick tyres, the other drivers came into the pits to change to slick tyres.
The two Jordan cars collided on lap 15. Rubens Barrichello spun in the final chicane when he attempted to brake later than his teammate Irvine. Barrichello hit a wall, which damaged his car's rear wing and caused him to retire from the race. Irvine was involved in another collision at the chicane on lap 20 when Frentzen hit him from behind. Irvine continued without damage, but Frentzen had to pit for a new front wing. At the front, Alesi was lapping faster than Schumacher, even though Schumacher was on dry tyres. Alesi was only six seconds behind Schumacher when his Ferrari 412T2 suffered an apparent differential failure on lap 25. It was later discovered that the problem was a driveshaft failure, possibly as a result of his earlier spin. Schumacher made a pit stop for a second time on lap 31, returning to the race in second place behind Hill. Schumacher set the fastest lap of the race on lap 33, and regained his lead on the next lap when Hill made his pit stop. Behind them, Häkkinen and Coulthard were third and fourth respectively before their pit stops, but Coulthard pitted six laps later than Häkkinen and returned to the track in third place, one place ahead of the Finn. Johnny Herbert was fifth in the second Benetton car after the second round of pit stops, with Irvine rounding out the point-scoring places in sixth.
At this stage, the rain began to fall again, but only at the Spoon Curve end of the track. The Williams drivers were second and third until Hill ran off the track at Spoon Curve two laps after his pit stop. He damaged his front wing in the process and returned to the track in fourth. Hill returned to the pits to let his pit crew replace the damaged wing. He rejoined fifth, but was then given a ten-second stop-and-go penalty for speeding in the pitlane. Coulthard made the same mistake as his teammate by running through the gravel trap at the Spoon Curve but looked like he was going to escape with only minor damage. However, as he braked for 130R, the next corner, the gravel which had entered his sidepods flew out, causing him to lose control and get his car stuck in the gravel trap. Hill was told by his team on the radio to speed up as he had not yet taken his stop-and-go penalty, but later that lap he spun off at Spoon Curve and retired from the race without having taken the penalty. Blundell, Irvine and Frentzen also left the track at Spoon Curve but all finished the race. With his closest challenger out, Schumacher won the race after 53 laps to secure his ninth victory of the season in a time of 1:36:52.930. The win, along with Herbert's third place and the retirements of Hill and Coulthard, gave Benetton the 1995 Constructors' Championship. Häkkinen finished second in his McLaren, 20 seconds behind Schumacher. Irvine was fourth in his Jordan with Olivier Panis fifth in his Ligier. Mika Salo took sixth place and the final point in his Tyrrell. Despite starting last, Blundell finished in seventh, just 1.6 seconds behind Salo. The delayed Frentzen, Luca Badoer, Wendlinger, Lamy and Taki Inoue completed the finishers.
## Post-race
This was Schumacher's last win for Benetton, as he moved to the Ferrari team for the 1996 season. Herbert reiterated Schumacher's opinion by stating that Benetton did "a fantastic job". Hill was disappointed about the race and the season as a whole; he said afterwards:
> Just when you think that it couldn't get any worse, it does. There is no easy way out of this, you just have to keep pressing on. The easiest thing to do is to give up, and it would probably be less painful that way, but that is not an option. While we were in the race we were competitive and I was in with a shout, I suppose, all the time I was on the track. But things took a massive turn for the worse, I am afraid. I drove through the rain and the second time I spun off I think it was oil rather than rain. It is not a glorious end to the season but the ingredients are all there and there is no reason why we should not get into the winning habit again.
As a result of Hill not taking his 10-second stop-and-go penalty because of his retirement, Williams were fined \$10,000 by Formula One's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). In an interview with Motor Sport magazine in 2008, Hill said that the 1995 season, as a whole, "went down, mentally, and it all just got to me". He also said he believed that it was in 1995 that Frank Williams and Patrick Head decided to replace him for the 1997 season.
1980 Formula One World Champion Alan Jones praised Alesi's performance, saying that it "will go down as one of the great drives in Grand Prix racing". Alesi stated that if his driveshaft had not failed, he would "have fought for it, all the way to the end". Alesi added that he believed he did not jump the start, but admitted that "the car crept forwards by a few centimetres" because of the downhill slope of the grid. In an interview with Autosport magazine in 2009, Alesi said that he went to see the race director before the race to see how he could avoid a penalty at the downhill start and that he was "totally fed up" with the penalty decision given. Berger also questioned his penalty, claiming that his car did not move before the green light went on.
### Race classification
## Championship standings after the race
- Bold text indicates the World Champions.
Drivers' Championship standings
Constructors' Championship standings
- Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.
|
18,502,182 |
Science Fiction Quarterly
| 1,114,052,986 |
US pulp science fiction magazine
|
[
"1940 establishments in the United States",
"1958 disestablishments in the United States",
"Columbia Publications",
"Defunct science fiction magazines published in the United States",
"Magazines disestablished in 1958",
"Magazines established in 1940",
"Magazines published in Massachusetts",
"Pulp magazines",
"Quarterly magazines published in the United States",
"Science fiction magazines established in the 1940s"
] |
Science Fiction Quarterly was an American pulp science fiction magazine that was published from 1940 to 1943 and again from 1951 to 1958. Charles Hornig served as editor for the first two issues; Robert A. W. Lowndes edited the remainder. Science Fiction Quarterly was launched by publisher Louis Silberkleit during a boom in science fiction magazines at the end of the 1930s. Silberkleit launched two other science fiction titles (Science Fiction and Future Fiction) at about the same time: all three ceased publication before the end of World War II, falling prey to slow sales and paper shortages. In 1950 and 1951, as the market improved, Silberkleit relaunched Future Fiction and Science Fiction Quarterly. By the time Science Fiction Quarterly ceased publication in 1958, it was the last surviving science fiction pulp magazine, all other survivors having changed to different formats.
Science Fiction Quarterly's policy was to reprint a novel in each issue as the lead story, and Silberkleit was able to obtain reprint rights to two early science fiction novels and several of Ray Cummings' books. Both Hornig and Lowndes were given minuscule budgets, and Hornig in particular had trouble finding good material to print. Lowndes did somewhat better, as he was able to call on his friends in the Futurians, a group of aspiring writers that included Isaac Asimov, James Blish, and Donald Wollheim. The second incarnation of the magazine also had a policy of running a lead novel, though in practice the lead stories were often well short of novel length. Among the better-known stories published by the magazine were "Second Dawn", by Arthur C. Clarke; "The Last Question", by Isaac Asimov; and "Common Time", by James Blish.
## Publishing history
Although science fiction (sf) had been published before the 1920s, it did not begin to coalesce into a separately marketed genre until the appearance in 1926 of Amazing Stories, a pulp magazine published by Hugo Gernsback. By the end of the 1930s, the field was booming. Louis Silberkleit, a publisher who had once worked for Gernsback, launched a pulp magazine in March 1939 titled Science Fiction, under his Blue Ribbon Magazines imprint. For an editor, Gernsback recommended Charles Hornig, who had edited Wonder Stories for Gernsback from 1933 to 1936. Silberkleit took the recommendation, and Hornig was hired in October 1938. Hornig had no office; he worked from home, coming into the office as needed to drop off manuscripts and dummy materials, and pick up typeset materials to proof. He was given broad freedom to select what he wanted to publish, since Silberkleit's chief editor, Abner J. Sundell, knew little about sf and did not get involved in running the magazine.
To spread his costs over more magazines, Silberkleit soon decided to launch two additional titles. In November 1939 the first issue of Future Fiction appeared; it was followed in July 1940 by Science Fiction Quarterly. Hornig was editor for all three of the magazines. In October 1940, Hornig, who was a pacifist, received his military call-up. He decided to move to California and register as a conscientious objector; he continued to edit the magazines from the west coast, but Silberkleit was unhappy with the arrangement. Silberkleit allowed Hornig to retain his post as editor of Science Fiction, and offered the editorship of the other two titles to Sam Moskowitz. Moskowitz declined, saying afterwards that he "would never strike at a man's job", but Donald Wollheim, a member of a group of aspiring writers called the Futurians, heard about the offer. Wollheim told Robert W. Lowndes, another member of the Futurians, about the opening, and urged him to write to Silberkleit. Lowndes later recalled Wollheim's idea: "In the letter, I'd suggest that it might be a good idea to add a science fiction title to the list, offering my services as editor at a slightly lower price than Hornig was being paid, and also find fault with all the other sf titles presently out, but particularly with Hornig's". Lowndes relates that Silberkleit took the bait and hired him in November 1940; Hornig recalls the separation as being by mutual consent because of his move to California. Lowndes subsequently agreed that this was likely to be the real reason Silberkleit replaced Hornig.
The first issues Lowndes was responsible for were the Spring 1941 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and the April 1941 issue of Future Fiction. Initially Silberkleit kept tighter control on Lowndes' editorial selections than he had over Hornig, vetoing five of the seven stories Lowndes proposed for the April 1941 Future, but by the August 1941 issue, Lowndes later recalled, Silberkleit "was satisfied that I knew what I was doing, and [...] didn't need to oversee any story I had accepted".
In 1950 Silberkleit revived Future Fiction, and the following year he brought back Science Fiction Quarterly, with the first issue of the new series dated May 1951. A new magazine, Dynamic Science Fiction, followed in 1952. All three were edited by Lowndes and all were in pulp format. Sales were satisfactory, but Silberkleit decided to experiment with the digest format, which was starting to become more popular. By the end of 1955 he had cancelled Dynamic Science Fiction, switched Future Fiction to digest format, and relaunched Science Fiction as a digest under a new title, Science Fiction Stories. Only Science Fiction Quarterly was left in pulp format—Silberkleit felt that a quarterly digest would not be as successful as a quarterly pulp. The pulps were dying off, and when Other Worlds switched to digest format in 1956, Science Fiction Quarterly became the only remaining sf magazine still being published as a pulp. In 1957 American News Company, one of the biggest magazine distributors, was liquidated, and the resulting changes in the national magazine distribution network, along with poor sales, finally killed Science Fiction Quarterly. The last issue was dated February 1958.
## Contents and reception
Silberkleit's magazines were given very limited budgets. Hornig worked with Julius Schwartz, a literary agent who was a friend of his; this gave him access to stories by the writers Schwartz represented, but Schwartz would not allow his authors' real names to be used unless they were paid at least one cent per word. Hornig could not afford to pay the one cent rate for everything he bought, so he paid half a cent a word for much of what he acquired through Schwartz, and ran those stories under pseudonyms. Unsurprisingly, given the low rates, the stories sent to Hornig had usually already been rejected by the better-paying markets. The result was mediocre fiction, even from the better known writers that Hornig was able to attract. The magazines paid on publication, rather than acceptance, and this slower payment also discouraged some authors from submitting material.
Science Fiction Quarterly was intended by Silberkleit to include a full-length novel in each issue. Silberkleit obtained permission from Hugo Gernsback to reprint two novels from Science Wonder Quarterly: The Moon Conquerors by R.H. Romans, and The Shot Into Infinity by Otto Willi Gail. Although these stories were somewhat dated, they were better quality than the fiction Hornig was able to obtain for his other magazines. When Lowndes took over, the policy of including a novel in every issue continued, and Silberkleit again obtained reprint rights to fill some of these slots, this time with Ray Cummings, five of whose novels would appear in Science Fiction Quarterly over the next two years, starting with Tarrano the Conqueror in the Summer 1941 issue. Lowndes bought many stories from the Futurians to fill the remaining space in the magazine. These were of variable quality, but overall Science Fiction Quarterly improved once Lowndes took control, and the fiction was as good as or better than the stories to be found in many of the contemporary magazines.
When the magazine was revived, the stated policy was still to publish lead novels and fill the remaining space with short stories, but in fact, with few exceptions, the lead fiction was not of novel length. There were no more reprints, as there had been for the first series. Lowndes was unable to pay his writers rates that were competitive with the magazines that were leading the field, but he was an able editor and produced a magazine of reasonable quality every quarter. The Futurians still occasionally appeared in Science Fiction Quarterly, but Lowndes also attracted some of the newer writers, such as Poul Anderson, William Tenn, and Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke's "Second Dawn", which appeared in the August 1951 issue, is among the better stories Lowndes was able to obtain; he also published Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question" in the November 1956 issue, and James Blish's "Common Time", in August 1953. Lowndes was also able to acquire some good quality nonfiction for the magazine, including a series of articles by James Blish on science in sf, and articles on science fiction by Thomas D. Clareson and L. Sprague de Camp. Blish, writing as William Atheling, Jr., commented in 1953 that Lowndes was doing a "surprisingly good job" with all of Silberkleit's science fiction magazines, despite the low rates and the slow payment to authors.
## Bibliographic details
Charles Hornig was the editor of the first two issues of the first incarnation of Science Fiction Quarterly; Robert W. Lowndes edited all the subsequent issues. The magazine was printed in pulp format throughout both series. The price was 25 cents throughout the first run, for 144 pages; the second series began at 25 cents, but the price increased to 35 cents for the August 1957 issue. The page count for the second series was 128 pages for much of the run, but from the November 1953 issue to the May 1957 issue it was 96 pages. The publisher for the first issue was Double Action Magazines, with offices in Holyoke, Massachusetts; thereafter the publisher was Columbia Publications for both versions of the magazine. Both Double Action and Columbia were owned by Louis Silberkleit.
There were three British reprints of the first series, all published by Gerald Swan. The Summer 1940 issue was reprinted twice. It appeared first (with cuts) as Yankee Science Fiction, issue 3, in February 1942, and then again, uncut, as a paperback, titled The Moon Conquerors, in 1943. The Winter 1941/42 issue was also reprinted in 1943, titled Into the Fourth Dimension and Other Stories.
Ten issues of the second series were reprinted in the U.K. by Thorpe & Porter. The issues, which were cut from the U.S. editions, appeared between February 1952 and August 1955, and corresponded to 10 of the first 13 issues, from May 1951 to May 1954. The omitted issues were November 1951, May 1952, and August 1953. The order of publication was not the same as for the US editions: the sequence was May 51/August 51/February 52/November 52/August 52/May 53/February 54/November 53/February 53/May 54. The first issue was 132 pages; the count was reduced to 130 pages for the second issue, then to 100 pages for two issues, and to 98 pages thereafter. The price was 2/- (10p) for the first two issues, and 1/- (5p) for the remaining eight issues.
There are no anthologies of stories drawn solely from Science Fiction Quarterly. However, in the 1960s Ivan Howard edited several anthologies for Silberkleit's publishing imprint, Belmont Books, with contents drawn solely from Silberkleit's magazines. One of these, Rare Science Fiction (1963), included three stories from Science Fiction Quarterly.
|
36,814,246 |
Eraserhead
| 1,172,048,061 |
1977 American horror film by David Lynch
|
[
"1970s American films",
"1970s English-language films",
"1970s avant-garde and experimental films",
"1977 directorial debut films",
"1977 films",
"1977 horror films",
"1977 independent films",
"American avant-garde and experimental films",
"American black-and-white films",
"American body horror films",
"American independent films",
"Films about dreams",
"Films about dysfunctional families",
"Films about nightmares",
"Films directed by David Lynch",
"Films shot in California",
"Films with screenplays by David Lynch",
"Surrealist films",
"United States National Film Registry films"
] |
Eraserhead is a 1977 American surrealist body horror film written, directed, produced, and edited by David Lynch. Lynch also created its score and sound design, which included pieces by a variety of other musicians. Shot in black and white, it was Lynch's first feature-length effort following several short films. Starring Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Jeanne Bates, Judith Anna Roberts, Laurel Near, and Jack Fisk, it tells the story of a man (Nance) who is left to care for his grossly deformed child in a desolate industrial landscape.
Eraserhead was produced with the assistance of the American Film Institute (AFI) during Lynch's time studying there. It nonetheless spent several years in principal photography because of funding difficulties; donations from Fisk and his wife Sissy Spacek as well as Nance's wife and crew member Catherine Coulson kept production afloat. It was shot on several locations owned by the AFI in California, including Greystone Mansion and a set of disused stables in which Lynch lived. Lynch and sound designer Alan Splet spent a year working on the film's audio after their studio was soundproofed. The soundtrack features organ music by Fats Waller and includes the song "In Heaven", written and performed for the film by Peter Ivers, with lyrics by Lynch.
Initially opening to small audiences and little interest, Eraserhead gained popularity over several long runs as a midnight movie. Since its release, it has earned positive reviews and is considered a cult film. Its surrealist imagery and sexual undercurrents have been seen as key thematic elements, and its intricate sound design as its technical highlight. In 2004, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
## Plot
Henry Spencer's face appears superimposed over a planet in space. He opens his mouth and a spermatozoon-like creature emerges. A man inside the planet throws levers and the creature swims away.
In an industrial cityscape, Henry walks home with his groceries. He is stopped outside his apartment by the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall, who informs him that his girlfriend, Mary, has invited him to dinner with her family. Henry leaves his groceries in his apartment, which is filled with piles of dirt and dead vegetation. That night, Henry visits Mary's home, conversing awkwardly with her mother. At the dinner table, he is asked to carve a chicken; the bird moves and writhes on the plate and gushes blood when cut. After dinner, Henry is cornered by Mary's mother, who tries to kiss him. She tells him that Mary has had his child and that the two must marry. Mary, however, is not sure if what she bore is a child.
The couple move into Henry's one-room apartment and begin caring for the child—a swaddled bundle with an inhuman, snake-like face that resembles the spermatozoon creature seen earlier. The infant refuses all food, crying incessantly and intolerably. The sound drives Mary hysterical, and she leaves Henry and the child. Henry attempts to care for the child, and he learns that it struggles to breathe and has developed painful sores.
Henry begins experiencing visions, again seeing the Man in the Planet, as well as a lady who inhabits his radiator and stomps more of the sperm creatures. After a sexual encounter with the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall, he has another vision in which the Lady in the Radiator sings ("In Heaven") and his head pops off while he is fidgeting, replaced by the baby's crying head. Henry's head falls from the sky, landing on a street and breaking open. A boy finds it and takes it to a pencil factory to be turned into erasers.
Awakened, Henry seeks out the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall, but finds her with another man. Crushed, Henry returns to his room. He takes a pair of scissors and for the first time removes the child's swaddling clothes. It is revealed that the child has no skin; the bandages held its internal organs together, and they spill apart after the rags are cut. The child gasps in pain, and Henry stabs its organs with the scissors. The wounds gush a thick liquid, covering the child. The power in the room overloads, causing the lights to flicker; as they flick on and off the child grows to huge proportions. As the lights burn out completely, the child's head is replaced by the planet seen at the beginning. Henry appears amidst a billowing cloud of eraser shavings. The side of the planet bursts apart, and inside, the Man in the Planet struggles with his levers, which are now emitting sparks. Henry is embraced warmly by the Lady in the Radiator, as both white light and white noise build to a crescendo before the screen turns black and silent.
## Cast
## Themes and analysis
Eraserhead's sound design has been considered one of its defining elements. Although the film features several hallmark visuals—the deformed infant and the sprawling industrial setting—these are matched by their accompanying sounds, as the "incessant mewling" and "evocative aural landscape" are paired with these respectively. The film features several constant industrial sounds, providing low-level background noise in every scene. This fosters a "threatening" and "unnerving" atmosphere, which has been imitated in works such as David Fincher's 1995 thriller Seven and the Coen brothers' 1991 black comedy Barton Fink. The constant low-level noise has been perceived by James Wierzbicki in his book Music, Sound and Filmmakers: Sonic Style in Cinema as perhaps a product of Henry Spencer's imagination, and the soundtrack has been described as "ruthlessly negligent of the difference between dream and reality". The film also begins a trend within Lynch's work of relating diegetic music to dreams, as when the Lady in the Radiator sings "In Heaven" during Spencer's extended dream sequence. This is also present in "Episode 2" of Twin Peaks, in which diegetic music carries over from a character's dream to his waking thoughts; and in 1986's Blue Velvet, in which a similar focus is given to Roy Orbison's "In Dreams".
The film has also been noted for its strong sexual themes. Opening with an image of conception, the film then portrays Henry Spencer as a character who is terrified of, but fascinated by, sex. The recurring images of sperm-like creatures, including the child, are a constant presence during the film's sex scenes; the apparent "girl next door" appeal of the Lady in the Radiator is abandoned during her musical number as she begins to violently smash Spencer's sperm creatures and aggressively meets his gaze. In his book The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror, David J. Skal describes the film as "depict[ing] human reproduction as a desolate freak show, an occupation fit only for the damned". Skal also posits a different characterization of the Lady in the Radiator, casting her as "desperately eager for an unseen audience's approval". In his book David Lynch Decoded, Mark Allyn Stewart proposes that the Lady in the Radiator is in fact Spencer's subconscious, a manifestation of his own urge to kill his child, who embraces him after he does so, as if to reassure him that he has done right.
As a character, Spencer has been seen as an everyman figure, his blank expression and plain dress keeping him a simple archetype. Spencer displays a pacifistic and fatalistic inactivity throughout the film, simply allowing events to unfold around him without taking control. This passive behavior culminates in his sole act of instigation at the film's climax; his apparent act of infanticide is driven by the domineering and controlling influences that beset him. Spencer's passivity has also been seen by film critics Colin Odell and Michelle Le Blanc as a precursor to Lynch's 1983–92 comic strip The Angriest Dog in the World.
## Production
### Pre-production
Writer and director David Lynch had previously studied for a career as a painter, and he had created several short films to animate his paintings. By 1970, however, he had switched his focus to film-making, and at the age of 24 he accepted a scholarship at the American Film Institute's Center for Advanced Film Studies. Lynch disliked the course and considered dropping out, but after being offered the chance to produce a script of his own devising, he changed his mind. He was given permission to use the school's entire campus for film sets; he converted the school's disused stables into a series of sets and lived there. In addition, Greystone Mansion, also owned by the AFI, was used for many scenes.
Lynch had initially begun work on a script titled Gardenback, based on his painting of a hunched figure with vegetation growing from its back. Gardenback was a surrealist script about adultery, which featured a continually growing insect representing one man's lust for his neighbor. The script would have resulted in a roughly 45-minute-long film, which the AFI felt was too long for such a figurative, nonlinear script. In its place, Lynch presented Eraserhead, which he had developed based on a daydream of a man's head being taken to a pencil factory by a small boy. Several board members at the AFI were still opposed to producing such a surrealist work, but they acquiesced when Dean Frank Daniel threatened to resign if it were to be vetoed. Lynch's script for Eraserhead was influenced by his reading as a film student; Franz Kafka's 1915 novella The Metamorphosis and Nikolai Gogol's 1836 short story "The Nose" were strong influences on the screenplay. Lynch also confirmed in an interview with Metro Silicon Valley that the film "came together" when he opened up a Bible, read one verse from it, and shut it; in retrospect, Lynch could not remember if the verse was from the Old Testament or the New Testament. In 2007, Lynch said "Believe it or not, Eraserhead is my most spiritual film."
The script is also thought to have been inspired by Lynch's fear of fatherhood; his daughter Jennifer had been born with "severely clubbed feet", requiring extensive corrective surgery as a child. Jennifer has said that her own unexpected conception and birth defects were the basis for the film's themes. The film's tone was also shaped by Lynch's time living in a troubled neighborhood in Philadelphia. Lynch and his family spent five years living in an atmosphere of "violence, hate and filth". The area was described as a "crime-ridden poverty zone", which inspired the urban backdrop of Eraserhead. Describing this period of his life, Lynch said, "I saw so many things in Philadelphia I couldn't believe ... I saw a grown woman grab her breasts and speak like a baby, complaining her nipples hurt. This kind of thing will set you back". In his book David Lynch: Beautiful Dark, film critic Greg Olson posits that this time contrasted starkly with the director's childhood in the Pacific Northwest, giving the director a "bipolar, Heaven-and-Hell vision of America" which has subsequently shaped his films.
Initial casting for the film began in 1971, and Jack Nance was quickly selected for the lead role. However, the staff at the AFI had underestimated the project's scale—they had initially green-lit Eraserhead after viewing a twenty-one page screenplay, assuming that the film industry's usual ratio of one minute of film per scripted page would reduce the film to approximately twenty minutes. This misunderstanding, coupled with Lynch's own meticulous direction, caused the film to remain in production for a number of years. In an extreme example of this labored schedule, one scene in the film begins with Nance's character opening a door—a full year passed before he was filmed entering the room. Nance, however, was dedicated to producing the film and retained the unorthodox hairstyle his character sported for the entirety of its gestation.
### Filming
Buoyed with regular donations from Lynch's childhood friend Jack Fisk and Fisk's wife Sissy Spacek, production continued for several years. Additional funds were provided by Nance's wife Catherine E. Coulson, who worked as a waitress and donated her income, and by Lynch himself, who delivered newspapers throughout the film's principal photography. During one of the many lulls in filming, Lynch was able to produce the short film The Amputee, taking advantage of the AFI's wish to test new film stock before committing to bulk purchases. The short piece starred Coulson, who continued working with Lynch as a technician on Eraserhead. Eraserhead's production crew was very small, composed of Lynch; sound designer Alan Splet; cinematographer Herb Cardwell, who left the production for financial reasons and was replaced with Frederick Elmes; production manager and prop technician Doreen Small; and Coulson, who worked in a variety of roles.
The physical effects used to create the deformed child have been kept secret. The projectionist who worked on the film's dailies was blindfolded by Lynch to avoid revealing the prop's nature, and he has refused to discuss the effects in subsequent interviews. The prop—which Nance nicknamed "Spike"—featured several working parts; its neck, eyes and mouth were capable of independent operation. Lynch has offered cryptic comments on the prop, at times stating that "it was born nearby" or "maybe it was found". It has been speculated by The Guardian's John Patterson that the prop may have been constructed from a skinned rabbit or a lamb fetus. The child has been seen as a precursor to elements of other Lynch films, such as John Merrick's make-up in 1980's The Elephant Man and the sandworms of 1984's Dune.
During production, Lynch began experimenting with a technique of recording dialogue that had been spoken phonetically backwards and reversing the resulting audio. Although the technique was not used in the film, Lynch returned to it for "Episode 2", the third episode of his 1990 television series Twin Peaks. Lynch also began his interest in transcendental meditation during the film's production, adopting a vegetarian diet and giving up smoking and alcohol.
### Post-production
Lynch worked with Alan Splet to design the film's sound. The pair arranged and fabricated soundproof blanketing to insulate their studio, where they spent almost a year creating and editing the film's sound effects. The soundtrack is densely layered, including as many as fifteen different sounds played simultaneously using multiple reels. Sounds were created in a variety of ways—for a scene in which a bed slowly dissolves into a pool of liquid, Lynch and Splet inserted a microphone inside a plastic bottle, floated it in a bathtub, and recorded the sound of air blown through the bottle. After being recorded, sounds were further augmented by alterations to their pitch, reverb and frequency.
After a poorly received test screening, in which Lynch believes he had mixed the soundtrack at too high a volume, the director cut twenty minutes of footage from the film, bringing its length to 89 minutes. Among the cut footage is a scene featuring Coulson as the infant's midwife, another of a man torturing two women—one again played by Coulson—with a car battery, and one of Spencer toying with a dead cat.
## Soundtrack
The soundtrack to Eraserhead was released by I.R.S. Records in 1982. The two tracks included on the album feature excerpts of organ music by Fats Waller and the song "In Heaven", written for the film by Peter Ivers. The soundtrack was re-released on August 7, 2012, by Sacred Bones Records in a limited pressing of 1,500 copies. The album has been seen as presaging the dark ambient music genre, and its presentation of background noise and non-musical cues has been described by Pitchfork's Mark Richardson as "a sound track (two words) in the literal sense".
## Release
### Box office
Eraserhead premiered at the Filmex film festival in Los Angeles, on March 19, 1977. On its opening night, the film was attended by twenty-five people; twenty-four viewed it the following evening. However, Ben Barenholtz, head of distributor Libra Films, persuaded local theater Cinema Village to run the film as a midnight feature, where it continued for a year. After this, it ran for ninety-nine weeks at New York's Waverly Cinema, had a year-long midnight run at San Francisco's Roxie Theater from 1978 to 1979, and achieved a three-year tenure at Los Angeles' Nuart Theatre between 1978 and 1981. During a run of screenings in New York and Los Angeles, Eraserhead was paired with the 1979 animated short film Asparagus, created by Suzan Pitt, for nearly two years.
Eraserhead was a commercial success, grossing \$7 million in the United States and \$14,590 in other territories. Eraserhead was also screened as part of the 1978 BFI London Film Festival, and the 1986 Telluride Film Festival.
### Home media
Eraserhead was released on VHS on August 7, 1982, by Columbia Pictures. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by Umbrella Entertainment in Australia; the former was released on August 1, 2009, and the latter on May 9, 2012. The Umbrella Entertainment releases include an 85-minute feature on the making of the film. Other home media releases of the film include DVD releases by Universal Pictures in 2001, Subversive Entertainment in 2006, Scanbox Entertainment in 2008, and a DVD and Blu-ray release by the Criterion Collection in September 2014.
## Reception
Upon Eraserhead's release, Variety offered a negative review, calling it "a sickening bad-taste exercise". The review expressed incredulity over the film's long gestation and described its finale as unwatchable. Comparing Eraserhead to Lynch's next film The Elephant Man, Tom Buckley of The New York Times wrote that while the latter was a well-made film with an accomplished cast, the former was not. Buckley called Eraserhead "murkily pretentious", and wrote that the film's horror aspects stemmed solely from the appearance of the deformed child rather than from its script or performances. Writing in 1984, Lloyd Rose of The Atlantic wrote that Eraserhead demonstrated that Lynch was "one of the most unalloyed surrealists ever to work in the movies". Rose described the film as being intensely personal, finding that unlike previous surrealist films, such as Luis Buñuel's 1929 work Un Chien Andalou or 1930's L'Age d'Or, Lynch's imagery "isn't reaching out to us from his films; we're sinking into them". In a 1993 review for the Chicago Tribune, Michael Wilmington described Eraserhead as unique, feeling that the film's "intensity" and "nightmare clarity" were a result of Lynch's attention to detail in its creation due to his involvement in so many roles during its production. In the 1995 essay "Bad Ideas: The Art and Politics of Twin Peaks," critic Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote that Eraserhead represented Lynch's best work. Rosenbaum wrote that the director's artistic talent declined as his popularity grew, and contrasted the film with Wild at Heart—Lynch's most recent feature film at that time—saying "even the most cursory comparison of Eraserhead with Wild at Heart reveals an artistic decline so precipitous that it is hard to imagine the same person making both films". John Simon of the National Review called Eraserhead "a grossout for cultists".
Contemporary reception of the film has been highly favorable. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 90% based on 67 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "David Lynch's surreal Eraserhead uses detailed visuals and a creepy score to create a bizarre and disturbing look into a man's fear of parenthood." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Writing for Empire magazine, Steve Beard rated the film five stars out of five. He wrote that it was "a lot more radical and enjoyable than [Lynch's] later Hollywood efforts" and highlighted its mix of surrealist body horror and black comedy. The BBC's Almar Haflidason awarded Eraserhead three stars out of five, describing it as "an unremarkable feat by [Lynch's] later standards". Haflidason wrote that the film was a gathering of loosely related ideas, adding that it is "so consumed with surreal imagery that there are almost limitless possibilities to read personal theories into it"; the reviewer's own take on these themes were that they represented a fear of personal commitment and featured "a strong sexual undercurrent". A reviewer writing for Film4 rated Eraserhead five stars out of five, describing it as "by turns beautiful, annoying, funny, exasperating and repellent, but always bristling with a nervous energy". The Film4 reviewer wrote that Eraserhead was unlike most films released to that point, save for the collaborations between Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí; however, Lynch denies having seen any of these before Eraserhead. Writing for The Village Voice, Nathan Lee praised the film's use of sound, writing "to see the film means nothing—one must also hear it". He described the film's sound design as "an intergalactic seashell cocked to the ears of an acid-tripping gargantua".
The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw similarly lauded the film, also awarding it five stars out of five. Bradshaw considered it to be a beautiful film, describing its sound design as "industrial groaning, as if filmed inside some collapsing factory or gigantic dying organism". He compared it to Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien. Jason Ankeny, writing for AllMovie, gave the film a rating of five stars out of five; he highlighted the disturbing sound design of the film and described it as "an open metaphor". He wrote that Eraserhead "sets up the obsessions that would follow [Lynch] through his career", adding his belief that the film's surrealism enhanced the understanding of the director's later films. In an article for The Daily Telegraph, film-maker Marc Evans praised both the sound design and Lynch's ability "to make the ordinary seem so odd", considering the film an inspiration for his own work. A review of the film in the same newspaper compared Eraserhead to the works of Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, describing it as a chaotic parody of family life. Manohla Dargis, writing for The New York Times, called the film "less a straight story than a surrealistic assemblage". Dargis wrote that the film's imagery evoked the paintings of Francis Bacon and the Georges Franju 1949 documentary Blood of the Beasts. Film Threat's Phil Hall called Eraserhead Lynch's best film, believing that the director's subsequent output failed to live up to it. Hall highlighted the film's soundtrack and Nance's "Chaplinesque" physical comedy as the film's stand-out elements.
## Legacy
In 2004, Eraserhead was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. Selection for the Registry is based on a film being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Eraserhead was one of the subjects featured in the 2005 documentary Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream, which charted the rise of the midnight movie phenomenon in the late 1960s and 1970s; Lynch took part in the documentary through a series of interviews. The production covers six films which are credited as creating and popularizing the genre; also included are Night of the Living Dead, El Topo, Pink Flamingos, The Harder They Come, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In 2010, the Online Film Critics Society compiled a list of the 100 best directorial débuts, listing what they felt were the best first-time feature films by noted directors. Eraserhead placed second in the poll, behind Orson Welles's 1941 Citizen Kane.
Lynch collaborated with most of the cast and crew of Eraserhead again on later films. Frederick Elmes served as cinematographer on Blue Velvet, 1988's The Cowboy and the Frenchman, and 1990's Wild at Heart. Alan Splet provided sound design for The Elephant Man, Dune, and Blue Velvet. Jack Fisk directed episodes of Lynch's 1992 television series On the Air and worked as a production designer on 1999's The Straight Story and 2001's Mulholland Drive. Coulson and Nance appeared in Twin Peaks, and made further appearances in Dune, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, and 1997's Lost Highway.
Following the release of Eraserhead, Lynch attempted to find funding for his next project, Ronnie Rocket, a film "about electricity and a three-foot guy with red hair". Lynch met film producer Stuart Cornfeld during this time. Cornfeld had enjoyed Eraserhead and was interested in producing Ronnie Rocket; he worked for Mel Brooks and Brooksfilms at the time, and when the two realized that Ronnie Rocket was unlikely to find sufficient financing, Lynch asked to see some already-written scripts to consider for his next project. Cornfeld found four scripts that he felt would interest Lynch; on hearing the title of The Elephant Man, the director decided to make it his second film.
While working on The Elephant Man, Lynch met American director Stanley Kubrick, who revealed to Lynch that Eraserhead was his favorite film. Eraserhead also served as an influence on Kubrick's 1980 film The Shining; Kubrick reportedly screened the film for the cast and crew to "put them in the mood" that he wanted the film to achieve. Eraserhead is also credited with influencing the 1989 Japanese cyberpunk film Tetsuo: The Iron Man, the experimental 1990 horror film Begotten, and Darren Aronofsky's 1998 directorial debut Pi. Swiss artist H. R. Giger cited Eraserhead as "one of the greatest films [he had] ever seen", and said that it came closer to realizing his vision than even his own films. According to Giger, Lynch declined to collaborate with him on Dune because he felt Giger had "stolen his ideas".
## See also
- List of films with longest production time
|
14,269,604 |
George Gosse
| 1,087,611,073 |
Australian recipient of the George Cross
|
[
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"1964 deaths",
"Australian recipients of the George Cross",
"Graduates of the Royal Australian Naval College",
"People from Harvey, Western Australia",
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"Royal Australian Navy personnel of World War II"
] |
Lieutenant Commander George Gosse, GC (16 February 1912 – 31 December 1964) was an Australian recipient of the George Cross, the highest award for heroism or courage, not in the face of the enemy, that could be awarded to a member of the Australian armed forces at the time. Gosse served in the Royal Australian Navy between 1926 and 1933, reaching the rank of sub-lieutenant and receiving training and experience with the British Royal Navy.
In 1940, he joined the Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve (RANVR) for service in World War II. Quickly sent back to the United Kingdom, he served on several shore establishments before being sent to British India as a naval mine clearance specialist. He returned to the UK in late 1944, and in April 1945 he was given command of a naval party responsible for mine clearance in the recently captured Bremen Harbour in Germany. He displayed exceptional courage in defusing three mines under very difficult conditions between 8 and 19 May 1945, which resulted in him being awarded the George Cross.
Gosse continued to serve in the RANVR after the war, reaching the rank of lieutenant commander before retiring in 1958, and died of a heart condition in 1964. His medal set is displayed in the Hall of Valour at the Australian War Memorial.
## Early life and career
George Gosse was born on 16 February 1912 at Harvey, Western Australia, the elder child of William Hay Gosse, a farmer, and his wife Muriel née Davidson. He was a grandson of the explorer William Gosse and a nephew of the businessman Sir James Hay Gosse. His father had served in the 2nd South Australian Mounted Rifles in the Second Boer War in South Africa, and joined the British Army as an artillery officer in World War I. He was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry and was killed in action in 1918. Muriel died in 1920; George and his younger sister were then cared for by their paternal grandmother.
Gosse was schooled at St Peter's College, Adelaide, South Australia, from 1920 to 1925, and entered the Royal Australian Naval College (RAN College) at Jervis Bay in 1926, aged 13. According to a family member he was "so like his father, gay, feckless, fearless and gregarious". While at the RAN College he excelled at field hockey, and upon graduation in 1930 received the prize for engineering theory. Beginning in January 1930 he served aboard both Australian County-class heavy cruisers, first then . He was promoted to midshipman in May of that year. In July 1931, he sailed for the United Kingdom for further training with the British Royal Navy.
His first assignment was to the Mediterranean Fleet, aboard the Revenge-class super-dreadnought battleship HMS Ramillies. He also attended an air course on the Courageous-class aircraft carrier HMS Glorious, and was familiarised with the employment of destroyers during a stint aboard HMS Worcester. In September 1932 he was promoted to acting sub-lieutenant, and entered the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. The social and sporting temptations of London beckoned, and Gosse's studies suffered. After he failed the examination for lieutenant, he was returned to Australia and his naval career ended on 30 October 1933. Gosse then worked at odd jobs for a few years, and on 1 October 1938 he married Diana Skottowe at his old school chapel. The couple had two daughters.
## World War II
On 1 September 1939, the day World War II began, Gosse attempted to rejoin the RAN, but was rebuffed. Gosse managed to enlist as an ordinary seaman in the Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve on 21 October 1940. He initially underwent training at the shore establishments HMAS Torrens and , before sailing for the UK in December. After serving at the shore establishment HMS Collingwood, in April 1941 he was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant while posted to the shore establishment HMS King Alfred. He next served at the shore establishment HMS President, then in December of that year he was transferred to the Royal Indian Navy shore establishment in Calcutta, British India, as a naval mine disposal officer. In February 1942 he was promoted to provisional lieutenant. In August he was transferred to the shore establishment HMS Lanka. This was followed by a posting to the shore establishment HMS Braganza in Bombay in October 1942. Although his 1940 annual report had described him as "below average, for whom it was doubtful a niche could be found", two years later his report indicated that he was reliable and keen, and displayed ingenuity. When faced with difficulties, he was always cheerful, and was "a daring character" who was very interested in mines.
Transferred back to the UK in November 1944, Gosse was posted to the shore establishment HMS Vernon at Brixham, Devon, which was the European port clearance diving base for the Royal Navy. Clearance diving teams were responsible for removing naval mines from British waters, and from the waters of captured ports on the European mainland. He brought a Japanese mine back with him to the UK, as he considered it would be of use at HMS Vernon. According to his entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, he was a bit of a "law unto himself" in this period, but was fascinated with mechanical devices and exhibited inventiveness. He qualified as a shallow-water diver in January 1945.
Following the capture of Bremen, Germany, in April, Gosse led Naval Party 1571 to the port to clear mines laid by the retreating Germans in the Überseehafen. Prior to being sent forward to Bremen, Gosse had interrogated a German prisoner of war (POW) who had been involved in the demolition of the Überseehafen and its facilities who described a mine known as an "Oyster", which was "impossible to sweep for and could never be rendered safe". After arriving in Bremen, Gosse risked his life many times in defusing mines. When his divers reported a sighting of what appeared to be a new form of mine, on 8 May Gosse dived himself and verified that it was a "D-type mine with additional fittings", the "Oyster" mine described by the German POW. This mine was pressure-operated, and its detonation train included magnetic and acoustic elements. About 18:00 the next day, Gosse examined the mine by touch, as the visibility was so poor that his waterproof torch was of no use. In order to maintain his depth, he had to tether himself to the mine marker buoy rope. Using tools he had improvised, Gosse interrupted the detonation train by removing the primer release and the primer, which had to be extracted from about 18 inches (460 mm) down a 2-inch (51 mm) wide tube. Having made the mine safe, Gosse was releasing his tether when there was a small explosion. Later examination of the mine showed that water had entered the primer tube and actuated a water pressure trigger set to fire the detonator if the mine was raised. Gosse personally defused two more "Oyster" mines at Bremen between 9 and 19 May, and in both cases, the detonator fired before the mine reached the surface. Another officer from Naval Party 1571 said later that "if Gosse hadn't found an answer to the ["Oyster"], Bremen Harbour would have been unusable".
He was promoted to acting lieutenant commander on 30 September 1945 and was demobilised on 20 March 1946. For his service in World War II, Gosse was awarded the 1939–1945 Star, the Burma Star, the France and Germany Star, the Defence Medal, the War Medal 1939–1945, and the Australia Service Medal 1939–1945.
On 26 April 1946, Gosse's award of the George Cross (GC) was promulgated in The London Gazette. The citation read:
> On the 8th May, 1945, divers searching Ubersee Hafen reported the presence of a mine which from their description appeared to be an entirely new type. Lieutenant Gosse immediately dived and verified the fact that it was a G.D. pressure type which was commonly known as "Oyster". As it was very necessary that this type of mine should be recovered intact, it was decided to attempt to render safe the mine underwater and on the following day, May 9th, Lieutenant Gosse dived on it again. Using improvised tools he eventually succeeded in removing the primer, which was followed by a loud metallic crash. The mine was eventually lifted on the quayside when it was found that the detonator had fired immediately [after] the primer had been removed. During the subsequent ten days Lieutenant Gosse rendered safe two similar types of mines which were lying in close proximity to shipping and in each instance the detonator fired before the mine reached the surface.
>
> This form of operation called for an exceptionally high standard of personal courage and also a high degree of skill. The conditions were always arduous and were combined with the presence of known mines in the docks and with all forms of underwater obstruction—human corpses—which together with lack of visibility produced a set of conditions which would deter the boldest.
>
> This officer displayed courage and zeal far in excess of the usual course of duty and contributed greatly to the success of a most difficult and important operation.
Three days after his GC was promulgated, Gosse was visited at home by a journalist from The Advertiser daily newspaper and was surprised to learn he was to receive an award for doing something he enjoyed so much. He joked, "George Gosse, George Cross. Sounds like a test of sobriety".
## Later life
Gosse was invested with his George Cross in Adelaide on 3 June 1948 by the Governor of South Australia, Lieutenant General Sir Willoughby Norrie. He continued to serve in the RANVR and was substantively promoted to lieutenant commander on 30 June 1955 before retiring in 1958. He remained an inventive designer, creating many useful domestic gadgets and fittings, but his interest waned once a challenge had been met. According to his entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, his work was mostly "unspectacular". He was president of the Sporting Car Club of South Australia from 1946 to 1948.
During 1950, Gosse was part of an Australian armed forces recruiting campaign throughout South Australia, before collapsing from nervous strain at a rally in Renmark. In 1953 he was part of the contingent sent to the UK for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal. In 1964, he travelled to the UK for a reunion and joined the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association. Gosse died of a coronary occlusion at Maslin Beach on 31 December 1964, and was cremated. The Victoria Cross recipient Brigadier Sir John George Smyth wrote that Gosse "always lived right on top of the world, as though every day was his last". He is commemorated on the Returned and Services League Walls at the Centennial Park Cemetery in Pasadena, South Australia.
His medal set is displayed in the Hall of Valour at the Australian War Memorial. A ward at the former Repatriation General Hospital, Hollywood, in Western Australia (now Hollywood Private Hospital) has been named in his honour.
|
5,319,068 |
Apollo 15 postal covers incident
| 1,172,627,550 |
1972 NASA scandal
|
[
"1971 in the United States",
"1972 controversies",
"1972 in the United States",
"Alfred Worden",
"Apollo 15",
"David Scott",
"History of spaceflight",
"James Irwin",
"Postal history of the United States",
"Scandals in the United States",
"Space exploration on stamps"
] |
The Apollo 15 postal covers incident, a 1972 NASA scandal, involved the astronauts of Apollo 15, who carried about 400 unauthorized postal covers into space and to the Moon's surface on the Lunar Module Falcon. Some of the envelopes were sold at high prices by West German stamp dealer Hermann Sieger, and are known as "Sieger covers". The crew of Apollo 15—David Scott, Alfred Worden, and James Irwin—agreed to take payments for carrying the covers; though they returned the money, they were reprimanded by NASA. Amid much press coverage of the incident, the astronauts were called before a closed session of a Senate committee and never flew in space again.
The three astronauts and an acquaintance, Horst Eiermann, had agreed to have the covers made and taken into space. Each astronaut was to receive about \$7,000 (). Scott arranged to have the covers postmarked on the morning of the Apollo 15 launch on July 26, 1971. They were packaged for space and brought to him as he prepared for liftoff; he brought them aboard in a pocket of his space suit. They were not included on the list of the personal items he was taking into space. The covers spent July 30 to August 2 on the Moon inside Falcon. On August 7, the date of splashdown, the covers were postmarked again on the recovery carrier USS Okinawa. One hundred were sent to Eiermann (and passed on to Sieger); the remaining covers were divided among the astronauts.
Worden had agreed to carry 144 additional covers, largely for an acquaintance, F. Herrick Herrick; these had been approved for travel to space. Apollo 15 carried a total of approximately 641 covers. In late 1971, when NASA learned that the Herrick covers were being sold, the astronauts' supervisor, Deke Slayton, warned Worden to avoid further commercialization of what he had been allowed to take into space. After Slayton heard of the Sieger arrangement, he removed the three as backup crew members for Apollo 17, though the astronauts had by then returned compensation from Sieger. The Sieger matter became generally known in the newspapers in June 1972. There was widespread coverage; some commentators argued that astronauts should not be allowed to reap personal profits from NASA missions.
By 1977, all three former astronauts had left NASA. In February 1983, Worden sued, alleging the seizure of the envelopes without a hearing had violated the Constitution. The Department of Justice concluded it had no grounds for fighting the suit, and the government returned all the covers in an out-of-court settlement that July. One of the postal covers given to Sieger sold for over \$50,000 in 2014 ().
## Background
After the start of the Space Age with the launch of Sputnik I on October 4, 1957, astrophilately (space-related stamp collecting) began. Nations such as the United States and USSR issued commemorative postage stamps depicting spacecraft and satellites. Astrophilately was most popular during the years of the Apollo program's Moon landings from 1969 to 1972. Collectors and dealers sought philatelic souvenirs related to the American space flight program, often through specially-designed envelopes (known as covers). Cancelling covers submitted by the public became a major duty of the employees of the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) post office on space mission launch days.
The American astronauts participated in creating collectables. Beginning in the late 1960s, Harold G. Collins, head of the Mission Support Office at KSC, arranged for specially designed envelopes to be printed for the different missions, and to be canceled on the launch dates. Such unflown philatelic covers were often gifts for the astronauts' friends, or for employees of NASA and its contractors. Although it was not publicly known until September 1972, 15 of the men who entered space as Apollo program astronauts before Apollo 15 had agreed with a West German named Horst Eiermann to autograph 500 philatelic items (postcards and blocks of stamps) in exchange for \$2,500. This included a member of each mission between Apollo 7 (1968) and Apollo 13 (1970). These items were not taken into space.
The astronauts were allowed to take Personal Preference Kits (PPKs) into space with them. These small bags, with their contents limited in size and weight, contained personal items the astronauts wanted to be flown as souvenirs of the mission. As the spaceflights moved toward and culminated in the Moon landings, the public's fascination with items flown in space increased, as did their value.
Covers were prepared by the crews and flown on Apollo 11, Apollo 13 and Apollo 14. Ed Mitchell, lunar module pilot for Apollo 14, took his to the Moon's surface in a PPK. These were often retained by the astronauts for many years; Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong kept his until he died, and they were not offered for sale until 2018, when one sold for \$156,250.
The Apollo 15 mission began when the Saturn V launch vehicle blasted off from KSC on July 26, 1971, and ended when the astronauts and the Command Module Endeavour were recovered by the helicopter carrier USS Okinawa on August 7. Onboard Endeavour were Mission Commander David Scott, Command Module Pilot Alfred Worden and Lunar Module Pilot James Irwin. The Lunar Module Falcon, with Scott and Irwin aboard, landed on the Moon on July 30, and remained there for just under 67 hours. The mission set several space records and was the first to use the lunar rover. Scott and Irwin rode it to explore the area around the landing site during three periods of extravehicular activity (EVA). On August 2, before finishing the final EVA and entering the Lunar Module, Scott used a special postmarking device to cancel a first day cover provided by the United States Postal Service bearing two new stamps, whose designs depicted lunar astronauts and a rover, commemorating the tenth anniversary of Americans entering space. That cover was returned to the Postal Service after the mission, and is now in the Smithsonian Institution's National Postal Museum.
## Preparation
Eiermann knew a stamp dealer named Hermann Sieger from Lorch, West Germany. The two had met by chance while on a bus to observe the launch of Apollo 12 in late 1969; Eiermann heard by Sieger's Swabian inflection that they were from the same part of Germany, and invited him to his house. Sieger got the idea for the lunar covers after hearing that the Apollo 12 astronauts had taken a Bible with them. When Sieger learned that Eiermann knew many astronauts, he proposed that an Apollo crew be persuaded to take covers to the Moon. Eiermann did not think astronauts would take money to do so, but agreed to ask them when Sieger characterized the payments as investments for the astronauts' children. Eiermann did not mention Sieger's name in his approach to the astronauts.
Eiermann lived in Cocoa Beach, Florida at the time of Apollo 15, and was a local representative of Los Angeles-based Dyna-Therm Corporation, which was a NASA contractor. According to Scott's autobiography, one night several months before launch, the astronauts' supervisor, Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton, had Scott and the other crew members come to dinner at Eiermann's house; Scott described Eiermann as a longtime friend of Slayton. Worden, in his autobiography, agreed that the crew was invited to dinner there, but described Scott as inviting his crewmates, and did not mention involvement by Slayton. In his testimony before a congressional committee in 1972, Scott described Eiermann as a "friend of ours", someone with whom he had dined and who knew many people at KSC, including a number of the astronauts. Scott also told the committee that he had met Eiermann at a party, rather than through another astronaut.
At the dinner, Eiermann proposed the astronauts carry 100 special stamp covers, to be flown to the Moon. Worden stated that he and Irwin, who had not previously gone into space, were assured that this was common practice. Worden recalled that the astronauts were told the covers would not be sold until some time in the future after the Apollo program had ended. They would receive \$7,000 each. They were informed that other Apollo crews had made and profited from similar agreements. Earlier astronauts had been given free life insurance by Life magazine. This benefit was no longer available by the time of Apollo 15. Worden wrote that to ensure their families were provided for given the severe risks and dangers of their profession, the astronauts agreed to the deal, planning to put the payments aside as funds for their children. At the time, Scott earned \$2,199 a month (\$13,000 as of 2020) as an astronaut, Worden \$1,715 and Irwin \$2,235.
According to Scott, the astronauts also decided the covers would make good gifts and requested an additional 100 each for a total of 400 covers. Scott indicated in his testimony that after discussion with his crewmates, he expected the covers to be a "very private and noncommercial enterprise." He added: "I admit that this is wrong. I understand it very clearly now. But at the time, for some naive and thoughtless reason, I did not understand the significance of it." Irwin wrote in his autobiography that the initial meeting with Eiermann took place in May 1971, and that the astronauts met with him twice thereafter. Eiermann relayed instructions from Sieger on how to prepare the covers: they were to be postmarked twice, at KSC on the date of launch and on the recovery ship on the date of splashdown, and carry a signed statement from the astronauts with a certification from a notary. The certification would make the covers more sellable in Europe, where a notary is a legal professional who often verifies the document, not just the signatures.
An additional 144 covers were flown pursuant to an understanding between Worden and F. Herrick Herrick of Miami, a retired movie director and a stamp collector. According to a letter reporting on the stamp incident from NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, Clinton P. Anderson, Herrick was a friend of the three astronauts who had arranged for Worden, also a stamp collector, to buy an album full of stamps and proposed the astronauts take covers into space. These would be split and set aside for some years, and then sold. In his book Worden said he had been introduced to Herrick at lunch by former race car driver Jim Rathmann, and that Herrick proposed the plan. Worden also related his insistence the covers must be held, unsold and unpublicized, until after the Apollo program had ended, and he had retired from NASA and the Air Force. "I didn't want to do anything that would embarrass either myself or NASA, and I believed Herrick was as good as his word. It was a huge lapse in judgment on my part to trust this stranger. I was too old to believe in Santa Claus." In his 1972 testimony before the Senate committee, Worden described Herrick as a friend with whom he had had past dealings, and with whom he discussed the possibility of commemorative covers. According to a 1978 Justice Department report, before the Apollo 15 flight Herrick advised Worden that taking covers to the Moon would be a prudent investment because they would be valuable to stamp collectors.
While Scott and his crewmates were completing their mission training, a controversy developed within NASA and Congress over some of the souvenir silver medallions the crew of Apollo 14 had carried to the Moon. The private Franklin Mint, which had supplied the medallions in question, melted down some of those that had been flown. These were mixed with a large quantity of other metal, and commemorative medallions were struck from the mass, used as a premium to attract people to pay to join the Franklin Mint Collector's Club. The fact that some part of the medals had flown to the Moon was used in the mint's advertisements. Because the Apollo 14 crew had accepted no money, they were not disciplined. Slayton reduced the number of medallions each member of Apollo 15 could take along by half. He warned the Apollo 15 crew against carrying any items into space that could make money for them or others. In August 1965, Slayton had issued regulations requiring that items astronauts planned to carry be listed, approved by him, and checked for safety in space if similar items had not already been flown. Each crew member was bound by NASA standards of conduct issued in 1967 forbidding using one's position to make money for oneself or another person.
## Creation and spaceflight
Eiermann was supposed to create the cachet for the special covers he had proposed, but time ran short and Scott did it instead. He used the Apollo 15 mission patch to create the design, and gave it to Collins of the Mission Support Office. Collins arranged with the Brevard Printing Company of Cocoa, Florida for the design to be reproduced on both regular and lightweight envelopes. The company performed the work and billed Alvin B. Bishop Jr. \$156 for the lightweight envelopes and \$209 for the regular ones. Bishop, a public relations executive who specialized in the aerospace industry, and knew many astronauts, created specially designed covers for a number of the Apollo missions, which he supplied only to the crew and their families. He was at the time employed by Hughes Enterprises in Las Vegas; the company paid the bill.
Herrick secured the services of a commercial artist, Vance Johnson, with whom Worden discussed the design, resulting in 100 envelopes depicting the phases of the Moon. Worden listed these covers as part of the contents of his PPK for Slayton's approval, along with 44 first day covers that he owned. Ad-Pro Graphics, Inc. of Miami printed the Herrick envelopes, along with card inserts stating the accompanying cover had been carried on Apollo 15. Herrick paid the firm's bill of \$50.50; he also obtained the postage stamps for the covers, and two rubber stamps stating the dates of the launch and splashdown. The design was printed on labels that were affixed to the envelopes. Not all Herrick covers are identical, as different cachets, rubber stamp impressions and combinations of postage stamps were used. Worden also carried a cover postmarked in 1928, autographed by aviation pioneer Orville Wright.
In addition to those brought by Scott and by Worden, Irwin carried 96 covers, one with a "flown-to-the-Moon" theme, eight with an Apollo 15 design, and 87 covers honoring Apollo 12, carried as a favor for Barbara Gordon, wife of Apollo 12 astronaut Dick Gordon. Barbara Gordon, a stamp collector, had wanted her husband to take the covers on his lunar mission, but he had refused. The flown-to-the-moon cover was a favor for a friend of Dick Gordon. Apollo 15 carried the cover from the Postal Service to be canceled on the surface of the Moon. The agency also sent a backup, stowed in the Command Module with another cancellation device, for use on the homeward journey if Scott did not get to postmark the lunar cover.
All covers except the group of 400 had been approved by Slayton, who stated in his testimony that he would almost certainly have approved them if asked (assuming their weight could be negotiated with the Flight Manager), on condition that they stay in the Command Module and not go to the lunar surface. In July 1972, after the story broke, William Hines of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that "the idea that this complicated caper could have been carried out without the knowledge and at least tacit permission of Slayton is regarded by people familiar with NASA as ludicrous. Slayton's tight rein over his sometimes fractious charges is legendary".
The crew bought several hundred of the ten-cent First Man on the Moon postage stamp issue. These were affixed to the lightweight envelopes by secretaries in the Astronaut Office. Collins had made arrangements for the KSC post office to open at 1:00 am EDT on launch day—opening this facility so early on an Apollo launch morning was not unusual—and brought several hundred of the stamped covers. Once the envelopes had been run through the cancellation machine, he took them to the astronaut quarters, where members of the Flight Crew Support Team vacuum sealed them in Teflon-covered fiberglass to fireproof them for space. Normally, if the Flight Crew Support Team found that an item was not on an astronaut's PPK list, they would add it, and make sure it was approved, but team leader James L. Smotherman stated that he "goofed", explaining that he had confused the 400 covers with the Herrick envelopes, which had been approved by Slayton. Since the 400 covers had not been approved by Slayton, they were considered unauthorized. Scott stated, "I never intended to bootleg the covers. If I had intended to bootleg the covers, I certainly would not have allowed Mr. Collins to handle them or the rest of the people to assist me." Like other items being placed in the pockets on Scott's space suit (for example, his sunglasses), they were first shown to him by the suit technicians helping him dress. Divided into two packets, the bundled covers were about 2 in (5 cm) thick and weighed about 850 g (30 oz); they entered the spacecraft in Scott's pocket. Apollo 15 blasted off for the Moon at 9:34 am on July 26, 1971, with three astronauts and about 641 covers aboard.
At some point while the mission was en route to the Moon, the 400 covers were moved into the lunar lander Falcon; in his testimony, Scott agreed this violated the rules. He stated he did not recall how the transfer took place, and that he was only certain that the envelopes went to the lunar surface because they were in the bag of items taken out of the Falcon in preparation for the return to Earth. Worden stated in his testimony that they were aware of the presence of the covers in the Command Module after the mission's launch, but he did not recall if the covers had been among the many items moved into the Falcon in preparation for the lunar landing; he did not believe the matter had been discussed during the flight. He wrote in his autobiography that the night he had agreed to the deal with Eiermann "was the last I heard or thought of about the covers until after the flight ... What arrangements Dave [Scott], Eiermann, and Sieger made to get the covers onto the flight, I never knew until later. Dave later told a congressional committee that he had placed them in a pocket of his spacesuit, but he never shared that information with me". He indicated that the covers he had arranged to have on board, including those from Herrick, remained in his PPK in the Command Module throughout the flight. The testimony before Congress, from multiple individuals including Apollo 15 astronauts, was that carrying the covers did not interfere with the mission in any way.
Apollo 15 splashed down about 335 miles (539 km) north of Honolulu at 4:46 pm EDT (UTC–04:00) on August 7, 1971; the crew was retrieved by helicopters from the Okinawa. Scott had asked that a supply of the twin space stamps of the design he had canceled on the Moon (issued August 2) be available on the Okinawa, and on July 14, Forrest J. Rhodes, who ran the postal facility at KSC, wrote to the Chief Petty Officer in charge of the Okinawa's post office. The ship replied on the 20th, saying the stamps could be obtained in time. The stamps were secured from the post office at Pearl Harbor; 4,000 were flown to the Okinawa at sea by helicopter, reportedly in the custody of a naval officer joining the vessel. The astronauts had no money with them; their purchases were paid for by high-ranking officers aboard the Okinawa, who were later reimbursed. The crew had the assistance of Okinawa crew members in affixing the stamps to the 400 covers for cancellation by the ship's post office. The Irwin covers were not postmarked, either at liftoff or splashdown. Worden wrote in his book that he never saw the covers Scott had brought until the astronauts were on the flight to Houston. However, as Scott mentioned he was having them postmarked with the splashdown date, Worden arranged to have that done for the ones he had taken into space. On the flight, the 400 covers were autographed by the three astronauts; the Herrick covers were also signed while en route. Irwin remembered the signing took several hours.
## Distribution and scandal
On August 31, 1971, C.G. Carsey, a clerk in the Astronaut Office in Houston, typed certifications on 100 of the covers, with the aid of other NASA employees in her office. The certifications stated the cover had been on the Moon aboard the Falcon. The covers already carried a handwritten statement signed by Scott and Irwin that they had been landed on the Moon on July 30. Carsey later stated that in signing the certifications as a Texas notary public, she only intended to certify their signatures were genuine. The question of whether Carsey had improperly certified that the covers had been landed on the Moon (something she had no personal knowledge of) was the subject of an investigation by the Texas Attorney General. With the notary certifications, the last of Sieger's requirements for the covers was fulfilled. On September 2, Scott sent the 100 covers by registered mail to Eiermann, who was in Stuttgart, where he had moved. Eiermann turned the covers over to Sieger, and was rewarded with a commission of about \$15,000—ten percent of the anticipated proceeds. The remaining 300 were entrusted by the astronauts to a Houston-area stamp collector who arranged with a local printer to have an inscription stating that the cover had been carried to the Moon printed in the upper left. The printer discovered there were 298 covers, not 300; the stamp collector consulted Scott, who told him not to worry about it. One of Irwin's covers from the group of eight, with a shamrock design as its cachet, was given to Rhodes and one to the president of the Kennedy Space Center Philatelic Society; Irwin said in 1972 that he had retained the other six.
Sieger notified his customers of the flown covers via a mailing, selling them at DM 4,850 (about \$1,500 at the time), with a discount to those who bought more than one. He kept one for himself, and by November had sold the remaining 99. He numbered and signed the backs of the envelopes in the lower left as a token of their genuineness.
Worden recalled in his book that he sent the agreed number of 44 covers to Herrick soon after returning from space. He also sent him 60 belonging to himself for safekeeping, and gave 28 to friends. Herrick consigned 70 covers to Robert A. Siegel, a prominent New York dealer. Siegel sold ten covers for a total of \$7,900, receiving a commission from Herrick of 25 percent. Herrick sold three himself for \$1,250 each and placed several on commission in Europe.
In late October 1971, a potential customer for one of the Herrick covers wrote to NASA to inquire about its authenticity. On November 5, Slayton responded, saying NASA could not confirm whether it was genuine. He warned Worden to ensure that his covers would not be further commercialized. Worden wrote an angry letter to Herrick. In June 1972, Herrick instructed Siegel to send 60 covers to Worden in Houston, which he did by registered mail. Until this point, Siegel had assumed the 60 covers belonged to Herrick.
Probably before they made an official NASA trip to Europe in November 1971, the Apollo 15 astronauts received and completed the paperwork necessary to open accounts in a Stuttgart-area bank to receive the agreed \$7,000 payments. According to Scott's testimony, while they were in Europe, they heard the Sieger covers were being sold commercially. Scott called Eiermann, who promised to look into it. The astronauts indicated they received the bankbooks in early 1972. Irwin remembered in his autobiography that before their trip to Europe, Scott came to him and said, "Jim, we are in trouble now—they are starting to sell the envelopes over there", and that the covers cast a shadow over their European trip. Scott said the crew discussed it among themselves, then decided that the receipt of funds was improper. In late February they returned the bankbooks to Eiermann, who responded that the astronauts should receive something for their efforts. Howard C. Weinberger, in his account of the Apollo 15 covers, deemed the astronauts' refusal "an effort to save their careers and reputations". The crew initially agreed to accept albums filled with aerospace-themed stamps for their children, including issues in honor of Apollo 15. Scott related that they decided this too was improper and said they wanted nothing. This final refusal happened in April 1972. Worden remembered, "we did this before NASA asked us anything about a deal with Sieger—before NASA even knew about it".
Discussion of the covers in European philatelic publications alerted collectors in the United States. On March 11, 1972, Lester Winick, president of a group of collectors of space stamps and covers known as the Space Topics Study Group, sent a letter to NASA's general counsel asking a number of questions about the Sieger covers. The letter was forwarded for a response to Slayton, who casually mentioned it to Irwin in late March; Irwin told him to talk to Scott. Slayton spoke with Worden on the assumption that the covers referred to were among the group of 144, but Worden told him this was not necessarily the case and that he should talk to Scott. Slayton did talk to Scott in mid-April, just before the launch of Apollo 16. Scott told him there had been 400 covers not on the approved list, and that 100 had been given to a friend. In his autobiography, Slayton wrote that he confronted Scott and Worden about what he called a "regular goddamn scandal": "they told me what the deal was, and I got pretty goddamn angry. So I was through with Scott, Worden, and Irwin. After 16 splashed down, I kicked them off the backup crew for 17." One reason for Slayton's anger was that he had defended the astronauts as rumors of the high prices being paid for the covers circulated; according to Andrew Chaikin in his history of the Apollo program, Slayton "went out on a limb to defend his people". Slayton wrote to Winick, stating that the spacecraft had carried covers, but NASA could not confirm these particular envelopes had been taken; he did not tell Winick unauthorized covers had been flown. He sent a copy of his response to the general counsel's office at NASA Headquarters in Washington, which took no action. Slayton did not inform Administrator Fletcher, Deputy Administrator George M. Low or his own superior, Christopher C. Kraft of the postage stamp incident or of the disciplinary action he had taken.
In early June 1972, Low heard from a member of his staff of the possibility covers flown on Apollo 15 might have been sold in Europe. He asked Associate Administrator Dale D. Myers to enquire through NASA management channels for information. Low kept Fletcher informed of the situation as it developed. Myers made an interim report to Low on the 16th. Before he could make his final report on the 26th, the story broke with an article in The Washington Sunday Star on June 18. Kraft interviewed Scott on the 23rd. Low ordered a full investigation by NASA's Inspections Division on June 29.
According to Low in his personal notes, during the investigation, Scott, who had to that point maintained that the astronauts had never intended to profit from the Sieger covers, disclosed the information about the German bank accounts. Once the facts had been developed, Low consulted with Fletcher, Kraft, Slayton and others regarding whether to expel the three men from the Astronaut Corps and return them to the Air Force, to reprimand them and retain them within NASA outside the corps, or to reprimand them but allow them to remain astronauts. Low accepted Kraft's recommendation to reprimand the astronauts, and to state that their actions would be taken into consideration in their future assignments. Low asked to meet with the crew members before making a final decision, and this took place on July 10, Scott and Worden individually at Low's Washington office and Irwin by telephone. All admitted the basic facts, with Scott making "the point for the first time that his intention had really been to use the funds for a trust fund for his children, and not for any direct personal use". Worden, also admitting the facts, stated that he felt he had "taken most of the beating", and in a way was relieved the full story was being aired. Irwin, who had already decided to leave NASA, expressed his concern for Scott's future.
Later on July 10, the three astronauts were reprimanded for poor judgment, something that made it extremely unlikely that they would be selected to fly in space again. Richard S. Lewis, in his early history of the Apollo program, noted that "in the atmosphere of wheeling and dealing that has characterized government agency-industrial contractor relations in the Space Age, the unauthorized freight that the Apollo 15 crew hauled to the moon was a boyish prank. In the rhetoric of space program critics, though, it was branded as exploitation for personal gain of the most costly technological development in history. In the press, the astronauts were treated like fallen angels." Kraft remembered in his memoirs that Slayton told him, "They did it. There was no hiding. Dave just said sure, nothing wrong with it, right?" Scott, while stating, "we made a mistake in even considering it", felt that the reaction "was turning into a witch-hunt". Worden, though admitting blame for entering into the deal, felt that NASA had not adequately supported him, and that Scott had not taken full responsibility for his role. He believed that Slayton would not have required them to leave the Astronaut Corps if left to himself, but that Kraft had insisted. Irwin, who would become an evangelist after leaving the Astronaut Corps, said that NASA had no choice but to reprimand them. He hoped he could turn the experience to use in his ministry, that it would help him empathize with others who had erred.
In mid-July, the media reported on the dispute over the sculpture Fallen Astronaut, left on the Moon by Scott in tribute to those killed in the American and Soviet space programs; the sculptor was having copies made for public sale, over the astronauts' objection. Due to the increasing publicity surrounding the incident, and concerned about the appearance of commercialization of Apollo 15, the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences set a hearing for August 3. It called a number of NASA employees including the astronauts, Slayton, Kraft, Fletcher and Low to appear. Fletcher and Low had tried to talk Senator Anderson out of having a hearing, but the chairman insisted. Worden remembered that while there were difficult questions asked about the astronauts' conduct, part of the committee's concern was why NASA management had allowed another incident to happen so quickly after the Apollo 14 Franklin Mint matter. Members also wanted to know how it was that NASA's chain of command permitted allegations against the astronauts to go unreported to senior management. Because of the efforts of Fletcher and Low, Anderson invoked a rarely used Senate rule for when testimony might impact the reputation of witnesses or others, closing the hearing to the public. Kraft recalled that while he and Low were grilled by the committee, the senators treated the astronauts "like gods".
## Aftermath
None of the Apollo 15 crew flew in space again. Given that the reprimands meant they would likely never be promoted by the Air Force, they were offered other positions at NASA where their skills could be used. Scott was made a technical adviser on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (the first joint mission with the Soviet Union) and retired from the Air Force in 1975. He became director of NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, retiring from NASA in October 1977 and entering the private sector. Worden transferred to NASA's Ames Research Center in California, remaining there until his 1975 retirement both from the Air Force and NASA, and then entered the private sector. Irwin retired in 1972 and founded an evangelical group.
Fletcher asked astronauts still with NASA, and even those who were not, such as Apollo 7's Wally Schirra, to turn in all flown covers in their possession to NASA pending a determination of whether they were government property. Kraft related that there was resistance from astronauts, but "we confiscated them, sometimes under duress". These covers were returned when the Justice Department chose to take no action, "and whatever happened to them was kept quiet". Among the astronauts interviewed in NASA's investigation was Apollo 13's Jack Swigert, who denied any dealings with envelopes; after he subsequently admitted he had, Low removed him from Apollo-Soyuz.
Kraft suspended some fifteen astronauts who "had broken faith with us and ignored a standing order from Deke"; some, having apologized and served their suspensions, flew on Skylab in the mid-1970s. The covers affair resulted in prejudice in the Air Force against former astronauts (all three Apollo 15 astronauts had served there). This deterred Apollo 14's Stu Roosa from returning to the Air Force when he left NASA, leading him to go into business instead. Although Apollo 16's Charles Duke had taken covers to the lunar surface in April 1972, changes to the PPK procedures instituted by NASA meant that none were taken on Apollo 17 that December. Today, astronauts are forbidden by federal regulation from taking philatelic items into space as mementos.
The remaining covers in the Apollo 15 astronauts' control (298 from the group of 400 and 61 more from Worden) were held by NASA during the investigation; Worden said he surrendered them at Kraft's request on the understanding they would be returned once the investigation was over, but the covers were transferred to the National Archives in August 1973. There was a Justice Department investigation into the covers. Its Criminal Division decided in 1974 that no prosecution was warranted, but the Civil Division the following year assumed the covers would be retained by the government. Kraft wrote, "it was questionable that any law had been broken and [the Justice Department] realized that dragging astronauts into court would not be a popular pastime."
In December 1978, the Justice Department issued a report indicating that while the government might have some claim to the Herrick covers (due to the appearance of having been made for profit), it probably did not have any claim to the 298 remaining covers, which the astronauts had said were intended as gifts. The department sent a secret memo to NASA that same year, effectively stating that the government took the covers without "any legal proceedings against the astronauts," and in the process "may have violated their constitutional rights," according to a press source in the Justice Department. In 1979, the department informed NASA that it had concluded that the government would likely lose if the astronauts sued for the covers. There was opposition among senators to the covers being returned, and in February 1980 Howard Cannon of Nevada introduced a joint resolution that the government should keep the covers because of their commercialization and advise the Attorney General to "defend any civic action brought" regarding them. It passed the Senate but died in the House of Representatives.
In February 1983, Worden sued, alleging NASA violated the Constitution by seizing the covers without a hearing. At this time, the Justice Department reminded NASA of its 1978 secret memo. The government concluded NASA either approved the covers or knew they would be aboard Apollo 15 and, in an out-of-court settlement, returned all the envelopes to the three astronauts in July 1983. The settlement was finalized on July 15, with the government agreeing to release the covers unconditionally, whereupon Worden's legal counsel would terminate the suit. That same year, NASA announced plans to fly about 260,000 postal covers aboard the Space Shuttle STS-8 mission, with the U.S. Postal Service to sell them and split the profits with NASA; Worden remarked in his 2011 memoirs that he was amused by this, pointing out that NASA's covers were intended for "unabashed commercial exploitation."
In July 1983, the Associated Press reported on the government's return of the covers, describing how the Justice Department "decided it had no grounds for fighting" the suit and that Worden had agreed to dismiss it, with the 359 envelopes returned. Justice Department lawyer John Seibert stated that NASA had either authorized the envelopes or knew they would be carried into space. The Justice Department read a statement to The Washington Post, printed July 29, explaining how in its decision to return the 61 covers claimed by Worden, it also chose to return the other 298 that Scott and Irwin carried, dividing the latter equally between all three men. Worden's lawyer, James Fleming, said the astronauts were "very happy" with the result. Lawyers also said the three men agreed among themselves not to sell the covers right away, keeping them as mementos and reminders of what had happened. In 2013, Corey S. Powell and Laurie Gwen Shapiro of Slate magazine suggested that the 1978 investigation "largely exonerated" the astronauts, and opined that the return of the covers in 1983 effectively rescinded the accusations.
Some of the covers were later sold by the astronauts. One of the group of 298 covers impounded by the government and owned by Scott sold at the January 2008 Novaspace auction for \$15,000. A Sieger cover sold in 2014 for over \$55,000, the highest auction price to that point—the auctioneer noted that it was one of only four Sieger covers to come to public sale since the initial distribution. Worden sold many of the returned Herrick covers to pay debts from his unsuccessful 1982 run for Congress. When asked in 2011 where the covers were, he said, "Lord only knows. Some of them sold, some of them are still in a safety deposit box. They're probably all over the world by now." In his memoir, Worden expressed remorse at what had happened, writing: “Even if I didn’t break any formal rules, in hindsight I had broken an unspoken trust.” In a 2013 interview with Scott, Slate found that "he's vexed by lingering inaccuracies in the Wikipedia entry about the incidents. We ask: Why didn't he get a friend to log in and correct the entries? He responds with a startled pause. 'Is that right? I didn't know you could do that!' "
## Summary of covers
## See also
- Apollo insurance covers – unflown covers created by Apollo astronauts for sale by their families if they died while on the mission.
- Robbins medallions – space-flown medallions from the Gemini and Apollo flights.
- U.S. space exploration history on U.S. stamps § Space Achievement Decade Issue of 1971 (Apollo 15 mission commemorated)
- "The Man Who Sold the Moon" – Robert Heinlein's 1950 story about a privately funded lunar mission paid for, in part, by covers to be taken to the Moon.
|
70,057,450 |
Lake Street Transfer station
| 1,164,557,338 |
Rapid transit station in Chicago (1913–1951)
|
[
"1893 establishments in Illinois",
"1895 establishments in Illinois",
"1913 establishments in Illinois",
"1951 disestablishments in Illinois",
"Buildings and structures demolished in 1964",
"Defunct Chicago \"L\" stations",
"Demolished railway stations in the United States",
"Railway stations closed in 1951",
"Railway stations in the United States opened in 1893",
"Railway stations in the United States opened in 1895"
] |
The Lake Street Transfer station was a rapid transit station on the Chicago "L", serving as a transfer station between its Lake Street Elevated Railroad and the Logan Square branch of its Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad. Located where the Logan Square branch crossed over the Lake Street Elevated, it was in service from 1913 to 1951, when it was rendered obsolete by the opening of the Dearborn Street subway.
The transfer station was an amalgamation of two predecessor stations: Wood, on the Lake Street Elevated, was on Wood Street, one block west of the site of the future transfer station, and had been constructed in 1893; the Metropolitan's Lake station, on the other hand, was on the site of the future transfer and had been built in 1895. These stations, and their lines, had been constructed by two different companies; when they and two more companies building what would become the "L" merged operations in the early 1910s, a condition for the merger was the construction of a transfer station between the Metropolitan and Lake Street Elevateds at their crossing, which in practice meant the replacement of Wood station with a new Lake Street one under the Metropolitan. Having already merged operations, the "L" companies formally united under the Chicago Rapid Transit Company (CRT) in 1924; the "L" became publicly owned when the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) assumed operations in 1947.
Plans for a subway to provide a more direct route from Logan Square to downtown dated to the late 1930s, but the subway was originally intended to supplement the Logan Square branch of the area, on which the Metropolitan's station lay, rather than replace it. The newly formed CTA, however, found little reason to continue operation of the old Logan Square elevated. The subway was completed in 1951, leading to the station's closure, but remnants of the station survived into the 1960s. The site of the station is near the junction of the Paulina Connector – the descendant of the old Logan Square trackage – and the Lake Street Elevated, which was used for temporary and non-revenue service until the Pink Line opened in 2006 and returned it to revenue status.
Lake Street Transfer was double-decked, the Metropolitan's tracks and station located immediately above the Lake Street's tracks and station. Access to the eastbound Lake Street platform was by a station house at the street level; passengers would then use the platform to access the Metropolitan's platforms and Lake Street's westbound platform by additional stairways.
## History
### Wood station (Lake Street Elevated; 1893–1913)
The Lake Street Elevated Railway Company was incorporated on February 7, 1888. Reincorporated as the Lake Street Elevated Railroad Company on August 24, 1892, to avoid legal issues, its line, the Lake Street Elevated, commenced revenue operations at 5:00 a.m. on November 6, 1893, between California station and the Market Street Terminal. The new line had 13 stations, one of which was located on Wood Street. The Elevated was powered by steam locomotives until May 9, 1896, when its tracks were electrified. The Lake Street Elevated Railroad, having been dogged by financial issues since its inception, was reorganized as the Chicago and Oak Park Elevated Railroad (C&OP) on March 31, 1904.
### Lake station (Metropolitan Elevated; 1895–1913)
The Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad Company, another founding company of the Chicago "L", was granted a fifty-year franchise by the Chicago City Council on April 7, 1892. Unlike the Lake Street Elevated, which operated a single line, the Metropolitan had a main line that proceeded west from downtown to Marshfield Junction, where it split into three branches: one northwestern branch to Logan Square (which in turn had a branch to Humboldt Park), one branch due west to Garfield Park, and one southwestern branch to Douglas Park. While the competing South Side and Lake Street Elevateds used steam traction, the Metropolitan never did; although it had originally intended to, and indeed had built much of its structure under the assumption that locomotives would be used, it decided in May 1894 to have electrified tracks instead, making it upon its opening the first revenue electric elevated railroad in the United States.
The Metropolitan's tracks on the Logan Square branch were finished up to Robey by the middle of October 1894, and were powered on in April 1895 for test and inspection runs. The Metropolitan began service at 6:00 a.m. on Monday, May 6, 1895, between Robey on the Logan Square branch and Canal on the main line. Eleven stations opened that day, one of which was on Lake Street. Since the Lake station crossed the Lake Street Elevated, its tracks and platforms were much higher than elsewhere on the "L".
### Transfer station (1913–1951)
In 1911 the four companies operating the "L" – the C&OP and Metropolitan, as well as the South Side and Northwestern Elevated Railroads – merged operations under the aegis of Chicago Elevated Railways (CER) while keeping their separate identities. CER instituted full integration of crosstown service on the "L" and free transfers between the lines in 1913, having been mandated to do so by the City Council. As part of the same ordinance, the Metropolitan and C&OP were required to construct a transfer station where their tracks intersected; since the Metropolitan already had its Lake station on the site, this meant in practice that the C&OP had to build a station to connect with it. In the process of constructing the new transfer, the C&OP closed its nearby Wood station. Free transfers commenced on November 3, 1913, but the C&OP's new station was not finished at that point. As an interim measure, "walking" transfers between Wood station and the Metropolitan's Lake station were issued. After a few weeks, the C&OP's station was complete, and the Wood station was closed. Throughout the transfer station's existence, it was used as a point of transfer for passengers of one of the lines to switch to the other when construction or maintenance work rendered a line unable to go downtown.
CER acted as a de facto holding company for the "L" – unifying its operations and instituting the same management across the companies – but kept the underlying companies intact. This continued until the companies were formally merged into the single Chicago Rapid Transit Company (CRT) in 1924, which assumed operations on January 9; the former C&OP and Metropolitan were designated as the respective Lake Street and Metropolitan Divisions of the CRT for administrative purposes. Although municipal ownership of transit had been a hotly-contested issue for half a century, the publicly-owned Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) would not be created until 1945, and would not assume operation of the "L" until October 1, 1947.
The new CTA began experiments to streamline service on the "L"; among them was skip-stop, which began as an experiment on the Lake Street Elevated on April 5, 1948. Stations in between Pulaski and the Loop, exclusive, became either "A" or "B" stations and were serviced by respective "A" or "B" trains during weekdays. Despite being located in this area, Lake Street Transfer was exempt from this system and continued to be serviced by all Lake Street Elevated trains. As part of the same plan to streamline Lake Street service, the Ashland station one block east of the transfer was closed but remained standing. The Logan Square branch would not begin skip-stop until the opening of the Dearborn Street subway and the closing of the transfer in 1951.
### Dearborn Street subway, closure, and demolition
Plans for Chicago to have a subway system to relieve the severe congestion of, if not replace, its elevated trackage dated back to the early 20th century, but the city lagged in building subways. Chicago petitioned the Public Works Administration (PWA) for construction funds for a subway on State Street in 1937. The petition originally included a proposal for two downtown east-west streetcar tunnels. Harold L. Ickes, the administrator of the PWA and a longtime Chicagoan, vetoed the streetcar tunnel plan and insisted instead on a second subway that would go under Dearborn Street and Milwaukee Avenue, which would provide a more direct route from Logan Square to downtown. Although this idea engendered considerable local opposition, especially from mayor Edward Joseph Kelly, Ickes's influence in the federal government led to the Dearborn plan being adopted in 1938. A 1939 plan also introduced the idea of replacing the Metropolitan's main line and Garfield Park branch with a section of rapid transit operating through a proposed superhighway on Congress Street (the eventual I290). These sections of transit would be connected, allowing for the area's rapid transit to be routed through downtown rather than adhere to a trunk-and-branch model.
The subway's approval did not immediately imply the end of the old Logan Square branch; plans in 1939 included another proposed subway to connect the branch with the Ravenswood branch to the north and through-routing it with the Douglas Park branch to the south into a subway on Ashland Avenue to form a crosstown route. Damen Tower serving the Humboldt Park branch divergence was rebuilt with the expectation that it also would switch trains between the subway and the elevated, much like the State Street subway connects with the earlier elevated North Side main line that remained standing after its construction, and as late as 1949 commuters were promised such a setup that would have preserved the old Logan Square trackage. However, the CTA had no interest in operating either the old Logan Square elevated or the Humboldt Park branch; the new Damen Tower would never be installed with switching equipment, and the Logan Square branch south of Damen would be closed after the Dearborn subway opened.
World War II interrupted the construction of the Dearborn Street subway; although the federal government allowed the continued construction of the State Street subway, it did not do so for the Dearborn Street subway even though it was 82 percent completed by 1942. After the war ended, work resumed on the Dearborn Street subway and it opened at the midnight beginning Sunday, February 25, 1951; at the same time, the Humboldt Park branch was restricted to a shuttle service to and from Damen on the Logan Square branch. Having been rendered obsolete by the subway, the Lake Street Transfer station was closed and the Lake Street's Ashland station reopened. The subway was predicted to reduce the travel time between Logan Square and downtown from 28 minutes to 15. Since construction had not started on the Congress Line, trains in the Dearborn subway stopped at its southern terminus at LaSalle and turned back. Despite its incomplete state, and complaints from riders no longer given a direct trip to the Near West Side, the new subway had over sixty percent higher ridership than the old Logan Square branch by the end of the year. The old Logan Square branch trackage south of its entrance to the subway became known as the Paulina Connector, connecting the branch with the rest of the "L" system.
Construction on the Congress Line began in 1954, leaving the Douglas branch with the issue of how to connect with the Loop in the meantime. The Paulina Connector south of Washington Boulevard (a block south of Lake Street) was reopened for the purpose, but the Metropolitan's old tracks north of Washington were replaced in revenue service by a direct connection to the Lake Street's trackage known as Washington Junction, located adjacent to the abandoned station. This junction contained an automatic interlocking mechanism, where Douglas Park trains carried an electric coil to switch them to the Connector that Lake Street trains lacked. This connection was used until the Congress Line was completed in 1958, after which the Douglas branch connected directly with it to use the Dearborn Street subway to go downtown, creating the "West-Northwest Route" that was renamed the Blue Line in 1992.
The Paulina Connector – both the original Metropolitan tracks and the newer Washington Junction – remained in non-revenue service. The old northbound track north of Washington Junction was removed in 1957, the southbound track continuing non-revenue operations. Wooden material from closed stations on the Connector, including Lake Street Transfer, was removed in the late 1950s to mitigate fire hazards, as were the lowest flights of stairs to deter trespassing, but the rest of the station would remain until the mid-to-late 1960s. The old Metropolitan trackage north of Washington Junction was sparsely used and most of it was demolished in 1964 with the right of way sold off; the remainder of the Connector reentered revenue service when the Pink Line was formed from it and the Douglas Park branch – by then renamed the Cermak branch – in 2006; the junction of the Pink Line with the modern-day Green Line (the modern service on the Lake Street Elevated) is at Washington Junction by the site of the station.
## Station details
Before 1913 the Wood and Lake stations had two wooden side platforms each. The Wood station had two station houses, one on each platform, designed in a "gingerbread" Queen Anne style, similar to the other stations on the route and the surviving station houses at Ashland. The station houses were heated by potbelly stoves, and while earlier plans had called for their ticket agent's booths to be placed on the sides of the station houses facing the street, they ended up being placed in alcoves adjacent to the platforms. The construction of the Lake Street Elevated's stations was contracted to Frank L. Underwood of Kansas City and Willard R. Green of New York. The Metropolitan's Lake station, which continued as its portion of the Lake Street Transfer, also had two wooden side platforms, but a station house located at street level on the north side of Lake Street. The station house, made of red pressed brick and white limestone trim, was designed similarly to other stations on the Logan Square branch, surviving examples of which are at California and Damen, with a corniced and dentiled front bay containing dual doors specifically marked "Entrance" and "Exit" and prolific use of terra cotta. Its wooden platforms had hipped roof tin canopies in the center and decorative cast-iron railings with diamond designs. Unlike elsewhere on the "L", station houses on the Metropolitan had central heating and a basement.
After the transfer was completed in 1913 the C&OP built new platforms; these platforms projected westward from the Metropolitan, with their eastern halves covered by arched canopies with lattice framing and their western halves open. Auxiliary exits onto Hermitage Avenue were located on the middle of the Lake Street platforms at the western ends of their canopies. On the Metropolitan's end, its platforms and canopies were extended southward to meet the southern Lake Street platform, and a new station house on the south side of Lake Street was constructed sometime before 1917, after which the original station house was used for storage. The final station was double-decked, with the Metropolitan's original two side platforms being augmented by the Lake Street Elevated's lower two side platforms. Access to the station was through stairwells from the station house to the Lake Street platforms, which had additional stairways to connect to the Metropolitan platforms; each Lake Street platform was connected to each Metropolitan platform, leading to four inter-platform stairwells in total. The station house presumably had direct access only to the southern eastbound Lake Street platform, with patrons wishing to access the Lake Street's northern westbound platform having to walk up to the Metropolitan platforms and walk down again.
Throughout the stations' existence, the Lake Street and Metropolitan Elevateds had two tracks each in the vicinity, meaning that the transfer station had four tracks overall. Having had trouble constructing its trackage with two different companies and assembling much of its own infrastructure, the Lake Street Elevated contracted with Underwood and Green to construct its stations and the tracks west of Ashland. The Metropolitan's tracks were constructed by the West Side Construction Company, a company with the same officers as the Metropolitan itself and the chief engineer of E. W. Elliot, with steel and iron from the Carnegie Steel Company. Like the rest of the station, the tracks were double-decked in relation with one another.
### Operations and connections
As originally opened, the Metropolitan's trains ran every six minutes between 6:00 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., and every ten minutes during the night; the average speed was 16 mph (26 km/h). Unlike the Lake Street Elevated, all the Metropolitan's motor cars allowed smoking. The Lake Street Elevated originally operated smoking cars at some times and not at others, but the C&OP banned all smoking on its trains in 1909. Smoking was banned by the city across the "L" and in streetcars in response to a 1918 influenza outbreak, a prohibition that has remained in force ever since.
The fare across the "L" was legally mandated to be a nickel (5 cents, \$ in 2021) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This fare continued until temporarily increased by a cent to \$0.06 (\$ in 2021) in 1917 before stabilizing to a dime (10 cents, \$ in 2021) in 1920. Starting in 1922 fares were usually marketed in packs of three rides for 25 cents, or 8+1⁄3 cents per ride (\$ per ride in 2021), but individual fares remained 10 cents each. At the same time, a weekly pass was introduced, the first in a major American city, for \$1.25 (\$ in 2021) for rides outside of Evanston and Wilmette. Fare control was originally by station agents posted at the station 24 hours a day; on the Lake Street, conductors were instead used for off-peak and night hours between 1921 and 1922 and consistently from 1925, while the Metropolitan used conductors between 1931 and 1937.
The Lake Street transfer station was served by a streetcar service on Lake Street; this service was consolidated with a streetcar service on State Street down to 63rd Street on September 14, 1924, as part of so-called "Through Route 16", or TR 16. Unlike many streetcar lines in Chicago, TR 16 had no owl service, and its last northbound car left 63rd Street at 12:35 a.m. During the day, streetcar lines in Chicago typically had intervals of between eight and fifteen minutes per car. After the transfer station was abandoned, streetcar service on Lake Street was cut back from downtown on November 15, 1953, and replaced by buses on May 30, 1954.
### Ridership
Prior to the construction of the transfer, the Metropolitan's Lake station had a ridership that hovered around 250,000 a year, peaking at 296,116 in 1905. The Lake Street's Wood station had a similar ridership, but one which peaked at 441,045 in 1905. Once the transfer was in place, the two lines' contributions to station ridership were roughly equal, with the Lake Street edging out the Metropolitan each year.
In 1936, the last year Lake Street records are available, the transfer station had 94,688 Lake Street riders and 87,533 Metropolitan riders for a combined ridership of 182,221. The following year's Metropolitan ridership was 181,909, suggesting that subsequent years' riderships were all recorded as being under the Metropolitan. The Metropolitan continued to record transfer ridership until 1948; that year, the Lake Street Transfer had 361,934 riders, a substantial 69.48 percent increase from the 213,561 of 1947. Throughout the 1940s, the transfer's ridership ranking within the Northwest branch's six stations varied significantly; in 1940 it was the second-least patronized station after Grand immediately to the north, while in 1948 it had the third-highest ridership after Damen and Chicago. For the "L" overall, in 1948 it was the 122nd-most ridden of 223 stations at the beginning of the year where ridership was recorded; in 1947 it had been the 174th-most ridden of 222 such stations.
|
10,373,332 |
Brabham BT19
| 1,144,708,061 |
Formula One racing car
|
[
"1966 Formula One season cars",
"1967 Formula One season cars",
"Brabham Formula One cars",
"Formula One championship-winning cars",
"Tasman Series cars"
] |
The Brabham BT19 /ˈbræbəm/ is a Formula One racing car designed by Ron Tauranac for the British Brabham team. The BT19 competed in the 1966 and 1967 Formula One World Championships and was used by Australian driver Jack Brabham to win his third World Championship in 1966. The BT19, which Brabham referred to as his "Old Nail", was the first car bearing its driver's name to win a World Championship race.
The car was initially conceived in 1965 for a 1.5-litre (92-cubic inch) Coventry Climax engine, but never raced in this form. For the 1966 Formula One season the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) doubled the limit on engine capacity to 3 litres (183 cu in). Australian company Repco developed a new V8 engine for Brabham's use in 1966, but a disagreement between Brabham and Tauranac over the latter's role in the racing team left no time to develop a new car to handle it. Instead, the existing BT19 chassis was modified for the job.
Only one BT19 was built. It was bought by Repco in 2004 and put on display in the National Sports Museum in Melbourne, Australia, in 2008. It is often demonstrated at motorsport events.
## Concept
The BT19 was created by Australian designer Ron Tauranac for the Brabham Racing Organisation (BRO) to use in the 1965 season of the Formula One motor racing World Championship. The BT19, and its contemporary the Lotus 39, were built to use the new FWMW flat-16 engine from Coventry Climax. Only one example of the BT19 design was built, and it never raced in its original form. Climax abandoned the FWMW's development before the end of 1965, their existing FWMV V8 engines proving powerful enough to propel Jim Clark's Lotus 33 to seven wins and the drivers' championship.
For 1966, the engine capacity limit in Formula One was doubled from 1.5 litres (92 cu in) to 3 litres (183 cu in). It was not feasible to enlarge existing 1.5-litre engines to take full advantage of the higher limit and Climax chose not to develop a new 3-litre motor, leaving many teams without a viable engine for 1966.
The new 3-litre engines under development by competing team Ferrari had 12 cylinders. Jack Brabham, owner and lead driver of BRO, took a different approach to the problem of obtaining a suitable engine. He persuaded Australian company Repco to develop a new 3-litre eight-cylinder engine for him, largely based on available components; the engine would produce less power than Ferrari's, but would be lighter, easier to fix and more fuel efficient.
Brabham cars were designed and built by Motor Racing Developments Ltd. (MRD), which was jointly owned by Tauranac and Jack Brabham and built cars for customers in several racing series. The Formula One racing team, BRO, was a separate company wholly owned by Jack Brabham. It bought its cars from MRD but Tauranac had little connection with the race team between 1962 and 1965.
At the end of the 1965 season Tauranac was losing interest in this arrangement, reasoning that "it was just a matter of a lot of effort for no real interest because I didn't get to go racing very much" and "I might as well get on with my main line business, which was selling production cars." Although Brabham investigated using chassis from other manufacturers, the two men eventually agreed that Tauranac would have a greater interest in the Formula One team, which MRD eventually took over completely from BRO. This agreement was not reached until November 1965. Repco delivered the first example of the new engine to the team's headquarters in the United Kingdom in late 1965, just weeks before the first Formula One race to the new regulations, the non-championship South African Grand Prix on 1 January 1966. Rather than build a new car in the limited time available, BRO pressed chassis number F1-1-1965, the sole and unused BT19, into service.
## Chassis and suspension
Tauranac built the BT19 around a mild steel spaceframe chassis similar to those used in his previous Brabham designs. The use of a spaceframe was considered a conservative design decision; by 1966, most of Brabham's competitors were using the theoretically lighter and stiffer monocoque design, introduced to Formula One by Lotus during the 1962 season. Tauranac believed that contemporary monocoques were not usefully stiffer than a well-designed spaceframe and were harder to repair and maintain. The latter was a particular concern for Brabham, which was the largest manufacturer of customer single-seater racing cars in the world at the time. The company's reputation rested in part on BRO – effectively the official 'works' team – using the same technology as its customers, for whom ease of repair was a significant consideration. One mildly novel feature was the use of oval-section, rather than round, tubing around the cockpit, where the driver sits. In a spaceframe or monocoque racing car, the cockpit is effectively a hole in the structure, weakening it considerably. For a given cross sectional area, oval tubing is stiffer in one direction than round tubing. Tauranac happened to have a supply of oval tubing and used it to stiffen the cockpit area. The car weighed around 1250 pounds (567 kg), around 150 lb (68.0 kg) over the minimum weight limit for the formula, although it was still one of the lightest cars in the 1966 field. The race starting weight of a 1966 Brabham-Repco with driver and fuel was estimated to be around 1,415 lb (642 kg), about 280 lb (127 kg) less than the more powerful rival Cooper T81-Maseratis.
The bodywork of the BT19 is glass-reinforced plastic, finished in Brabham's usual racing colours of green with gold trimming around the nose. Although the science of aerodynamics would not greatly affect Formula One racing until the 1968 season, Tauranac had been making use of the Motor Industry Research Association wind tunnel since 1963 to refine the shape of his cars. Brabham has attributed the car's "swept-down nose and the upswept rear lip of the engine cowl" to Tauranac's "attention to aerodynamic detail". During the 1967 season, the car appeared with small winglets on the nose, to further reduce lift acting at the front of the car.
Against the trend set by the Lotus 21 in 1961, the BT19's suspension, which controls the relative motion of the chassis and the wheels, is outboard all round. That is, the bulky springs and dampers are mounted in the space between the wheels and the bodywork, where they interfere with the airflow and increase unwanted aerodynamic drag. Tauranac persisted with this apparently conservative approach based on wind tunnel tests he had carried out in the early 1960s, which indicated that a more complicated inboard design, with the springs and dampers concealed under the bodywork, would provide only a 2% improvement in drag. He judged the extra time needed to set up an inboard design at the racetrack to outweigh this small improvement. At the front the suspension consists of unequal length, non-parallel double wishbones. The front uprights, the solid components upon which the wheels and brakes are mounted, were modified from the Alford & Alder units used on the British Triumph Herald saloon. The rear suspension is formed by a single top link, a reversed lower wishbone and two radius rods locating cast magnesium alloy uprights. Wheels were initially 13 inches (330 mm) in diameter, but soon upgraded to 15 in (380 mm) at the rear, and later still 15 in at the front as well. These increases enabled the use of larger, more powerful brakes. Steel disc brakes are used on all four wheels and were of 10.5 in (270 mm) diameter for the smaller wheels and 11 in (280 mm) for the larger ones. The car ran on treaded Goodyear tyres throughout its racing career.
The BT19 continued Tauranac's reputation for producing cars that handled well. Brabham has since commented that it "was beautifully balanced and I loved its readiness to drift through fast curves." Brabham referred to the car as his Old Nail; Ron Tauranac has explained this as being "because it was two years old, great to drive and had no vices."
## Engine and transmission
Repco racing engines were designed by the leading motorcycle engine designer, Phil Irving, and built by a small team at a Repco subsidiary, Repco-Brabham engines Pty Ltd, in Maidstone, Australia. Repco's 620 series engine is a normally aspirated unit with eight cylinders in a 'V' configuration. It uses American engine blocks obtained from Oldsmobile's aluminium alloy 215 engine. Oldsmobile's 215 engine, used in the F-85 Cutlass compact car between 1961 and 1963, was abandoned by General Motors after production problems. Repco fitted their own cast iron cylinder liners into the Oldsmobile blocks, which were also stiffened with two Repco magnesium alloy castings and feature Repco-designed cylinder heads with chain-driven single overhead camshafts. The internals of the unit consist of a bespoke Laystall crankshaft, Chevrolet or Daimler connecting rods and specially cast pistons. The cylinder head design means that the engine's exhaust pipes exit on the outer side of the block, and therefore pass through the spaceframe before tucking inside the rear suspension, a layout which complicated Tauranac's design work considerably. The engine is water-cooled, with oil and water radiators mounted in the nose.
The 620 engine was light for its time, weighing around 340 lb (154 kg), compared to 500 lb (227 kg) for the Maserati V12, but in 3 litre Formula One form only produced around 300 brake horsepower (220 kW) at under 8000 revolutions per minute (rpm), compared to 330–360 bhp (250–270 kW) produced by the Ferrari and Maserati V12s. However, it produced high levels of torque over a wide range of engine speeds from 3500 rpm up to peak torque of 233 pound feet (316 N·m) at 6500 rpm. Installed in the lightweight BT19 chassis, it was also relatively fuel efficient; on the car's debut Brabham reported that the BT19 achieved 7 miles per gallon (40 L/100 km), against figures of around 4 mpg (70 L/100 km) for its "more exotic rivals". This meant that it could start a Grand Prix with only 35 gallons (160 L) of fuel on board, compared to around 55 gallons (250 L) for the Cooper T81-Maseratis. The engine had one further advantage over bespoke racing engines: parts were cheap. For example, the engine blocks were available for £11 each and the connecting rods cost £7 each.
The 740 series unit used in the three races for which the car was entered in 1967 has a different, lighter, Repco-designed engine block. It also has redesigned cylinder heads which, among other improvements, mean that its exhausts are mounted centrally and do not pass through the spaceframe or rear suspension, unlike those of the 620 series. It produced a maximum of 330 bhp (250 kW).
The BT19 was initially fitted with a Hewland HD (Heavy Duty) gearbox, originally designed for use with less powerful 2-litre engines. The greater power of the 3-litre Repco engine was more than the gearbox could reliably transmit when accelerating at full power from rest, with the result that Brabham normally made very gentle starts to avoid gearbox breakages. The HD was later replaced with the sturdier DG (Different Gearbox) design, produced at the request of both Brabham and Dan Gurney's Anglo American Racers team. It later became a popular choice for other constructors.
## Racing history
Although regarded by its designer as a "lash-up", BT19 had a very successful Formula One racing career, almost entirely in the hands of Jack Brabham. BT19 was entered in several non-championship Formula One races before the beginning of the 1966 world championship season. At the non-championship at East London on 1 January, BT19 was the only new 3-litre car present. It recorded the fastest time in the qualifying session before the race – therefore taking pole position for the start of the race – and led the majority of the event before the fuel injection pump seized. Similar problems stopped the car on the second lap of the Syracuse Grand Prix in Sicily, but at the International Trophy at the Silverstone circuit, Brabham set pole position, a new lap record, and led the whole race to win ahead of 1964 champion John Surtees in a 3-litre works Ferrari.
The 1966 world championship season opened with the . Brabham was affected by a cold, and qualified poorly before retiring when the BT19's gearbox failed. Surtees led the race in his Ferrari before his differential failed on lap 15; the race was won by Jackie Stewart in a 2-litre BRM P261. At the following at the Spa circuit, Brabham survived an enormous 135 miles per hour (217 kilometres per hour) slide in the rain on the first lap. The shower eliminated half the field, including Stewart, who would miss the next race with his injuries. The BT19, using Goodyear tyres that were not suited to the conditions, came home fourth of five classified finishers. Surtees won the race for Ferrari, the last before he quit the Italian team.
At the , held at the high speed Reims-Gueux circuit, Brabham followed race leader Lorenzo Bandini closely from the start of the race, using the slipstream of Bandini's more powerful Ferrari to tow him to up to 8 mph (13 km/h) faster down the straights than the BT19 could manage on its own. This allowed Brabham to consolidate his lead over Ferrari's second driver, Formula One novice Mike Parkes. After 12 laps Bandini pulled away from Brabham, eventually by over 30 seconds, but when the Italian car was delayed by a broken throttle cable on lap 32, Brabham cruised to the finish to win from Parkes and become the first man to win a Formula One World Championship race in one of his own cars.
Although the first Brabham BT20, the definitive 1966 car, had been available at Reims, Brabham continued with the BT19 and used it to win the next three championship races. Ferrari, competitive in all three championship races to that point, were not present for the . The race was held on the tight and twisting Brands Hatch circuit, the track made slippery by oil leaking from other cars and by drizzle. Brabham set pole and led the entire race. At the next championship round, the , Brabham reported the low speed Zandvoort circuit to be "even more oily and treacherous than Brands." Brabham won the race after Jim Clark's less powerful 2 litre Lotus 33-Climax, which had passed Brabham for the lead mid-race, was delayed by overheating problems. The was held at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, which Brabham described as "Brands Hatch on steroids". On the opening lap Brabham took the lead from Surtees, now driving a Cooper-Maserati. Brabham won after a race-long fight with the Englishman in the rain. With four wins and more finishes than any of his championship rivals, Brabham had a 22-point lead in the drivers championship and could only be caught in the championship by Surtees or Stewart if one of them won all three of the remaining races.
Jack Brabham used BT19 again at the at Monza, another high speed circuit. A second BT20 was completed at the Italian track and Brabham tried it in practice for the race, but decided to race his Old Nail, which he felt was fitted with a stronger engine. As at Reims, Brabham successfully slipstreamed the race leaders early on, but an oil leakage stopped the car after 8 laps. Neither Surtees nor Stewart finished the race and Brabham clinched his third world championship.
Brabham used the BT19 once more that season to take pole position and victory at the non-championship Oulton Park Gold Cup, before using a new BT20 for the final two races of the championship season. The BT19 was used again at three of the first four championship races in the 1967 Formula One season, debuting the new Repco 740 engine at the , where it took pole position, and finishing second at the .
Commenting on the reasons for the unexpected competitiveness of the 1966 Brabham-Repcos in Formula One, motorsport historian Doug Nye has suggested that they "could score on weight over the more powerful Ferrari, BRM, Cooper-Maserati, Eagle-Weslake and Honda in their undeveloped forms, and on sheer 'grunt' over such interim stop-gap cars as the nimble 2-litre Climax and BRM V8-engined Lotus 33s and BRMs."
BT19 also competed in the final two races of the 1965/66 Tasman Series in Australia, which was run to the pre-1961 Formula One regulations, including an engine capacity limit of 2.5 litres. Tasman racing was the original purpose of the Repco engine and Brabham's involvement was supposed to promote the 2.5-litre version. Frank Hallam, head of the Repco-Brabham organisation responsible for building the Repco engines, has said that the smaller version "never put out the power per litre that the 3 litre engine produced", which itself was not a powerful unit. Fitted with the 2.5-litre engine BT19 recorded one retirement and a third place in the series.
## Demonstrations
The BT19 was not raced in serious competition after 1967. Brabham retired and moved back to Australia at the end of 1970. He retained ownership of the car until 1976, when it passed into the hands of Repco and was restored by the Repco Engine Parts Group. In 1986, Automotive Components Ltd. (ACL) was formed by the management buyout of Engine Parts Group, which included the transfer of the BT19 to the new company. Since its restoration, the car has frequently been demonstrated at events, including the 1978 Australian Grand Prix at Sandown where Brabham was involved in a spirited demonstration with Juan Manuel Fangio driving his Mercedes-Benz W196. Brabham and the car also appeared at the first Australian Grands Prix to be held on the Adelaide (1985) and Melbourne (1996) street circuits. It also appeared at the 2004 Goodwood Revival meeting in the United Kingdom. ACL sold the car back to Repco in 2004. In 2008 the car was installed in the Australian National Sports Museum at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, on loan from Repco.
In 2002, at the inaugural Speed on Tweed historic meeting at Murwillumbah, Brabham, then 76, commented: "It's been a wonderful car over the years and it's been very well looked after and it's a pleasure to come and drive it. Coming to Murwillumbah was a really good excuse to get back in the car and drive it again and I'm afraid that's something I'll never ever get tired of."
## Complete results
### Formula One World Championship
(key) (results in bold indicate pole position)
### Non-championship results
(key) (results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)
† This race was a support to the 1966 Surfers Paradise Trophy, 14 August 1966
|
9,813,901 |
U.S. Route 31 in Michigan
| 1,163,876,967 |
U.S. Highway in Michigan
|
[
"Freeways and expressways in Michigan",
"Lake Michigan Circle Tour",
"Transportation in Allegan County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Antrim County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Benzie County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Berrien County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Charlevoix County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Cheboygan County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Emmet County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Grand Traverse County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Manistee County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Mason County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Muskegon County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Oceana County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Ottawa County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Van Buren County, Michigan",
"U.S. Highways in Michigan",
"U.S. Route 31"
] |
US Highway 31 (US 31) is a part of the United States Numbered Highway System that runs from Alabama to the Lower Peninsula of the US state of Michigan. In Michigan, it is a state trunkline highway that runs from the Indiana–Michigan state line at Bertrand Township north to its terminus at Interstate 75 (I-75) south of Mackinaw City. Along its 355.2-mile-long (571.6 km) route, US 31 follows the Michigan section of the St. Joseph Valley Parkway as well as other freeways and divided highways northward to Ludington. North of there, the trunkline is a rural undivided highway through the Northern Michigan tourist destinations of Traverse City and Petoskey before terminating south of Mackinaw City. Along its route, US 31 has been dedicated in memory of a few different organizations, and sections of it carry the Lake Michigan Circle Tour (LMCT) moniker. Four bridges used by the highway have been recognized for their historic character as well.
The first highways along the route of the modern US 31 corridor were the West Michigan Pike, an auto trail from 1913, and later a pair of state trunklines (the original M-11 and M-58) in 1919. These state highways were redesignated US 31 on November 11, 1926, when the US Highway System was approved. Since then, the highway has been realigned in places. The highway crossed the Straits of Mackinac by ferry for about a decade in the 1920s and 1930s before the Mackinac Bridge was built, connecting to US 2 north of St. Ignace. Later, sections were converted into freeways starting in the 1950s. These segments opened through the subsequent decades with the last one opening in 2022. Future plans by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) include a bypass of Grand Haven.
## Route description
Between Lake Michigan Beach and the northern terminus south of Mackinaw City, most of US 31 forms a portion of the Lake Michigan Circle Tour (LMCT) except where the various business loops run between the main highway and Lake Michigan. Additionally, much of the highway from the Indiana–Michigan state line to Ludington is built to freeway standards, with a notable exception being between Holland and Ferrysburg. The remainder of US 31 is a two- or four-lane highway with some sections in cities comprising five lanes. The entire length of the highway is listed on the National Highway System, a network of roads important to the US's economy, defense, and mobility.
### St. Joseph Valley Parkway and I-196
US 31 and the St. Joseph Valley Parkway crosses into Michigan from Indiana southwest of Niles and parallels the St. Joseph River as the two run northward through southwest Michigan. The freeway passes through farmland before crossing US 12 at the first of a set of three interchanges located between Niles on the east and Buchanan on the west. US 31 crosses the river north of the interchange with Niles–Buchanan Road. North of the Walton Road interchange, the freeway turns northwesterly to recross the St. Joseph River near Lake Chapin south of Berrien Springs. The parkway curves around the west side of town before crossing the river for a third time. As US 31 continues northward parallel to the river, it enters the eastern fringes of the Benton Harbor–St. Joseph area. The freeway continues north of Napier Avenue and curves to the northwest to an interchange with Business Loop I-94 (BL I-94) and I-94, merging onto the latter. I-94/US 31 runs concurrently on a northeasterly course before meeting the southern end of I-196 in Benton Township.
At this trumpet interchange, I-196/US 31 runs north from I-94 and passes to the west of the Point O'Woods Golf & Country Club. It continues northward in rural Berrien County through farm fields. The trunkline turns northwesterly near the Lake Michigan Hills Golf Course and crosses the Paw Paw River. Past the river, the freeway turns northeasterly and runs roughly parallel to the Lake Michigan shoreline several miles inland. At the community of Lake Michigan Beach, I-196/US 31 meets the northern terminus of M-63 at exit 7, and the LMCT joins the freeway for the first time. North of this interchange, the freeway parallels a county road (A-2, the Blue Star Highway) that is the former route of US 31.
Further north, I-196/US 31 crosses into Van Buren County and assumes the Gerald R. Ford Freeway name. The inland side of the freeway is forested while the lakeward side is predominantly either forest or fields. As it approaches South Haven, the freeway passes near the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station and Van Buren State Park. North of the power plant and park, the freeway turns farther inland to bypass the city of South Haven. There is an interchange on the south side of town that provides access to BL I-196 and M-140. The freeway crosses over M-43 without an interchange and then intersects the other end of the business loop about two miles (3.2 km) later. It crosses the Black River near the Van Buren–Allegan county line.
In Allegan County, I-196/US 31 passes a pair of golf courses and continues northward through farm fields. Near the community of Glenn, A-2 crosses over the freeway and runs parallel to it on the east. The two roads trade places again when I-196/US 31 turns northeasterly on the south side of the twin cities of Saugatuck and Douglas. The freeway crosses over a section of Kalamazoo Lake, a wider section of the Kalamazoo River that flows between the two towns. A-2 crosses back to the eastern side of the freeway north of Saugatuck, and I-196/US 31 continues north-northeasterly toward Holland.
On the south side of Holland, US 31 and I-196 separate as the Interstate turns northeasterly around the city to continue to Grand Rapids. US 31 follows the BL I-196 freeway northward into Holland around the north side of the West Michigan Regional Airport. The business loop has an interchange for A-2 (Blue Star Highway) and Washington Avenue before the freeway ends in the southern reaches of Holland. The trunkline then runs as a divided highway northward, bypassing downtown Holland to the east and intersecting M-40. Northeast of downtown Holland, BL I-196 leaves US 31 and the LMCT at an interchange to follow an expressway along the route of Chicago Drive while US 31 turns northwesterly on its own expressway alignment.
### West Michigan
Northwest of Holland, the highway runs as a four-lane expressway and divided highway parallel, but inland from, the Lake Michigan shoreline. This section of US 31 runs through a mix of farm fields and forests as it runs to the community of Agnew. There, US 31 intersects the western end of M-45 (Lake Michigan Drive) before continuing into the southern end of Grand Haven. In that city, the highway follows a four-lane boulevard with a grass median. On the northern edge of the city of Grand Haven, US 31 crosses the Grand River on a bascule bridge that opens about 450–500 times per year. North of the structure, US 31 transitions into a freeway at the interchange with the western end of M-104 in Ferrysburg. This freeway continues northward through the suburban edges of the Muskegon area and meets the western end of I-96 near the Muskegon County Airport in Norton Shores.
At this interchange with I-96, US 31 has its southernmost business loop as Business US 31 (Bus. US 31) runs westerly and northward into downtown Muskegon. The main freeway continues through the suburban eastern edge of the city through several interchanges, including one with M-46 (Apple Avenue). Just south of the Muskegon River, the business loop merges back into the main freeway. US 31 crosses the river and turns northwesterly through forests. The freeway passes to the east of Michigan's Adventure, an amusement park, and crosses the White River near the communities of Whitehall and Montague; a business loop curves off to the west to connect the two communities with the freeway. In this area, US 31 runs through the southern portion of the Manistee National Forest as well.
As the freeway continues northward, US 31 intersects the western end of M-20 in New Era in Oceana County. The landscape in this area is dominated by forest land as the trunkline crosses the Hart-Montague Trail State Park, a linear state park that follows a bike trail in the area. North of the trail crossing, US 31 has a business spur for Hart that runs east into that town; north of this interchange, the freeway crosses the Pentwater River near the community of Pentwater.
North of Pentwater, US 31 crosses into Mason County and passes Bass Lake and the Ludington Pumped Storage Power Plant, which uses a reservoir next to the freeway to generate electricity. Just north of that reservoir, the freeway turns to the northeast and Ludington's business spur runs off to the northwest. US 31 curves around the east side of Ludington, crossing the Pere Marquette River. Due east of downtown, the freeway ends and US 31 turns east to merge with US 10. The concurrent highways follow a four-lane roadway to Scottville. On the west side of that town, US 31 separates from US 10, turning northward to bypass Scottville.
### Northwest Michigan
US 31 runs due north through Northwest Michigan forest land bypassing Freesoil to the west. Northwest of that town, the highway crosses the Big Sable River before entering Manistee County. Across the county line, the trunkline runs northwesterly parallel to Manistee Lake as US 31 enters Manistee. The highway follows Cypress Street to a drawbridge over the Manistee River and then Cleveland Street on the northern side. As the trunkline rounds the northern shore of Manistee Lake, it passes the SS City of Milwaukee, a car ferry preserved as a museum. From there, the highway runs northeasterly, intersecting the western end of M-55 (Caberfae Highway). Next to the Little River Casino, the highway intersects the southern end of M-22 (Orchard Highway), and the LMCT separates from US 31.
The highway continues on a northeasterly course running inland along Chippewa Highway to the community of Bear Lake. US 31 rounds the east side of the community's namesake body of water on Lake Street and exits town on Pleasanton Highway. The trunkline continues northward and northeasterly through Pleasanton and crosses into Benzie County. Over the county line, it follows Benzie Highway northward to an intersection with M-115 (Cadillac Highway). The two merge and run north into Benzonia, following Michigan Avenue in town. Near the south shore of Crystal Lake, M-115 turns westward toward Frankfort and US 31 follows Michigan Avenue into Beulah, running around the eastern end of the lake. Near the eastern end of Platte Lake, US 31 turns to run easterly into Honor before crossing into Grand Traverse County.
Across the county line, US 31 continues eastward, passing north of the community of Interlochen, intersecting the former M-137, which connected to Interlochen State Park. The highway then angles northeasterly north of Duck Lake and south of Silver Lake. A few miles farther east, US 31 meets M-37 at a location known as Chums Corners. The two highways join and run northward through the unincorporated community. It passes Turtle Creek Stadium, the home stadium for the Traverse City Pit Spitters, a minor-league baseball team. From there, US 31/M-37 runs downhill into Garfield Township. In this area, the highway passes through a cluster of retail stores and car dealerships near the Grand Traverse Mall. North of the intersection with 14th Street, the trunkline follows Division Street into Traverse City. From there it runs to the east of Grand Traverse Commons, the former Traverse City State Hospital, before US 31/M-37 meets Grandview Parkway next to the West Arm of the Grand Traverse Bay.
At that intersection, the trunkline meets the northern end of M-22, which is running concurrently with M-72 along the parkway. As US 31/M-37 turns east to run along the bay north of downtown, the highway merges with M-72 and picks up the LMCT again. Grandview Parkway runs between the Boardman River and the bay. Near the mouth of the river, US 31/M-37/M-72 turns to follow Front Street along the remainder of the bay's shoreline. At Garfield Avenue, M-37 turns northward to run up the Old Mission Peninsula, and US 31/M-72 continues across the base of the peninsula to the East Arm of the Grand Traverse Bay. The highway runs north of the Cherry Capital Airport near the east arm as it angles southeasterly to Traverse City State Park. East of the park, the trunkline exits suburban Traverse City and rounds the bay to run northward along its eastern shore. In the community of Acme, M-72 turns eastward while US 31 continues north past the Grand Traverse Resort.
About nine miles (14 km) north of Acme, US 31 crosses into Antrim County as it runs between Elk Lake and the Grand Traverse Bay. Between towns, the landscape is mostly agricultural lands with mixed patches of forest. A few miles north of the county line, the trunkline passes through Elk Rapids and crosses a channel connecting the Spencer Bay portion of Elk Lake to Lake Michigan. North of this crossing, US 31 continues northeasterly, running on an isthmus between Torch Lake and Grand Traverse Bay. The highway passes through Eastport at the northern end of Torch Lake and intersects the western end of M-88. Further north, US 31 runs through Atwood and crosses into Charlevoix County.
### North to the Straits Area
As US 31 curves around to the northeast and east in Charlevoix County, it follows a section of the Lake Michigan shoreline that is not considered to be part of any bay. The highway continues through Northern Michigan agricultural areas to the southeast of Charlevoix. Once it enters the city, the trunkline intersects the northern end of M-66 and follows a series of city streets to a drawbridge over the channel that connects Lake Charlevoix to Lake Michigan. South of the structure it is Bridge Street, and north of the bridge it is Michigan Avenue. The highway turns eastward to exit town on Petoskey Avenue and follow the Lake Michigan shoreline. Near the community of Bay Shore, US 31 crosses into Emmet County. The trunkline continues past the Bay Harbor development on Charlevoix Avenue into the city of Petoskey.
Once in Petoskey, US 31 intersects the northern end of US 131 (Spring Street) and turns northward along Spring Street through downtown. The highway curves around to follow Mitchell Street to cross the Bear River and then follow Bay View Road. US 31 runs along the Little Traverse Bay through the eastern end of Petoskey and into Bay View. From there, it intersects the southern end of M-119 and passes through a pair of small towns, Conway and Oden, that border inland lakes like Round Lake and various bays of Crooked Lake.
North of Oden, US 31 runs through Ponshewaing before entering the village of Alanson. There the highway intersects the western end of M-68 and runs parallel to the Crooked River, part of the Inland Waterway. North of town, US 31 runs through the town of Brutus before entering Pellston. The highway runs past the Pellston Regional Airport and continues due north to Levering. From there, US 31 turns northwesterly and then northeasterly on Mackinaw Highway to round Lake Paradise in the community of Carp Lake. North of the lake, US 31 follows a limited-access highway into Cheboygan County. Less than 1⁄2 mile (0.80 km) east of the county line, US 31 connects to I-75 in a partial interchange. At this interchange, northbound traffic defaults onto northbound I-75 and US 31 terminates.
## History
### Predecessor highways
The first major overland transportation corridors in the future state of Michigan were the Indian trails. Only one of these followed part of the path of US 31; the Mackinac Trail roughly paralleled the route of US 31 from Petoskey northward.
In the age of the auto trail, the roads that later formed US 31 through Michigan were given a few different highway names. The West Michigan Lake Shore Highway Association was founded on January 10, 1912, and the group reorganized on May 30, 1913, as the West Michigan Pike Association. Their auto trail was marked by a series of concrete markers eight feet (2.4 m) tall along the 400-mile-long (640 km) roadway from the Indiana state line northward to Mackinaw City.
The highway was also a part of the Western Mainline of the Dixie Highway in Michigan, another auto trail that was built starting in 1915. In 1916, the northern junction between the West Michigan Pike and the East Michigan Pike, which served as the connection for the two mainlines of the Dixie Highway in Michigan in Mackinaw City, was marked with a stone monument at the junction of Central Avenue and Huron Street. By the middle of 1921, the trail used about 413 miles (665 km) of roadways along its western branch parallel to Lake Michigan. Michigan led all other states in the Dixie Highway Association by 1922 at improvements to its sections of the roadway.
The State Trunkline Highway System was created on May 13, 1913, by an act of the Michigan Legislature; at the time, one of the system's divisions corresponded to US 31. Division 5 followed a course from Niles northward to Mackinaw City. In 1919, the Michigan State Highway Department (MSHD) signposted the highway system for the first time, and the future US 31 corridor was assigned two numbers. From the state line north through Niles to St. Joseph, it carried the original M-58 designation and from there northward it was the original M-11.
### US Highway System era
The American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) approved the United States Numbered Highway System on November 11, 1926, and the MSHD designated US 31 in Michigan according to AASHO's plan to run northward from the Indiana state line and along the Lake Michigan shoreline to Mackinaw City. A section in the Benton Harbor–St. Joseph area overlapped US 12 and the modern concurrency with US 10 was also in place. By the end of the next year, the highway was extended across the Straits of Mackinac on the state car ferries to connect to US 2 in the Upper Peninsula north of St. Ignace. In 1930, Muskegon was bypassed; the new highway east of downtown was numbered US 31A.
By the end of 1936, the last section of US 31 in the state was paved near Charlevoix, making the entire highway in Michigan a hard-surfaced road. Early the next year, the route of US 2 was realigned to run into St. Ignace; after the change, US 2 and US 31 ran concurrently. Later that year, a set of curves were straightened out south of Ludington and the routes of US 31 and a US 31A between Saugatuck and Holland were switched, and US 31 was realigned to bypass downtown Ludington.
In 1938, the southern end of US 31 was given a second designation when US 33 was extended into the state from Indiana to terminate in St. Joseph. Later that year, the US 31A in the Holland area was decommissioned. The next year, the US 31 concurrency was removed from US 2 in the Upper Peninsula and the former highway no longer crossed the Straits of Mackinac, terminating instead in Mackinaw City. By the early 1940, the Muskegon Bypass was given the US 31 designation, and the route downtown was redesignated US 31A.
During World War II, a bypass of downtown South Haven was built; the former route of US 31 through the heart of the city was designated Bus. US 31 at that time. After the war, the route of US 31 north of Charlevoix was realigned to follow the shoreline; this section opened by the middle of 1949. The route of the highway between Holland and West Olive was changed to run on a more angular course northwesterly in 1950. A few years later, a bypass to the south and east of Holland opened and the former route through down was redesignated as a business loop in 1954.
### Freeway era
On November 1, 1957, the Mackinac Bridge opened to traffic. For the opening of the bridge, the highways coming into Mackinaw City from the south were realigned to connect to it; US 31 terminated at the southern approach to the Mackinac Bridge. In November 1960, sections of I-75's freeway opened from Indian River north to the southern Mackinac Bridge approaches, and US 31 was rerouted to follow segments of that freeway from the current northern terminus south of Mackinaw City northward. By the end of the decade, another freeway segment opened along the Muskegon Bypass as well. The next year, US 33 was extended northward along US 31 from St. Joseph for about 10 miles (16 km).
In 1962, a section of freeway along US 31 was opened between I-94 and the Berrien–Van Buren county line. This section was originally designated as part of I-96/US 31; the former route near the lakeshore became just US 33. The MSHD petitioned federal highway officials to switch the Interstate designations west of Grand Rapids, reversing the I-96 and I-196 numbers to their current configurations. After the designation switch was approved in 1963, an additional 35 miles (56 km) was opened from the northern end of the freeway near Benton Harbor to Holland as I-196/US 31. The freeway was also extended northward from Muskegon to the Muskegon–Oceana county line north of Montague in 1963.
When I-196 was completed between Holland and Grandville in 1974, the BL I-196 designation was applied along US 31 and Bus. US 31. The next year, the US 31 freeway was extended northward into Oceana County to New Era. In 1976, this freeway was lengthened further to Hart. The section of I-196/US 31 in all but Berrien County was dedicated as the "Gerald R. Ford Freeway" in July 1978. Also that year, the US 31 freeway was extended to the southern side of Pentwater.
At the end of the 1970s and into the early 1990s, US 31 gained additional freeway segments on both ends of the highway. The first section of the St. Joseph Valley Parkway was completed in 1979 and ran from the Indiana state line north to US 12. The freeway was extended northward from Pentwater to the Oceana–Mason county line in 1980. Construction of the Niles Bypass was finished in 1987, bringing the parkway north to Walton Road northwest of Niles. Bus. US 31 was created along the former routing in Niles. The northern freeway was extended further into Mason County in two stages. In 1989, it was expanded to the south side of Ludington. The next year, Ludington was bypassed, completing the freeway to its current northern end at US 10 east of town. One more bypass, this time a non-freeway routing to the west of Scottville, opened in 1991. The Berrien Springs Bypass was completed in late 1992. Since then, MDOT built a 9.5-mile (15.3 km) freeway segment north from Berrien Springs to Napier Avenue that was opened on August 27, 2003, at a cost of \$97 million (equivalent to \$ in ). The last change to the routing of US 31 occurred in August 2004 when the route of Bus. US 31 in Holland was turned back to local control; BL I-196 was rerouted to follow US 31 around downtown instead of following the former business loop through it.
Starting in 1996, Traverse City-area residents and tourists requested a freeway bypass the city. These residents decided to not build the highway. In 2001, The idea was revived, but MDOT abandoned these plans in June of that year.
### Completion of the St. Joseph Valley Parkway
The MSHD started studies for a freeway routing of US 31 from the state line northward to I-94 in 1967. The first section northward to Niles was approved in 1972, and the remainder of the route was approved in 1981. Since then, MDOT re-evaluated the St. Joseph Valley Parkway extension east of Benton Harbor, due to environmental, economic, and historical site issues. One of the environmental concerns that was studied relates to the habitat of an endangered species, the Mitchell's satyr butterfly, which has its habitat in the area of the proposed freeway. The 40-acre (16 ha) habitat is home to the second-largest population of the rare butterfly. The freeway between Niles and Benton Harbor was planned as a series of five segments when approved in 1981. Since that approval, the butterfly was discovered in the Blue Creek Fen in the late 1980s, and it was listed as an endangered species in 1992. This listing stalled MDOT's planning and construction of the fifth freeway segment north of Berrien Springs. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) issued an opinion two years later that the project would jeopardize the species. MDOT was given permission to modify the previously approved freeway to cross the Blue Creek on longer bridges; the USFWS also required that any construction be done from elevated platforms, among other restrictions. In the interim, MDOT proceeded with construction of the southern portion of the last freeway segment, completing it northward from Berrien Springs to the Napier Avenue interchange in August 2003.
A revised environmental impact study to account for the butterfly's habitat in the northern area of the freeway was approved in 2004. The study compared the original routing for this extension that involved connecting directly to I-196 at I-94 with an alternate route that involved an indirect connection via the BL I-94 interchange near Benton Harbor, converting it to be to a cloverleaf interchange, and adding additional lanes to the resulting I-94 concurrency. The study recommended using a version of the alternate connection to avoid the Blue Creek Fen, both to save money and decrease impact to the Mitchell's satyr. At the time the freeway segment opened in 2003, MDOT expected the remaining segment would not take much longer to complete, but since then, funding has not been available. MDOT did not include construction of the extension for this reason in the department's 2014–18 highway projects plan released in 2013, although most of the design work and land acquisition had been completed. Until the missing freeway segment was built, US 31 followed a stretch of Napier Avenue, which was upgraded in conjunction with the St. Joseph Valley Parkway opening to that point, westward to I-94. MDOT's 2017–21 plan draft released in July 2016 split the remaining work into three phases. The department listed funding for only the first two of these three phases, with construction anticipated to start in 2021.
On December 6, 2018, MDOT announced that a \$20 million discretionary grant had been received to complete the final phase of construction, building the last two miles (3.2 km) of freeway required to connect US 31 to I-94. In 2020, work began on the final link of the St. Joseph Valley Parkway to connect the US 31 freeway to I-94 east of Benton Harbor. The project cost \$121.5 million dollars and involved relocating the interchange with the eastern terminus of BL I-94 and reconstructing 3.5 miles (5.6 km) of I-94 in the area. Work on that interchange started in September 2020. US 31 was rerouted to follow its new freeway section for 1.8 miles (2.9 km) from the previous end of the freeway at Napier Avenue that opened in 2003 to I-94 at BL I-94, where US 31 then followed I-94 to the I-196 interchange as before. This new routing opened on November 9, 2022.
## Future
As of 2014, travelers had to use either US 31 through Grand Haven or 68th Avenue through Eastmanville to cross the Grand River in Ottawa County. A new highway, part of a long-range plan to build a US 31 bypass of Grand Haven, provides a river crossing almost equidistant between the two, greatly reducing drive times between areas north and south of the river. A drive from Nunica to Robinson is a 20-mile (32 km) trip; the new highway provides a route closer to seven miles (11 km) in length. Called M-231, this highway is a scaled-down bypass of US 31 through Grand Haven, even though it will not physically connect to US 31. By January 4, 2013, MDOT had completed work for this highway, including a bridge over North Cedar Drive, additional ramps at the I-96 and M-104 interchange, and reconstruction and widening of M-104 near I-96. The department had also completed a reconfiguration of the intersection between M-104 and Cleveland Drive and widening the bridge that carries M-104 over I-96. The expected date of completion for M-231 was set for sometime in 2016 pending funding availability. MDOT planned to build 1.4 miles (2.3 km) of the new highway starting in 2013, including the bridges over the Grand River and Little Robinson Creek. The 2005 SAFETEA-LU transportation bill provided funding earmarked for the project by US Representative Pete Hoekstra from Holland as well as matching funds from the state's Michigan Jobs Today program. The total cost of the project was expected to be near \$150 million. On October 30, 2015, the highway opened to traffic.
## Memorial designations and tourist routes
The sections of the route of US 31 in Michigan has been dedicated several times to various organizations. The route of US 33 in the state, which at the time was concurrent with US 31, was dedicated as the Blue & Gray Trail in 1938 to honor veterans of the American Civil War. The Blue Star Memorial Highway designation was applied to the highway to honor those serving in the military. The designation was dedicated on October 10, 1948, by the State Highway Commissioner Charles Ziegler.
In 1917, the Upper Peninsula Development Bureau created a tourist route that is a predecessor of the modern Great Lakes Circle Tours (GLCT). The Great Lakes Automobile Route was a series of roads on both the Upper and Lower peninsulas of Michigan. It included US 31 between Manistee and the Benton Harbor–St. Joseph area. The concept did not last a year; the American entry into World War I and a lack of focus on a single route consigned the idea into obscurity. The idea of a tourist route around the Great Lakes was revived in 1986 as a pet project of Michigan First Lady Paula Blanchard. MDOT and its counterparts in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ontario created the GLCT scheme which includes the LMCT that follows US 31 from Lake Michigan Beach northward to Manistee and from Traverse City north to the terminus near Mackinaw City excluding locations where business loops run closer to the lake at South Haven, Muskegon, and Whitehall–Montague.
A group of area residents initiated an effort to have the former West Michigan Pike designated what is now called a Pure Michigan Byway. The designation would prioritize the area for historic preservation grants. A Preserve America grant funded a survey from June 2007 through September 2010, the results of which were a set of reports through the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office on the historical nature of the West Michigan Pike. In 2011, the group was in the process of securing resolutions from municipalities along the highway in support of the designation. According to officials working on the byway, it can take up to seven years to complete the process. The initial proposals had the byway continuing to Mackinaw City, but as approved in 2016, it runs from New Buffalo on I-94 to Ludington, following US 31 except between business loops at South Haven, Muskegon, Whitehall–Montague and Pentwater. The byway designation was moved out of the village of Pentwater in May 2023 when that business loop was removed from the highway system.
## Historic bridges
MDOT maintains a listing of the historic bridges in the state; along US 31, the department has listed four structures. In downtown Charlevoix, the US-31–Island Lake Outlet Bridge carries the highway over a channel dredged between Lake Michigan and Round Lake that also connects to Lake Charlevoix. Built from 1947 through 1949, it is the fifth bridge at the location. It is a double-leaf bascule bridge. In Petoskey, the highway crosses Bear Creek on a concrete girder bridge built in 1930. At 265 feet (81 m) in length, it is the fourth longest such bridge in Michigan. In Manistee, the Manistee River is spanned by a double-leaf bascule bridge built in 1933. North of Hart in Pentwater Township, the 270-foot-long (82 m) US 31–Pentwater River Bridge is a long-span steel bridge that crosses the Pentwater River. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 20, 1999. It carries Oceana Drive along a former routing of US 31.
## Major intersections
## See also
- Business routes of U.S. Route 31 in Michigan
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2006 Westchester County tornado
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Tornado in New York
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[
"2006 in Connecticut",
"2006 in New York (state)",
"2006 natural disasters in the United States",
"F2 tornadoes",
"Greenwich, Connecticut",
"July 2006 events in the United States",
"Mount Pleasant, New York",
"Natural disasters in New York (state)",
"Rockland County, New York",
"Tornadoes in Connecticut",
"Tornadoes in New York (state)",
"Tornadoes of 2006",
"Westchester County, New York"
] |
The 2006 Westchester County tornado was the strongest and largest tornado in Westchester County, New York since the 1904 Chappaqua tornado. It touched down there on Wednesday, July 12, 2006, and traveled 13 miles (21 km) into southwestern Connecticut during a 33-minute span through two states. The tornado touched down at 3:30 p.m. EDT (19:30 UTC) on the shore of the Hudson River before becoming a waterspout and traveling 3 mi (5 km) across the river. Coming ashore, the tornado entered Westchester County and struck the town of Sleepy Hollow at F1 intensity. After passing through the town, it intensified into an F2 tornado and grew to almost a one-quarter mile (400 m) in diameter. The tornado continued through the county, damaging numerous structures, until it crossed into Connecticut at 4:01 p.m. EDT (20:01 UTC). Not long after entering the state, it dissipated in the town of Greenwich at 4:03 p.m. EDT (20:03 UTC). When the tornado entered Westchester County, it was the eighth known tornado to either touch down or enter the county since 1950.
Two barns and a warehouse were destroyed, and a large stained-glass window was shattered. Numerous homes and businesses were damaged and thousands of trees were uprooted. There were no fatalities and only six minor injuries were associated with the storm. The cost of damages was estimated at \$12.1 million.
## Meteorological synopsis
On July 12 a supercell thunderstorm developed over eastern New Jersey in association with a surface low-pressure area in southwestern Ontario. Daytime heating in the Tri-State Region led to moderate instability, a key factor in the development of showers and thunderstorms. With conditions favorable for the development of a tornado, the Storm Prediction Center issued a tornado watch at 12:40 p.m. EDT (16:40 UTC). A strong thunderstorm developed around 2:00 p.m. EDT (18:00 UTC) which produced a funnel cloud near Carlstadt at around 2:45 p.m. EDT (18:45 UTC), although no damage was associated with the funnel. That same storm intensified and developed into a supercell as it crossed into New York. About 15 minutes later, a tornado warning was issued for southern Rockland and Westchester counties, which would remain in effect until 4:15 p.m. EDT (21:15 UTC). At around 3:30 p.m. EDT (19:30 UTC), an F1 tornado touched down near Grand View-on-Hudson along the Hudson River in Rockland County. The 100 yards (91 m) wide tornado touched down on a dock before becoming a waterspout as it took a 3 mi (4.8 km) path across the river. The tornado passed near the Tappan Zee Bridge before crossing into Westchester County. Upon entering Westchester, it was the eighth tornado ever recorded in the county.
The tornado hit the town of Sleepy Hollow, New York, around 3:37 p.m. EDT (19:37 UTC); two minutes later, a 58 mph (93 km/h) wind gust was reported along the periphery of the tornado. As the tornado neared New York State Route 9A, it intensified to F2 status, generating winds up to 157 mph (253 km/h), and struck the California Closet Warehouse. At the time, the tornado was estimated to be 300 yd (270 m) wide and was the strongest tornado ever recorded in Westchester County. Shortly after, it weakened back to F1 intensity. Minor damage was reported through the Kensico Reservoir in Valhalla as the tornado neared the New York–Connecticut border. The track length through Westchester County was measured at around 8 mi (13 km). After crossing the state border into Fairfield County, Connecticut, it weakened further before lifting at 4:03 p.m EDT (20:03 UTC) in Greenwich after traveling 2 mi (3.2 km) in Connecticut. Another brief touchdown may have occurred shortly after near the Merritt Parkway. Overall, the tornado tracked across a total of 13 mi (21 km) through two states over a period over 33 minutes.
## Impact
The tornado took a path through Rockland, Westchester and Fairfield counties, downing or uprooting thousands of trees and damaging several structures, including significant structural damage to the California Closets warehouse. Six minor injuries were also reported. In all, the tornado inflicted \$12.1 million in damage.
Minor damage was reported in Rockland County. One dock and one boat were damaged by the tornado. After crossing the Hudson River, the tornado entered Westchester County, where the worst of the damage took place. It struck the town of Sleepy Hollow, damaging roofs and tearing the siding off numerous homes and businesses. A 10-foot (3.0 m) tall stained-glass window in the St. Teresa of Avila Church was shattered. Afterwards, the town of Pocantico Hills was struck as the tornado intensified to F2 intensity. Several trees were uprooted and two barns were destroyed. The California Closet Warehouse suffered severe structural damage; two concrete walls were destroyed. An interior staircase, which employees used as a shelter, collapsed causing four injuries. Concrete blocks from the building were blown about, some of which struck cars in a nearby parking lot. A nearby Comfort Inn had part of its roof torn off. After a tornado warning was issued, a school near the warehouse was evacuated.
As the tornado crossed New York State Route 9A, it picked up a state trooper car and flipped it several times before it fell to the ground; the officer inside suffered only minor injuries. Moving towards the east-northeast, the tornado struck the towns of Mount Pleasant and Hawthorne, damaging numerous trees and causing minor structural damage. Damage along the Saw Mill River Parkway prompted officials to shut down a section of the highway near Mount Pleasant. Trees fell on streets and railroad tracks, halting Metro-North Railroad service and creating major traffic delays. After passing by the Kensico Reservoir in Valhalla, the tornado crossed into Connecticut, where it knocked down numerous power lines, cutting power to about 10,000 residences in the county. In all, six people sustained minor injuries and damages amounted to \$10.1 million.
The weakening tornado ended its duration in Fairfield County, Connecticut, in the town of Greenwich. Thousands of trees were either uprooted or snapped along the tornado's 2 mi (3.2 km) path through the state. Minor damage was inflicted upon several structures. The tornado left 1,700 residences in Greenwich without power and blocked six roads. Most of the damage was concentrated to the northwestern corner of the town. Damages in the state totaled to \$2 million.
## Aftermath
In the wake of the tornado, the mayor of Sleepy Hollow declared a state of emergency for the entire village. Two hundred emergency personnel responded to the storm. ConEdison crews were sent out to repair downed power lines and clear roads. By the next night, power was restored to all but 600 of the previous 10,000 residences without power in Westchester County. Westchester County opened its Emergency Operations Center after the storm to respond to the event. Two days after the storm, many of the roads had been cleared and power was fully restored. A recreational path in Tarrytown, New York, was not expected to be open for another two weeks due to numerous fallen trees. Metro-North Railroad suspended trains on the northern part of the Harlem Line until 5:00 p.m. EDT (21:00 UTC) for the removal of debris on the tracks. Southbound passengers took buses while the tracks were shut down. All trains were back on schedule by 7:00 p.m. EDT (23:00 UTC).
## See also
- List of North American tornadoes and tornado outbreaks
- List of Connecticut tornadoes
- 1900 Westchester County tornado
- 1904 Chappaqua tornado
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352,843 |
Ipswich Town F.C.
| 1,173,463,135 |
Association football club in England
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Ipswich Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, that compete in the Championship, the second tier of English football, following promotion from League One during the 2022–23 season.
Ipswich Town were founded in 1878 but did not turn professional until 1936; it was subsequently elected to join the Football League in 1938. Ipswich won the English league title in 1961–62, their first season in the top flight, and finished runners-up in 1980–81 and 1981–82. They finished in the top six in the First Division for ten years, with the exception of when they won the FA Cup in 1977–78. Ipswich were a regular competitor in European football and won the UEFA Cup in 1980–81. The club has competed in all three major European club competitions and holds the record as being the only British side to have never lost at home in European competition, having defeated teams such as Real Madrid, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Lazio and Barcelona.
Ipswich play their home games at Portman Road in Ipswich. They are the only fully professional football club in Suffolk and have a long-standing and fierce rivalry with Norwich City from Norfolk, against whom they have contested the East Anglian derby 148 times since 1902. The club's traditional home colours are blue shirts with white shorts and blue socks.
## History
### Early years and entry to the Football League (1878–1954)
The club was founded as an amateur side in 1878 and were known as Ipswich A.F.C. until 1888 when they merged with Ipswich Rugby Club to form Ipswich Town Football Club. The team won a number of local cup competitions, including the Suffolk Challenge Cup and the Suffolk Senior Cup. After playing in the Norfolk & Suffolk League from 1899 and the South East Anglian League between 1903 and 1906, they joined the Southern Amateur League in 1907 and, with results improving steadily, became champions in the 1921–22 season. The club won the league a further three times, in 1929–30, 1932–33 and 1933–34, before becoming founder members of the Eastern Counties Football League at the end of the 1934–35 season. A year later, the club turned professional and joined the Southern League, which they won in its first season and finished third in the next.
Ipswich were elected to the Football League on 30 May 1938, and played in the Third Division South until the end of the 1953–54 season, when they won the title and promotion to the Second Division.
### Promotion and First Division success (1954–1963)
The club were immediately relegated back to the Third Division South the following year at the end of a poor season, but made better progress after Scott Duncan was replaced as team manager by Alf Ramsey in August 1955. The club won the Third Division South title again in 1956–57, and returned to the higher division. This time, Ipswich established themselves in the Second Division, and as the division champions, won promotion to the top level of English football, the First Division, in 1960–61.
In the top flight for the first time, Ipswich became champions of the Football League at the first attempt in 1961–62. As English league champions, they qualified for the 1962–63 European Cup, defeating Maltese side Floriana 14–1 on aggregate before losing to AC Milan. Ramsey left the club in April 1963 to take charge of the England national team. Under his leadership the England team won the 1966 World Cup. He received a knighthood for "services to football" in 1967.
### Decline and revival after Ramsey (1963–1969)
Ramsey was replaced by Jackie Milburn, under whose leadership fortunes on the pitch plummeted. Two years after winning the league title, Ipswich slipped down to the Second Division in 1964, conceding 121 league goals in 42 games – one of the worst-ever defensive records in English senior football. Milburn quit after just one full season and was replaced by Bill McGarry in 1964. The club remained in the Second Division for four years until McGarry guided Ipswich to promotion along with his assistant Sammy Chung in the 1967–68 season, winning the division by a single point ahead of Queens Park Rangers. McGarry left to manage Wolves and was replaced by Bobby Robson in January 1969.
### The Bobby Robson era (1969–1982)
Robson led Ipswich to two major trophies and several seasons in top flight European football. The successful period began in 1973 when the club won the Texaco Cup and finished fourth in the league, qualifying for the UEFA Cup for the first time. In the 1974–75 season they reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup for the first time, losing to West Ham United after a replay, and finished third in the league. By the late 1970s, Robson had built a strong side with talent in every department, introducing the Dutch pair Arnold Mühren and Frans Thijssen to add flair to a team that featured British internationals including John Wark, Terry Butcher and Paul Mariner, although the Ipswich squad perhaps lacked the depth of established big clubs like Liverpool and Manchester United. Ipswich regularly featured in the top five of the league and in the UEFA Cup. At their peak in the 1979–80 season, they beat Manchester United 6–0 in a league game at Portman Road, a game where United goalkeeper Gary Bailey also saved three penalties. The defeat cost United two points – the margin which eventually separated them and champions Liverpool. Major success came in 1978 when Ipswich beat Arsenal at Wembley Stadium to win their only FA Cup trophy. The triumph was followed by almost winning the triple in 1980-81. Ipswich led the top division for most of the season and were on course to win a second league title plus FA Cup and European honours. However, injuries and fixture congestion (a squad of thirteen players played over sixty matches) took its toll and Ipswich ultimately came runners up to Aston Villa (a side they had beaten home and away in the league and in the FA Cup) and were semi-finalists in the FA Cup. Ipswich did win the UEFA Cup, however, in 1981 with a 5–4 victory over AZ Alkmaar in the two-legged final. The run to the final included a 4–1 win at St Etienne, captained by Michel Platini. The club also finished as league runners-up in 1981 and 1982.
Robson's success with Ipswich attracted the attention of many bigger clubs, and he was linked with the Manchester United job when Dave Sexton was sacked in May 1981, but the job went to Ron Atkinson instead. The Football Association lured Robson away from Portman Road a year later, when he accepted their offer to manage the England national team in July 1982.
### Relegation after Robson and promotion under Lyall (1982–1994)
Robson's successor at Ipswich was his assistant manager Bobby Ferguson. Under Ferguson, Town finished mid-table twice, but worsening performances meant that they began to struggle in the top division. The recent construction of an expensive new stand at Portman Road limited the club's budget, despite the money gaining from sales of key players including Thijssen and Wark.
Ipswich were finally relegated to the Second Division at the end of the 1985–86 season. Butcher, the last remaining key player from the successful 1981 team, was sold to Rangers that summer. Ferguson, who had remained in charge despite the relegation, left the club in May 1987 after his contract expired, following Ipswich's failure to return to the First Division. Ipswich Town were then managed by John Duncan for three years until he was replaced by former West Ham United boss John Lyall in May 1990, with Ipswich still in the Second Division. Lyall guided Ipswich to the Second Division title and promotion to the new FA Premier League, ready for the 1992–93 season. Suffering only two league defeats before the New Year, Ipswich started the season well and were fourth in the Premier League in January 1993, but a dip in form during the final weeks of the season saw them finish 16th. Poor form continued into the following season and Ipswich only avoided relegation that year when Sheffield United suffered a 3–2 defeat at Chelsea on the final day of the season. Six months later, fortunes on the pitch had not improved, and Lyall was sacked in December 1994 with the club bottom of the Premiership.
### Relegation and revival under George Burley (1994–2002)
Lyall's successor, George Burley, was unable to turn team performances around, and Ipswich were dealt a Premiership record defeat, 9–0, at Manchester United, on their way to relegation. Back in the second tier of the league, Burley led the club to three consecutive promotion playoffs, but they were to endure defeats in all three semi-finals. Ipswich finally returned to the Premiership in 2000 after coming from behind to beat Barnsley 4–2 in the last Division One playoff final at Wembley Stadium. Ipswich performed well in the Premiership in their first season with Burley's side finishing in an impressive fifth place—being pipped by Liverpool on the last day of the season for a place in the Champions League. Consolation was a UEFA Cup place and FA Premier League Manager of the Year Award for Burley.
However, the team took only one win in their opening seventeen league games the following season leaving them bottom in December. Despite a good run of form in January and February, Burley could not save the club from relegation back to the Championship at the end of the season. The loss of income due to relegation also led to the club going into financial administration. There was the minor consolation of again qualifying for the UEFA Cup, this time via the UEFA Fair Play ranking, and Ipswich survived two ties before losing in the second round proper to Czech side Slovan Liberec. A slow start to the season, culminating in a 0–3 defeat at struggling Grimsby Town, meant that Burley was sacked in October 2002 after nearly eight years as manager.
### Years in the Championship (2002–2019)
First team coach Tony Mowbray was given four matches as caretaker manager, winning once, but he was ultimately replaced as manager by the former Oldham Athletic, Everton and Manchester City manager Joe Royle, who had played for local rival Norwich City. Royle inherited a side struggling near the Division One relegation zone, but revived fortunes such that the team narrowly failed to reach the playoffs. The 2003–04 season saw the club come out of administration and continue to challenge for promotion back to the Premier League. They finished that season in fifth, but were defeated in the playoff semi-finals by West Ham United.
Narrowly missing automatic promotion in 2004–05, Royle again took Ipswich to the play-offs, but once more they lost to West Ham United in the semi-finals. 2005–06 saw Ipswich finish in 15th place—the club's lowest finish since 1966. Joe Royle resigned by mutual consent on 11 May 2006, and a month later, Jim Magilton was officially announced as the new manager. In November 2007, the club were involved in takeover discussions with both businessman Marcus Evans and former Birmingham City director David Sullivan. In December 2007, Evans completed his takeover of the club, purchasing an 87.5% stake in the club, investing around £44 million, which included the purchase of the club's existing £32 million debt. The club agreed a sponsorship deal with the Marcus Evans Group on 20 May 2008, lasting until 2018, the longest in the club's history.
After failing to reach the playoffs despite substantial investment, Magilton was sacked in April 2009, and new Chief Executive Simon Clegg replaced him with former Manchester United player, Roy Keane. Keane's spell as manager came to an end after an unsuccessful 18 months, when he was sacked in January 2011, to be replaced briefly by Ian McParland in a caretaker role before Paul Jewell took the reins on a permanent basis. A poor start to the 2012/13 season with Ipswich bottom of the Championship after winning only one of their first twelve games, led to Jewell leaving his position on 24 October 2012 by mutual consent.
He was replaced temporarily by Chris Hutchings for a single match in a caretaker role, before former Wolves boss Mick McCarthy was appointed full-time on 1 November 2012. McCarthy led Ipswich to avoid relegation, taking them from bottom of the league in November to finish in 14th position. The following season produced a 9th-place finish and in the 2014–15 season a 6th place and play-off finish – though the club lost in the semi-finals to local rivals Norwich City 4–2 on aggregate. Ipswich ended the 2016–17 season in 16th place, their lowest finish since the 1958–59 season. McCarthy announced that he would be leaving the club at the end of the 2017–18 season on 23 March 2018, though he ultimately left the role early with four games to go. He was replaced until the end of the season by Bryan Klug as a caretaker manager and Ipswich finished the season in 12th.
On 30 May 2018, Paul Hurst was announced as the new manager of the club on a three-year contract. However, after a poor start to the season and with the team bottom of the table, Hurst was sacked in October 2018 after less than five months in charge – making him the shortest serving manager in the club's history. He was replaced by former Norwich City manager Paul Lambert, but he was unable to prevent relegation to League One at the end of the 2018–19 season, ending Ipswich's 63-year stay in the top two tiers of English football.
### League One and takeover (2019–2023)
Lambert remained as manager following relegation to take charge of Ipswich's first season in the third tier since 1957. Ipswich finished the season in 11th place, the club's lowest finish since 1953. The standings were decided by points-per-game due to the season's suspension in March 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. After failing to mount a promotion challenge during the following season, Lambert left the club by mutual consent on 28 February 2021. Former Wigan boss Paul Cook was appointed as his replacement three days later.
On 7 April 2021, the club announced that US investment group Gamechanger 20 Limited had purchased a majority stake in the club. The consortium was made up of Ohio-based investment group ORG, the "Three Lions Fund" (made up of three Phoenix Rising FC board members) and former owner Marcus Evans, who remained as a minority shareholder. Ipswich finished the 2020–21 season in 9th place, three positions outside the play-offs. Expectations were high ahead of the following season, but following a series of disappointing results, Cook was sacked in December 2021. On 16 December 2021, Kieran McKenna, first-team coach at Manchester United, was appointed to replace Cook, with Martyn Pert as his assistant. Ipswich finished the season in 11th place.
With McKenna's first full season in charge, the following season proved more successful. Following an undefeated streak of 18 league games, and breaking several club records, on 29 April 2023, Ipswich were promoted back to the Championship after defeating Exeter City 6–0. Ipswich finished the 2022–23 season in second place, with a club record of 98 points whilst scoring 101 league goals.
### Return to the Championship (2023–)
## Crest and colours
### Crest
Ipswich Town's shirts did not sport a crest until the mid-1960s, when they adopted a design based on the Ipswich coat of arms, featuring a gold lion rampant guardant on a red background on the left half and three gold ramparts on a blue background on the right half. In 1972, the crest was redesigned as the result of a competition, won by the Treasurer of the Supporters Club, John Gammage. Each element of the new design was intended to represent the region.
> "I regarded the Suffolk Punch as a noble animal, well suited to dominate our design and represent the club. And to complete the badge I thought of the town of Ipswich which contains many historical buildings, including the Wolsey Gate, and is close to the sea with a large dock area."
This crest was re-used on the home and goalkeeper kit during the 2020/21 season, in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Ipswich's UEFA Cup triumph. The crest was modified in 1995 after consultation with a Supporters Forum, with the turrets of the Wolsey Gate moved to the top of the crest, the yellow background changed to red, the Suffolk Punch given a more dominant physique and the F.C. expanded to Football Club. Three stars were added to the sleeve of the team's away shirt for the 2004–05 season, and also to the home kit for the 2005–06 season. These stars were added to represent the three major trophies which Ipswich Town have won; the FA Cup, the UEFA Cup and the old First Division. The stars were relocated directly above the crest when the shirt was redesigned prior to the 2007–08 season, with them being moved again in 2022–23 to the back of the shirt.
### Colours
Ipswich Town's traditional home colours are blue shirts with white shorts and blue socks. One of Ipswich Town's nicknames is The Blues, stemming from their traditional kit. The club's first registered colours were blue and white striped shirts with black shorts. All-blue shirts and white shorts were first worn in the 1936–37 season, following the clubs entry into the Southern Football League after turning professional. These have stood as the primary colours of the club's home kits ever since.
Since turning professional, Ipswich have used a number of away colours, including white, orange, red and black vertical stripes, claret and green, cream and black vertical stripes and dark blue and claret. In 2006, the club donated 500 orange and blue-and-white shirts to children in Iraq.
### Kit suppliers and sponsors
In 1981, Ipswich Town announced a sponsorship deal with Japanese-based electronics company Pioneer Corporation, who became the first official sponsors of the club. Pioneer Corporation also sponsored the west stand of the club's Portman Road stadium up until 1999, formerly known as the West Stand. Pioneer would continue to sponsor the club's kits until 1985, when a new sponsorship deal was agreed with local Suffolk radio station Radio Orwell. The radio station would only sponsor the club's kits for a single season before being replaced with pharmaceutical and horticultural chemical manufacturers Fisons. Fisons were the main sponsors of the club from the 1986–87 season through to the 1994–95 season, including the 1991–92 season when the club won the Second Division championship and gained promotion to the inaugural season of the newly founded Premier League. Since then Ipswich have had multiple kit sponsors, including Suffolk-based brewing company Greene King from 1995 to 2001, and the energy companies TXU Energi (2001–2003), Powergen (2003–2006) and E.ON (2006–2008). After the club's takeover by Marcus Evans in 2007, Marcus Evans Group became the club's new primary sponsor and would go on to be the football club's main sponsor from 2008 until 2018. In January 2018, the club agreed a new three year sponsorship deal worth almost £2 million with British online casino company Magical Vegas. In May 2020, Magical Vegas revealed that they had donated the final year of their shirt sponsor rights to The Carers Trust charity for the 2020–21 season. On 6 May 2021, the club announced that popular artist and longtime Ipswich fan Ed Sheeran would be the club's new shirt sponsor for the 2021–22 season, a deal which was later extended to cover until the end of the 2023–24 season. On 14 June 2022, Ipswich announced that the club had signed a 4-year contract with Umbro to become the new kit manufacturers for both the Men’s and Women’s teams, marking the first time since 1995 that Ipswich's kits were made by Umbro.
## Stadium
Between 1878 and 1884, Ipswich Town played at two grounds in the town, Broomhill and Brook's Hall, but in 1884, the club moved to Portman Road and have played there ever since. At their new home, Ipswich became one of the first clubs to implement the use of goal nets, in 1890, but the more substantial elements of ground development did not begin until, in 1901, a tobacco processing plant was built along the south edge of the ground.
The first stand, a wooden structure, was built on the Portman Road side of the pitch in 1905. In 1911 the roof was blown off, and the ground was later commandeered by the British Army for the duration of World War I. The club turned professional in 1936, and work began on the first bank of terracing at the north end of the pitch. The following year, on the back of winning the Southern League, a similar terrace was built at the southern ’Churchmans’ end. All sides were terraced by 1954, and floodlights were erected in 1959 for use in lower light conditions. The two-tier Portman Stand was built along the east side of the ground in place of the existing terraces in 1971, and the West Stand was extended in 1982 by the addition of a third tier. The rebuilt West Stand was renamed the Pioneer Stand as a result of the club's sponsorship by the electronics company Pioneer Corporation and was converted to all-seating in 1990. In 1992, following the recommendations of the Taylor Report in the wake of the Hillsborough disaster three years earlier, the terraces in both the north and south stands were also converted to all-seating, creating the first complete all-seater stadium in the top flight of English football with a spectator capacity of 22,600.
Success that took place on the pitch led to further investment in the infrastructure, with the club spending over £22 million on redeveloping both North and South stands, resulting in a current capacity of 30,311, making it the largest-capacity football stadium in East Anglia. In the past ten years, statues of both Sir Alf Ramsey and Sir Bobby Robson have been unveiled outside the stadium. The North Stand was renamed in honour of former manager Sir Bobby Robson in September 2009. On 31 March 2012, in conjunction with celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Ipswich Town winning the First Division, the South Stand was renamed in honour of Ipswich and England's former manager Alf Ramsey. Portman Road now features two stands named after their two most successful managers in the club's history, as well as being England's two most successful managers. On 10 July 2012, the West Stand, formerly known as the Pioneer Stand and the Britannia Stand, was renamed the East of England Co-operative Stand following a sponsorship deal with the East of England Co-operative Society. The Co-op's sponsorship lasted until 2021, when it was not renewed and returned to be simply the West Stand. The East Stand of Portman Road, formerly known as the Portman Stand, is called the Cobbold Stand, named after the former owners of the club. The playing surface at Portman Road is highly regarded and has been voted best pitch in the league on a number of occasions. The former groundsman, Alan Ferguson, received a number of accolades, including both Premiership and Championship Groundsman of the Year. The stadium has also hosted many England youth international matches, and one senior England friendly international match, against Croatia in 2003.
## Supporters
A recent nickname for Town is "The Tractor Boys", which was coined during the club's brief period in the Premier League from 2000–01 to 2001–02, when the team regularly competed against more fashionable clubs. The nickname is an example of self-deprecating humour referring to Suffolk's agricultural heritage. The origins of the nickname are not certain, but the first generally accepted use of the nickname was created whilst playing at Leeds United in 2000–2001: Ipswich were winning the game 2–1 and the Leeds fans started chanting, "We're being beaten by a bunch of tractor drivers". Barracking by supporters of more established Premiership clubs during Town's spell in the Premiership lent the ironic chant "1–0 to the Tractor Boys" increased potency and publicity, and the nickname is commonly used by the media. Former Town manager Jim Magilton commented in the local press that he disliked the nickname and said that it conjured up "images of carrot-crunching yokels", while players such as Matt Holland accepted the chant with good humour.
Ipswich have a global fan base, with the official Ipswich Town Supporters Club having supporters branches across the world. The club has a particularly strong affiliation with German club Fortuna Düsseldorf, with Fortuna fans making an annual visit to Portman Road since 2006. Ipswich fans also organise visits to the Merkur Spiel-Arena in Düsseldorf to support Fortuna at their home matches. The two clubs have previously organised a pre-season friendly match in Düsseldorf in 2015, which was the first match to be played between the two teams.
### Rivalries
The club's main rivals are Norwich City. When the two teams meet it is known as the East Anglian derby, or, informally, as the "Old Farm derby", a comic reference to the "Old Firm Derby" played between Scottish teams Celtic and Rangers and the prominence of agriculture in East Anglia. The series began in the early 20th century, when both clubs were amateur organisations. The first derby was held between the two clubs on 15 November 1902, with the first derby between the two professional clubs taking place in 1939. Locally, much is made of the informal title "Pride of Anglia". Fans claim the title for either winning the East Anglian Derby, finishing highest in the league, having the better current league position and having the more successful club history.
## Records and statistics
Mick Mills holds the record for Ipswich league appearances, having played 741 first-team matches between 1966 and 1982. The club's top league goalscorer is Ray Crawford, who scored 203 goals between 1958 and 1969, while Ted Phillips holds the record for the most league goals scored in a season, 41 in the 1956–57 season in Third Division South. Allan Hunter won the most international caps whilst a player at the club, making 47 appearances for Northern Ireland during his time at Ipswich.
The club's widest victory margins in the league have been their 7–0 wins against Portsmouth in the Second Division in 1964, against Southampton in the First Division in 1974 and against West Bromwich Albion in the First Division in 1976. Their heaviest defeats in the league were 10–1 against Fulham in 1963 and 9–0 against Manchester United in 1995.
Ipswich's record home attendance is 38,010 for a sixth round FA Cup match against Leeds United on 8 March 1975. With the introduction of regulations enforcing all-seater stadiums, it is unlikely that this record will be beaten in the foreseeable future.
The highest transfer fee received for an Ipswich player is £8.1 million as part of a deal worth in excess of £12 million from Sunderland for Connor Wickham in June 2011, while the most spent by the club on a player was £4.75 million for Matteo Sereni from Sampdoria in July 2001, following the club's qualification for the UEFA Cup.
Bobby Robson is the club's longest serving manager in terms of games managed, managing Ipswich for 709 matches between 1969 and 1982. Scott Duncan is the club's longest serving manager in terms of time spent as manager at the club, managing the club for 6,487 days between 1937 and 1955.
Ipswich still maintain an undefeated home record in European competition. This record began in 1962, when the club first qualified for the European Cup. For 45 years, Ipswich held the record for the longest unbeaten run of games at home in European competition, with a run of 31 home matches undefeated. Due to the team's absence from such tournaments in recent years this record has since been broken by Dutch club AZ Alkmaar, but remains a record for British clubs.
## Players
### Current squad
Club sponsor Ed Sheeran honourably issued squad number 17.
### Out on loan
### Under-21s and Academy
Ipswich currently runs a Category Two Academy, with a five-year plan to improve to Category One. The academy is run by Bryan Klug. The academy was particularly successful in the 1990s, producing a number of first-team players including Kieron Dyer, Richard Wright and Titus Bramble. In more recent years, the academy has produced more young players going onto the main team including Connor Wickham, Jordan Rhodes, Luke Woolfenden, Flynn Downes and Andre Dozzell, who like his father Jason Dozzell, scored on his debut at the age of 16.
### Player of the Year
Towards the end of each season, a player is voted as the 'Player of the Year' by the club's fans.
### Hall of Fame
In 2007, the club created a hall of fame into which a number of personnel associated with the club are inducted every year. The inaugural members, Ray Crawford, Mick Mills, Ted Phillips and John Wark, were selected in 2007 by a ballot of former Ipswich players.
## Club officials
### Board of directors
### Corporate hierarchy
### First-team coaching staff
### Academy coaching staff
Information correct as of 11 July 2023
## Managers
As of 2 September 2023. Only permanent managers are shown.
## Honours
### Domestic
League
- First Division / Premier League (level 1)
- Champions: 1961–62
- Runners-up: 1980–81, 1981–82
- Second Division / Championship (level 2)
- Champions: 1960–61, 1967–68, 1991–92
- Play-off winners: 2000
- Third Division South / League One (level 3)
- Champions: 1953–54, 1956–57
- Runners-up: 2022–23
- Southern League
- Champions: 1936–37
Cup
- FA Cup
- Winners: 1977–78
- Texaco Cup
- Winners: 1972–73
### European
- UEFA Cup / UEFA Europa League
- Winners: 1980–81
## Ipswich Town in popular culture
A number of Ipswich players appeared alongside Sylvester Stallone and Pelé in the 1981 prisoner of war film Escape to Victory, including John Wark, Russell Osman, Robin Turner, Laurie Sivell, and Kevin O'Callaghan. Other Ipswich Town players stood in for actors in the football scenes—Kevin Beattie for Michael Caine, and Paul Cooper for Sylvester Stallone.
## Ipswich Town Women
A ladies team affiliated with the club, Ipswich Town Women, currently compete in the FA Women's Premier League Southern Division, the third tier of women's football in the country, with a very successful academy playing in the U21 Premier League with England recognition. The team play their home games at the AGL Arena in Felixstowe, the home of Felixstowe & Walton United.
|
1,123,255 |
1995 Pacific Grand Prix
| 1,166,725,054 |
Formula One motor race held in 1995
|
[
"1995 Formula One races",
"1995 in Japanese motorsport",
"October 1995 sports events in Asia",
"Pacific Grand Prix"
] |
The 1995 Pacific Grand Prix (formally the II Pacific Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on 22 October 1995 at the TI Circuit, Aida, Japan. It was the fifteenth round of the 1995 Formula One World Championship. Michael Schumacher for the Benetton team won the 83-lap race starting from third position. David Coulthard, who started the Grand Prix from pole position, finished second in a Williams car, with Damon Hill third in the other Williams. Schumacher's win confirmed him as 1995 Drivers' Champion, as Hill could not pass Schumacher's points total with only two races remaining. This was also the last race for Jean-Christophe Boullion.
Hill started the race alongside Coulthard on the front row, amidst pressure from the British media for not being "forceful" enough in battles. Schumacher attempted to drive around the outside of Hill at the first corner, but Hill held Schumacher off as Jean Alesi, driving for Ferrari, got past both on the inside line to take second position. As a result, Hill dropped down to third and Schumacher dropped down to fifth behind Gerhard Berger. Schumacher then managed to get past Alesi and Hill during the first of three pit stops. This allowed him, on a new set of slick tyres, to close on Coulthard who was on a two-stop strategy. Schumacher opened up a gap of 21 seconds by lapping two seconds faster per lap than Coulthard, so that when his third stop came, he still led the race.
## Background
The race, originally scheduled to be held as the third round of the season on 16 April 1995, was moved to October as the local infrastructure and communications were badly damaged from the Great Hanshin earthquake.
Heading into the 15th race of the season, Benetton driver Michael Schumacher was leading the Drivers' Championship with 82 points; Williams driver Damon Hill was second on 55 points, 27 points behind Schumacher. A maximum of 30 points were available for the remaining three races, which meant that Hill could still win the title. Schumacher only needed a fourth-place finish to become Drivers' Champion as, even if Hill won, Schumacher would be more than 20 points ahead of Hill with two races remaining. Behind Hill and Schumacher in the Drivers' Championship, David Coulthard was third on 43 points in a Williams, with Johnny Herbert and Jean Alesi both on 40 points. In the Constructors' Championship, Benetton were leading on 112 points and Williams were second on 92 points, with a maximum of 48 points available. In the two weeks leading up to the race, there was heavy criticism towards Damon Hill, with pundits feeling that Hill had not been "forceful" enough in his battle at the against Schumacher. In an interview leading up to the race, part-time Ligier driver Martin Brundle said:
> Damon has to do two things. First, he has to establish himself as the No1 at Williams for next year so the team can give him their full support. Second, he has to re-establish himself as a racer. Maybe he needs to lose a front wheel once or twice to re-establish himself.
Schumacher, his title-rival, said that Hill made "half-hearted attempts" to overtake, which led to him "getting into trouble". The comments were prompted after a series of battles between Hill and Schumacher in previous race meetings, most notably at the , where Hill accused Schumacher of blocking him. At a Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) World Motor Sport Council meeting on October 19 to discuss driver etiquette, they opted against introducing new rules on the issue. Formula One's governing body emphasised that the International Sporting Code would be enforced on the basis that drivers are free to drive as they wish "provided they do not deliberately endanger another driver or repeatedly obstruct him on a straight", following incidents during the year involving Hill and Schumacher.
Williams were favourites to win the race due to the nature of the track—their Williams FW17 car was more suited to high-downforce tracks like Aida, and thus had the advantage over Benetton. In an attempt to match the pace of the Williams cars, Benetton introduced a revised rear suspension geometry to the Benetton B195 for the race.
There were five driver changes heading into the race. Having been in one of the two Ligier cars since the tenth race of the season at Germany, Martin Brundle was replaced by Aguri Suzuki as part of the two sharing the drive for the season. Jan Magnussen was drafted into the McLaren team to replace Mika Häkkinen because of the Finn's operation for appendicitis. The third driver change was Ukyo Katayama's return to Tyrrell after missing the European Grand Prix due to a crash at the . Gianni Morbidelli returned to the Footwork team replacing Max Papis, while at Pacific, Bertrand Gachot came back to replace Jean-Denis Délétraz, both men having driven for these teams at the start of the season. Délétraz was replaced as he had not made agreed payment instalments to the Pacific team for the privilege of the drive. Pacific had originally intended to run local driver Katsumi Yamamoto in place of Délétraz, but he was not granted an FIA Super Licence and so Gachot retook the seat. Similarly, the Forti team's plans to replace Roberto Moreno with Hideki Noda came to nought for the same reason, even though Noda had started three Grands Prix for the Larrousse team the previous year.
## Practice and qualifying
Two practice sessions were held before the race; the first was held on Friday morning and the second on Saturday morning. Both sessions lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes with weather conditions dry throughout. Schumacher set the fastest time in the first session, posting a lap of 1:16.057, three-tenths of a second quicker than Hill and Coulthard, in second and third places respectively. The Ferrari cars were fourth and fifth fastest; Gerhard Berger ahead of Jean Alesi, with McLaren driver Mark Blundell rounding out the top six. Coulthard lapped faster than Schumacher in the second practice session with a time of 1:15.730. Hill was second in the Williams, three-tenths of a second behind Coulthard. Eddie Irvine in the Jordan car was fourth, seven-tenths behind Coulthard. He was split by the Ferrari cars who were third and fifth; Alesi in front of Berger. The Benetton cars were sixth and seventh; Schumacher in front of Herbert. Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Jean-Christophe Boullion were eighth and tenth in the Sauber cars, with Rubens Barrichello ninth in the Jordan, two seconds off the pace.
The qualifying session was split into two one-hour sessions; the first was held on Friday afternoon with the second held on Saturday afternoon. The fastest time from either sessions counted towards their final grid position. Coulthard clinched his fourth consecutive pole position, in his Williams, with a time of 1:14.013. He was joined on the front row by teammate Hill, who was two-tenths of a second behind. Schumacher was third in the Benetton, edging closer to the Williams drivers throughout both days of qualifying by steadily reducing the downforce on his car. His last run, right at the end of the second session, pressured Coulthard into leaving the pit lane to cover the German. The pole position man thus used an additional set of slick tyres, meaning that out of the allocation of seven sets of slick tyres as set out by the FIA, he had only two sets of brand-new rubber for the race, whereas Schumacher had the advantage of three sets of new rubber. Hill, concerned about starting from the dirty side of the track (the side of the track that is opposite to the racing line), had only two sets of brand new tyres for the race.
Berger took fourth despite going off into the gravel late in the second part of qualifying. Berger's teammate Alesi was fifth, with Irvine completing the top six for his best qualifying position of the season. Rookie Magnussen qualified 12th, only two places behind teammate Blundell, after not making a mistake in either of the two sessions. Returning drivers Suzuki, Katayama, Morbidelli and Gachot qualified 13th, 17th, 19th and 24th respectively, with the grid covered by 7.392 seconds.
### Qualifying classification
## Warm-up
The drivers took to the track at 09:30 JST (GMT +9) for a 30-minute warm-up session. Both Williams cars maintained their good performance from qualifying; Coulthard had the fastest time of 1:16.831. Hill was third in the other Williams car; Boullion split them in the Sauber for second position. Olivier Panis completed the top four in a Ligier car, eight-tenths of a second behind Hill. Hill drove the spare Williams car along the inside of the start–finish straight in an effort to clean up his grid position on the dusty side of the track. Schumacher finished the session in eighth, despite going off the track, damaging his race car in the process.
## Race
The conditions for the race were dry with the air temperature 21 °C (70 °F). The remote and inaccessible nature of the circuit and the fact that the took place just one week later resulted in a meagre race-day crowd of only 15,000 spectators. The race started at 14:00 JST. Coulthard, from pole position on the grid, held onto the lead into the first corner. Hill, who started alongside Coulthard, had a bad start. Schumacher attempted to go around the outside of Hill at the first corner, but Hill held Schumacher off. Both drivers ran off the racing line in the process, allowing Alesi through into second place. At the end of lap one, Coulthard led Alesi by 2.8 seconds, with Hill a further three-tenths back. Berger was fourth, with Schumacher demoted to fifth. Bertrand Gachot in the Pacific became the first person to retire from the race with a gearbox problem on lap two. He was followed by Suzuki and Boullion, who both spun off the track and were unable to continue. Boullion blamed his spin on Minardi driver Pedro Lamy, whom he accused of weaving in front of him. Schumacher passed Berger for fourth position on lap five, and immediately began closing on Hill in third, who himself was only a few tenths behind Alesi. Schumacher attempted to pass Hill on lap 11 for third place at the hairpin, but Hill held him off. As Hill and Schumacher were held up by the slower Ferrari cars, Coulthard pulled away by more than a second a lap in the first eight laps. By lap 18, Coulthard's gap to second place was 14 seconds, and it appeared that he would win the race comfortably.
Alesi, Hill and Schumacher all made pit stops for their first of three stops on lap 18. The Benetton pitcrew made a quick stop for Schumacher, allowing him to get out ahead of Alesi and Hill. Hill lost additional time with a sticking refuelling valve, causing his stop to last almost twice as long as Schumacher's. Schumacher exited the pit stop in fourth place (behind Coulthard, and the yet-to-stop Berger and Herbert), with Alesi in seventh place (split from Schumacher by Irvine) and Hill in tenth place (separated from Alesi by Frentzen and Blundell). With Alesi and Hill held up by the slower runners on two-stop strategies in front, Schumacher pulled away and closed in on Coulthard. Blundell made a pit stop on the next lap, and Hill passed Frentzen on lap 22. On the following lap, Alesi passed Irvine at the hairpin; Hill tried to follow Alesi through but his front wing hit the rear of Irvine's car, causing minor damage. Irvine made a pit stop at the end of lap 25, allowing Hill to resume his chase of Alesi unimpeded. Like his teammate, Coulthard was scheduled to make three stops, but his pit strategy was changed to make only two by staying out six laps longer than originally scheduled, and then taking onboard more fuel than first planned at his first stop on lap 24. As a result of a lighter fuel load for Schumacher because of the different strategies, Schumacher began to consistently lap faster than the Scotsman.
Schumacher made his second stop on lap 38, and came out of the pit lane just in front of third-placed Alesi, but over twenty seconds behind Coulthard. Schumacher immediately began setting fastest laps and began to close in on Coulthard once more. Hill managed to move up to third, in front of Alesi, during their second pit stops on laps 38 and 39 respectively. The Ferrari of Alesi then dropped further back as teammate Berger passed him at the hairpin for fourth position on lap 45. Coulthard made his second and final stop for new tyres on lap 49; exiting 14 seconds behind Schumacher, who continued to extend the margin between the two. Coulthard was unable to capitalise on the performance advantage offered by the new tyres after the stop due to lapped traffic getting in his way. The German made his third and final pit stop on lap 60 with a 21-second advantage, exiting in front of Coulthard to lead the race. Schumacher opened the gap to 15 seconds, and won the race after 83 laps to secure his eighth victory of the season in a time of 1:48:49.972s. Schumacher was crowned the 1995 Drivers' Champion as Hill could not catch his points total with two races remaining. He also became the youngest double Drivers' Champion in Formula One history. Coulthard finished second in his Williams, 14 seconds behind Schumacher, with teammate Hill third. The Ferrari cars of Berger and Alesi were fourth and fifth respectively, but off the pace as Schumacher lapped them both in the closing stages. Berger suffered from a misfiring engine throughout the race. Herbert took the final point in sixth place for Benetton, ahead of Frentzen, Panis and Blundell. Throughout the race, Barrichello and Magnussen engaged in a battle for tenth and eleventh positions, with Magnussen keeping Barrichello behind until lap 37 when the Brazilian managed to overtake him into the hairpin. Magnussen finished in tenth place, but Barrichello subsequently retired on lap 67 with an engine problem. Magnussen's first race was described as "highly accomplished" by the year's Autocourse annual. After his impressive qualifying performance, Irvine was heading for eighth place, but made an unscheduled pit stop on lap 72 and dropped to eleventh. The attrition rate was low, with 17 of the 24 starters finishing the race.
As of 2023, this is the last time a V12-engined car finished a Formula One race.
## Post-race
After the race, it was revealed that Schumacher endured a downshift problem after his final stop, and that he was lucky to complete the final lap as warning lights had activated on his steering wheel. Schumacher praised his pitcrew for doing a "perfect" first stop which helped him move in front of Alesi and Hill. He said he "never saw anything like this team and its ability to come up with strategies" and that they never made "one mistake this season". Off-camera while going through parc fermé, Schumacher and Hill renewed their argument from the Belgian Grand Prix over what degree of blocking was acceptable after their first corner incident. Schumacher told Hill that he was unhappy with Hill's driving throughout the race, most notably during Schumacher's overtaking attempts on lap one and lap eleven where Schumacher felt Hill had "brake tested" him. Hill refuted Schumacher's claims, saying:
> Michael wasn't happy with what I did a couple of times in the race and he has told me that he is unhappy with my driving. I find that extraordinary. The situation now is that we are completely free to drive as we like as long as it is not deliberately dangerous, So I drove in that style and he didn't like it. He should have no complaints ... somehow or other, when we got into the braking area at the end of the back straight I did something wrong. But I can't see what I did wrong. It seems that there is one rule for him and another for everybody else at times. I just think that either you agree to that, and there should be no complaints, or there are rules and you should stick to them. I think that I am a better, stronger driver this year than I was last year and can build on that for next year. Clearly Michael has an advantage over everyone and if I want to win, then I am going to have to overhaul him.
Despite Hill's comments, he endured continued criticism by the British media after the poor performance; speculation brewed that Williams were going to replace him with Frentzen for the 1996 season. Despite the rumours, Williams team boss Frank Williams gave Hill "an unequivocal vote of confidence" heading into the next race, the Japanese Grand Prix. Schumacher subsequently changed his opinion of the incident after watching video footage prior to the Japanese race and no longer blamed Hill for it.
During an interview Coulthard, who finished second, revealed that it was his decision to change to a two-stop strategy from a three-stop strategy, telling the Williams pitcrew to delay his stop. Afterwards, he said that in hindsight he would have stayed on a three-stop strategy, and wished he could "blame someone else for this decision, but I can't". The 1995 race was the last held at the Aida circuit, and the last Formula One race to date held under the Pacific Grand Prix banner, with the manager of the TI Circuit unable to keep the venue financially profitable.
### Race classification
## Championship standings after the race
- Bold text indicates who still had a theoretical chance of becoming World Champion
Drivers' Championship standings
Constructors' Championship standings
- Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings
|
1,519,020 |
Gospel of the Ebionites
| 1,151,749,254 |
Apocryphal gospel
|
[
"2nd-century Christian texts",
"2nd-century books",
"Jewish Christian apocryphal gospels"
] |
The Gospel of the Ebionites is the conventional name given by scholars to an apocryphal gospel extant only as seven brief quotations in a heresiology known as the Panarion, by Epiphanius of Salamis; he misidentified it as the "Hebrew" gospel, believing it to be a truncated and modified version of the Gospel of Matthew. The quotations were embedded in a polemic to point out inconsistencies in the beliefs and practices of a Jewish Christian sect known as the Ebionites relative to Nicene orthodoxy.
The surviving fragments derive from a gospel harmony of the Synoptic Gospels, composed in Greek with various expansions and abridgments reflecting the theology of the writer. Distinctive features include the absence of the virgin birth and of the genealogy of Jesus; an Adoptionist Christology, in which Jesus is chosen to be God's Son at the time of his Baptism; the abolition of the Jewish sacrifices by Jesus; and an advocacy of vegetarianism.
The omission of the genealogical records and the virgin birth of Jesus narrative is explained by Epiphanius as being because "they insist that Jesus was really man."
It is believed to have been composed some time during the middle of the 2nd century in or around the region east of the Jordan River. Although the gospel was said to be used by "Ebionites" during the time of the early church, the identity of the group or groups that used it remains a matter of conjecture.
The Gospel of the Ebionites is one of several Jewish–Christian gospels, along with the Gospel of the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Nazarenes; all survive only as fragments in quotations of the early Church Fathers. Due to their fragmentary state, the relationships, if any, between the Jewish–Christian gospels and a hypothetical original Hebrew Gospel are uncertain and have been a subject of intensive scholarly investigation. The Ebionite gospel has been recognized as distinct from the others, and it has been identified more closely with the lost Gospel of the Twelve. It shows no dependence on the Gospel of John and is similar in nature to the harmonized gospel sayings based on the Synoptic Gospels used by Justin Martyr, although a relationship between them, if any, is uncertain. There is a similarity between the gospel and a source document contained within the Clementine Recognitions (1.27–71), conventionally referred to by scholars as the Ascents of James, with respect to the command to abolish the Jewish sacrifices.
## Background
Epiphanius is believed to have come into possession of a gospel that he attributed to the Ebionites when he was bishop of Salamis, Cyprus. He alone among the Church Fathers identifies Cyprus as one of the "roots" of the Ebionites. The gospel survives only in seven brief quotations by Epiphanius in Chapter 30 of his heresiology the Panarion, or "Medicine Chest", (c. 377) as a polemic against the Ebionites. His citations are often contradictory and thought to be based in part on his own conjecture. The various, sometimes conflicting, sources of information were combined to point out inconsistencies in Ebionite beliefs and practices relative to Nicene orthodoxy, possibly to serve, indirectly, as a polemic against the Arians of his time.
The term Gospel of the Ebionites is a modern convention; no surviving document of the early church mentions a gospel by that name. Epiphanius identifies the gospel only as "in the Gospel used by them, called 'according to Matthew'" and "they call it 'the Hebrew [gospel]'". As early as 1689 the French priest Richard Simon called the text "Gospel of the Ebionites". The name is used by modern scholars as a convenient way to distinguish a gospel text that was probably used by the Ebionites from Epiphanius' mistaken belief that it was a Hebrew version of the Gospel of Matthew. Its place of origin is uncertain; one speculation is that it was composed in the region east of the Jordan where the Ebionites were said to have been present, according to the accounts of the Church Fathers. It is thought to have been composed during the middle of the 2nd century, since several other gospel harmonies are known to be from this period.
## Composition
According to scholars Oskar Skarsaune and Glenn Alan Koch, Epiphanius incorporated excerpts from the gospel text at a late stage in the composition of Panarion 30, primarily in chapters 13 and 14. As Epiphanius describes it, "The Gospel which is found among them ... is not complete, but falsified and distorted ..." (13.1–2). In particular, it lacked some or all of the first two chapters of Matthew, which contain the infancy narrative of the virgin birth of Jesus and the Davidic genealogy via Solomon, "They have removed the genealogies of Matthew ..." (14.2–3).
There is general agreement about the seven quotations by Epiphanius cited in the critical edition of "Jewish Christian gospels" by Philipp Vielhauer and Georg Strecker, translated by George Ogg, in Schneemelcher's New Testament Apocrypha. The translations of Bernhard Pick (1908), with the sequence of four fragments arranged in the order of Vielhauer & Strecker from the beginning of the gospel are as follows:
> It came to pass in the days of Herod, King of Judaea under the high priest Caiaphas, that John came and baptized with the baptism of repentance in the river Jordan; he is said to be from the tribe of Aaron and a son of Zacharias the priest and of Elizabeth and all went out to him. (13.6) And it came to pass when John baptized, that the Pharisees came to him and were baptized, and all Jerusalem also. He had a garment of camels' hair, and a leather girdle about his loins. And his meat was wild honey, which tasted like manna, formed like cakes of oil. (13.4) The people having been baptized, Jesus came also, and was baptized by John. And as he came out of the water the heavens opened, and he saw the Holy Spirit descending under the form of a dove, and entering into him. And a voice was heard from heaven: 'Thou art my beloved Son, and in thee am I well pleased'. And again: 'This day have I begotten thee'. And suddenly shone a great light in that place. And John seeing him, said, 'Who art thou, Lord'? Then a voice was heard from heaven: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'. Thereat John fell at his feet and said: 'I pray thee, Lord, baptize me'. But he would not, saying 'Suffer it, for so it behoveth that all should be accomplished'. (13.7)
> "There was a man named Jesus, and he was about thirty years old; he has chosen us. And He came into Capernaum and entered into the house of Simon, surnamed Peter, and He opened His mouth and said, 'As I walked by the Sea of Tiberias, I chose John and James, the sons of Zebedee, and Simon and Andrew and Thaddaeus and Simon Zelotes, and Judas Iscariot; thee also, Matthew, when thou wast sitting at the receipt of custom, did I call and thou didst follow me. According to my intention ye shall be twelve apostles for a testimony unto Israel'." (13.2b–3)
The three quotations by Epiphanius in Panarion 30.13.6, 4, and 7, respectively, form the opening of the gospel narrative, including the mission of John the Baptist, his appearance and diet, and the baptism of Jesus by John. The beginning of the gospel (13.6) has parallels to the Gospel of Luke but in abbreviated form. The text shows a familiarity with the infancy narrative of Luke 1:5 despite lacking a birth narrative of its own. Quoting from the text regarding the diet of John (13.4), Epiphanius complains that the Ebionites have falsified the text by substituting the word "cake" (egkris ἐγκρίς) for "locust" (akris ἀκρίς, in Matthew 3:4). The similarity of the wording in Greek has led scholars to conclude that Greek was the original language of composition. In the narrative of the baptism of Jesus by John (13.7), the voice of God speaks three times in close parallels to the Gospel of Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22 (Western text-type), and Matthew 3:17, respectively. The presence of multiple baptismal theophanies has led to a consensus among modern scholars that the text quoted by Epiphanius is a gospel harmony of the Synoptic Gospels. The appearance of a great light on the water may be an echo of St. Paul's conversion or an additional harmonization of the Gospel of the Hebrews to this work.
Epiphanius begins his description of the gospel text (13.2b–3) with a quotation which has the apostle Matthew narrating directly to the reader. Jesus recalls how the twelve apostles were chosen and addresses Matthew in the second person as "you also Matthew". Although twelve apostles are mentioned, only eight are named. They are said to be chosen by Jesus, "for a testimony to Israel". The phrase "who chose us" has been interpreted as evidence that the text may be the lost Gospel of the Twelve mentioned by Origen. However, the identification of the gospel text quoted by Epiphanius with this otherwise unknown gospel is disputed. The position of this quotation was tentatively assigned based on a parallel to the Synoptic Gospels.
The fifth and sixth quotations (following Vielhauer & Strecker's order) are associated with a Christological controversy. The polemics of Epiphanius along with his quotations of the gospel text (in italics) are shown in parallel:
> "Moreover they deny that he was a man, evidently on the ground of the word which the Savior spoke when it was reported to him: 'Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without' , namely: 'Who is my mother and who are my brethren'? And he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples and said: 'These are my brethren and mother and sisters, which do the will of my Father'." (14.5)
> "They say that he was not begotten of God the Father, but created as one of the archangels ... that he rules over the angels and all the creatures of the Almighty, and that he came and declared, as their Gospel, which is called according to the Hebrews, reports: 'I am come to abolish the sacrifices, if ye cease not from sacrificing, the wrath will not cease from you'." (16.4–5)
The fifth quotation (14.5) appears to be a harmony of Matthew 12:47–48 and its Synoptic parallels. However, Jesus' final proclamation shows a closer agreement to 2 Clement 9:11 than any of the Synoptics. The unity of this quotation with the gospel text in Chapter 13 has been questioned. The command to abolish the sacrifices in the sixth quotation (16.5) is unparalleled in the Canonical Gospels, and it suggests a relationship to Matthew 5:17 ("I did not come to abolish the Law") that is echoed in the Clementine literature.
Referring to a parallel passage in Luke 22:15, Epiphanius complains that the Ebionites have again falsified the gospel text:
> "They destroyed the true order and changed the passage ... they made the disciples say, 'Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the Passover'? To which He replied: 'I have no desire to eat the flesh of this Paschal Lamb with you'." (22.4)
thereby making Jesus declare that he would not eat meat during the Passover. The immediate context suggests the possible attribution of the quotation to a Clementine source; however a linkage between the gospel fragments and the Clementine literature remains uncertain.
## Christology
The baptismal scene of the gospel text (13.7) is a harmony of the Synoptic Gospels, but one in which the Holy Spirit is said to descend to Jesus in the form of a dove and enter into him. This divine election at the time of his baptism is known as an Adoptionist Christology, and it is emphasized by the quotation of Psalm 2:7, as found in the "Western text" of Luke 3:22, "You are my son, this day I have begotten you." The Spirit entering into Jesus and the great light on the water are thought to be based on the prophecies of Isaiah 61:1 and 9:1, respectively. His Adoptionist son-ship is characterized by the belief that Jesus was a mere man, who, by virtue of his perfect righteousness, was imbued with the divinity of the eternal Christ through his Baptism in order to carry out the prophetic task for which he had been chosen.
The absence of any reference to a Davidic son-ship in the gospel text suggests that Jesus has been elected to be the end-time prophet, the Chosen One, sent to abolish the Jewish sacrifices. The Prophet-Christology of the gospel text quoted by Epiphanius is more at home with the Clementine literature than the Christology of the Ebionites known to Irenaeus. According to scholars Richard Bauckham and Petri Luomanen, Jesus is understood in this gospel as having come to abolish the sacrifices rather than substituting for them; thus it is unlikely that it contained the same institution of the Eucharist as practiced by Nicene orthodox Christianity. However, scholars have yet to reach a consensus over the sacrificial significance of Jesus' mission as depicted in the Ebionite gospel.
## Vegetarianism
The change in wording of the gospel text from "locust" (akris) to "cake" (egkris) for John the Baptist's diet (13.4) has been interpreted as evidence of Jewish vegetarianism. However, the association of the diet of John the Baptist with vegetarianism has been questioned. Epiphanius gives no indication of concern for vegetarianism in this part of the Gospel text, and it may instead be an allusion to the manna in the wilderness of Exodus 16:31 and Numbers 11:8, or, according to scholar Glenn Alan Koch, to 1 Kings 19:6 where Elijah eats cakes in oil.
Further evidence has been found in the quotation based on Luke 22:15 (22.4), where the saying has been modified by insertion of the word "flesh" to provide a rationale for vegetarianism. The immediate context of the quotation suggests that it may be closely related to a Clementine source, the Journeys of Peter. Reading from the same source, Epiphanius states that the Ebionites abstained from "meat with soul in it" (15.3), and he attributes this teaching to Ebionite interpolations "they corrupt the contents and leave a few genuine items". Due to the close association of this saying with the Clementine literature of the 3rd and 4th century, the earlier practice of vegetarianism by the 2nd-century Ebionites known to Irenaeus has been questioned. The strict vegetarianism of the Ebionites known to Epiphanius may have been a reaction to the cessation of Jewish sacrifices and a safeguard against the consumption of unclean meat in a pagan environment.
## Relationship to other texts
Epiphanius incorrectly refers to the gospel in his possession as the Gospel of Matthew and the gospel "according to the Hebrews", perhaps relying upon and conflating the writings of the earlier Church Fathers, Irenaeus and Eusebius, respectively. His 4th century colleague Jerome remarks that the Nazarenes and Ebionites both used the Gospel of the Hebrews, which was considered the original Matthew by many of them. Jerome's report is consistent with the prior accounts of Irenaeus and Eusebius.
The relationship between the Gospel of the Ebionites, the Gospel of the Hebrews, and the Gospel of the Nazarenes remains unclear. All the Jewish–Christian gospels survive only as fragments in quotations, so it is difficult to tell if they are independent texts or variations of each other. Scholar Albertus Klijn established the modern consensus, concluding that the gospel harmony composed in Greek appears to be a distinctive text known only to Epiphanius. Scholar Marie-Émile Boismard has claimed the Ebionite gospel is partly dependent upon a hypothetical Hebrew gospel as a source; however this conjecture remains a minority view. Its putative relationship to the gospel text known to Origen as the Gospel of the Twelve remains a subject of scholarly debate.
The Ebionite gospel is one example of a type of gospel harmony that used the Gospel of Matthew as a base text but did not include the Gospel of John; it is believed to pre-date Tatian's Diatessaron (c. 170) which included all four canonical gospels. The gospel has a parallel to a quotation in a mid-2nd-century homily known as 2 Clement, suggesting that both may be dependent on a harmonizing tradition from an earlier 2nd century source. The harmonized gospel sayings sources used by Justin Martyr to compose his First Apology and Dialogue with Trypho were similarly based on the Synoptic Gospels. According to scholar George Howard, harmonization was a widely used method of composition in the early Patristic period. Many of the heterodox variants found in the Gospel of the Ebionites may have been adopted from a larger pool of variants that were in circulation; an example is the appearance of a great light that shone during Jesus' Baptism which is also found in the Diatessaron.
The Recognitions of Clement contains a source document (Rec. 1.27–71), conventionally referred to by scholars as the Ascents of James, which is believed to be of Jewish–Christian origin. The Ascents shares a similarity to the Gospel of the Ebionites with regard to the baptism of the Pharisees by John (Pan. 30.13.4; Rec. 1.54.6–7) and the command to abolish the Jewish sacrifices, adding that a Christian water baptism is to be substituted for the remission of sins. Based on these similarities, scholars Richard Bauckham and F. Stanley Jones have postulated a direct dependence of the Ascents of James on the Gospel of the Ebionites.
## Inferences about the Ebionites
The gospel Epiphanius attributed to the Ebionites is a valuable source of information that provides modern scholars with insights into the distinctive characteristics of a vanished branch of Jewish Christianity. However, scholars disagree on whether the information contained within the seven fragments preserved by Epiphanius accurately reflects the traditions of the second-century Ebionite sect known to Irenaeus, or if their belief system changed, perhaps greatly, over a span of 200 years compared to this early group. The Ebionites known to Irenaeus (first mentioned in Adversus Haereses 1.26.2, written around 185) and other Church Fathers prior to Epiphanius were described as a Jewish sect that regarded Jesus as the Messiah but not as divine. They insisted on the necessity of following Jewish law and rites and they used only the Jewish–Christian gospel. The Ebionites rejected the epistles of Paul of Tarsus, whom they regarded as an apostate from the Law.
In Epiphanius' polemic against the Ebionites found in Panarion 30, a complex picture emerges of the beliefs and practices of the 4th century Ebionites that cannot easily be separated from his method of combining disparate sources. While scholars such as Hans-Joachim Schoeps literally interpreted Epiphanius' account as describing a later syncretic development of Ebionism, more recent scholarship has found it difficult to reconcile his report with those of the earlier Church Fathers, leading to a conjecture by scholar Petri Luomanen that a second group of Hellenistic-Samaritan Ebionites may also have been present. The rejection of the Jewish sacrifices and the implication of an end-time prophet Christology due to the lack of a birth narrative lend support for the association of the Gospel of the Ebionites with a group or groups different from the Ebionites known to Irenaeus.
Scholarship in the area of Jewish Christian studies has tended to be based on artificial constructs similar to those developed by the early Christian heresiologists, with the underlying assumption that all of the beliefs and practices of these groups were based on theology. This has led to the perpetuation of ideological definitions that fail to take into account the pluriformity of these groups, reflecting differences in geography, time periods in history, and ethnicity. With respect to Epiphanius, and the Ebionites in particular, insufficient attention has been paid to the highly speculative nature of his theological constructs and his mixing together of disparate sources, including his use of a gospel harmony that may have had nothing to do with the Ebionite sect known to Irenaeus. In the end, he presents an enigmatic picture of the Ebionites and their place in early Christian history.
## See also
- List of Gospels
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Discovery Expedition
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British scientific expedition to Antarctica (1901 to 1904)
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[
"1901 in Antarctica",
"1901 in the United Kingdom",
"1902 in Antarctica",
"1903 in Antarctica",
"1904 in Antarctica",
"Antarctic expeditions",
"Expeditions from the United Kingdom",
"Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration",
"History of the Ross Dependency",
"Robert Falcon Scott",
"South Pole",
"United Kingdom and the Antarctic"
] |
The Discovery Expedition of 1901–1904, known officially as the British National Antarctic Expedition, was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since the voyage of James Clark Ross sixty years earlier (1839–1843). Organized on a large scale under a joint committee of the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), the new expedition carried out scientific research and geographical exploration in what was then largely an untouched continent. It launched the Antarctic careers of many who would become leading figures in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, including Robert Falcon Scott who led the expedition, Ernest Shackleton, Edward Wilson, Frank Wild, Tom Crean and William Lashly.
Its scientific results covered extensive ground in biology, zoology, geology, meteorology and magnetism. The expedition discovered the existence of the only snow-free Antarctic valleys, which contains the longest river of Antarctica. Further achievements included the discoveries of the Cape Crozier emperor penguin colony, King Edward VII Land, and the Polar Plateau (via the western mountains route) on which the South Pole is located. The expedition tried to reach the South Pole travelling as far as the Farthest South mark at a reported 82°17′S.
As a trailbreaker for later ventures, the Discovery Expedition was a landmark in British Antarctic exploration history.
## Background to the expedition
### Forerunners
Between 1839 and 1843 Royal Naval Captain James Clark Ross, commanding his two ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, completed three voyages to the Antarctic continent. During this time he discovered and explored a new sector of the Antarctic that would provide the field of work for many later British expeditions.
Ross established the general geography of this region, and named many of its features; the Ross Sea, the Great Ice Barrier (later renamed the Ross Ice Shelf), Ross Island, Cape Adare, Victoria Land, McMurdo Sound, Cape Crozier and the twin volcanoes Mount Erebus and Mount Terror. He returned to the Barrier several times, hoping to penetrate it, but was unable to do so, achieving his Farthest South in a small Barrier inlet at 78°10′, in February 1842. Ross suspected that land lay to the east of the Barrier, but was unable to confirm this.
After Ross there were no recorded voyages into this sector of the Antarctic for fifty years. Then, in January 1895, a Norwegian whaling trip made a brief landing at Cape Adare, the northernmost tip of Victoria Land. Four years later Carsten Borchgrevink, who had participated in that landing, took his own expedition to the region, in the Southern Cross. This expedition was financed by a donation of £35,000 from British publishing magnate Sir George Newnes, on condition that the venture be called the "British Antarctic Expedition". Borchgrevink landed at Cape Adare in February 1899, erected a small hut, and spent the 1899 winter there. The following summer he sailed south, landing at Ross's inlet on the Barrier. A party of three then sledged southward on the Barrier surface, and reached a new Furthest South at 78°50′.
The Discovery Expedition was planned during a surge of international interest in the Antarctic regions at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. A German expedition under Erich von Drygalski was leaving at about the same time as Discovery, to explore the sector of the continent south of the Indian Ocean. The Swedish explorer Otto Nordenskiöld was leading an expedition to Graham Land, and a French expedition under Jean-Baptiste Charcot was going to the Antarctic Peninsula. Finally, the British scientist William Speirs Bruce was leading a scientific expedition to the Weddell Sea.
### Royal Navy, Markham and Scott
Under the influence of John Barrow, Second Secretary to the Admiralty, polar exploration had become the province of the peacetime Royal Navy after the Napoleonic War. Naval interest diminished after the disappearance in 1845 of the Franklin expedition, and the many fruitless searches that followed. After the problems encountered by the 1874–76 North Pole expedition led by George Nares, and Nares's own declaration that the North Pole was "impracticable", the Admiralty decided that further polar quests would be dangerous, expensive and futile.
However, the Royal Geographical Society's Secretary (and later President) Sir Clements Markham was a former naval man who had served on one of the Franklin relief expeditions in 1851. He had accompanied Nares for part of the 1874–76 expedition, and remained a firm advocate for the navy's resuming its historic role in polar exploration. An opportunity to further this ambition arose in November 1893, when the prominent biologist Sir John Murray, who had visited Antarctic waters as a biologist with the Challenger Expedition in the 1870s, addressed the RGS. Murray presented a paper entitled "The Renewal of Antarctic Exploration", and called for a full-scale expedition for the benefit of British science. This was strongly supported, both by Markham and by the country's premier scientific body, the Royal Society. A joint committee of the two Societies was established to decide the form in which the expedition should take. Markham's vision of a full-blown naval affair after the style of Ross or Franklin was opposed by sections of the joint committee, but his tenacity was such that the expedition was eventually moulded largely to his wishes. His cousin and biographer later wrote that the expedition was "the creation of his brain, the product of his persistent energy".
It had long been Markham's practice to take note of promising young naval officers who might later be suitable for polar responsibilities, should the opportunity arise. He had first observed Midshipman Robert Falcon Scott in 1887, while the latter was serving with HMS Rover in St Kitts, and had remembered him. Thirteen years later, Scott, by now a Torpedo Lieutenant on HMS Majestic, was looking for a path to career advancement, and a chance meeting with Sir Clements in London led him to apply for the leadership of the expedition. Scott had long been in Markham's mind, though by no means always his first choice, but other favoured candidates had either become in his view too old, or were no longer available. With Markham's determined backing, Scott's appointment was secured by 25 May 1900, followed swiftly by his promotion to Commander.
### Science versus adventure
The command structure of the expedition had still to be settled. Markham had been determined from the beginning that its overall leader should be a naval officer, not a scientist. Scott, writing to Markham after his appointment, reiterated that he "must have complete command of the ship and landing parties", and insisted on being consulted over all future appointments. However, the Joint Committee had, with Markham's acquiescence, secured the appointment of John Walter Gregory, Professor of Geology at the University of Melbourne and former assistant geologist at the British Museum, as the expedition's scientific director. Gregory's view, endorsed by the Royal Society faction of the Joint Committee, was that the organisation and command of the land party should be in his hands: "...The Captain would be instructed to give such assistance as required in dredging, tow-netting etc., to place boats where required at the disposal of the scientific staff." In the dispute that followed, Markham argued that Scott's command of the whole expedition must be total and unambiguous, and Scott himself was insistent on this to the point of resignation. Markham's and Scott's view prevailed, and Gregory resigned, saying that the scientific work should not be "subordinated to naval adventure".
This controversy soured relations between the Societies, which lingered after the conclusion of the expedition and was reflected in criticism of the extent and quality of some of the published results. Markham claimed that his insistence on a naval command was primarily a matter of tradition and style, rather than indicating disrespect for science. He had made clear his belief that, on its own, the mere attainment of higher latitude than someone else was "unworthy of support."
## Personnel
Markham had hoped for a fully-fledged Royal Naval expedition, but was warned by the Admiralty that "the present exigencies of the Naval Service [would] prevent them from lending officers..." However, the Admiralty agreed to release Scott and Charles Royds, and later allowed Michael Barne and Reginald Skelton to join the expedition. The remaining officers were from the Merchant Marine, including Albert Armitage, the second-in-command, who had experience with the Jackson–Harmsworth Arctic expedition, 1894–97, and Ernest Shackleton, designated Third Officer in charge of holds, stores and provisions, and responsible for arranging the entertainments. The Admiralty also released around twenty petty officers and seamen, the rest of the crew being from the merchant service, or from civilian employment. Among the lower deck complement were some who became Antarctic veterans, including Frank Wild, William Lashly, Thomas Crean (who joined the expedition following the desertion of a seaman in New Zealand), Edgar Evans and Ernest Joyce. Although the expedition was not a formal Navy project, Scott proposed to run the expedition on naval lines, and secured the crew's voluntary agreement to work under the Naval Discipline Act.
The scientific team was inexperienced. Dr George Murray, Gregory's successor as chief scientist, was due to travel only as far as Australia (in fact he left the ship at Cape Town), using the voyage to train the scientists, but with no part to play in the detailed work of the expedition. The only scientist with previous Antarctic experience was Louis Bernacchi, who had been with Borchgrevink as magnetic observer and meteorologist. The geologist, Hartley Ferrar, was a 22-year-old recent Cambridge graduate who Markham thought "might be made into a man." Marine biologist Thomas Vere Hodgson, from Plymouth Museum, was a more mature figure, as was the senior of the two doctors, Reginald Koettlitz, who, at 39, was the oldest member of the expedition. He, like Armitage, had been with the Jackson–Harmsworth expedition. The junior doctor and zoologist was Edward Wilson, who became close to Scott and provided the qualities of calmness, patience and detachment that the captain reportedly lacked.
## Organisation and objectives
### Finance
The total cost of the expedition was estimated at £90,000 (2009 equivalent about £7.25 million), of which £45,000 was offered by the British Government provided that the two Societies could raise a matching sum. They achieved this, thanks largely to a donation of £25,000 from wealthy RGS member Llewellyn W. Longstaff. The RGS itself contributed £8,000, its largest single contribution to any expedition to date, and £5,000 came from Alfred Harmsworth, later Lord Northcliffe, who had earlier financed the Jackson–Harmsworth expedition to the Arctic, 1894–97. The rest was raised from smaller donations. The expedition also benefited from significant commercial sponsorship: Colman's provided mustard and flour, Cadbury's gave 3,500 lb (1,600 kg) of chocolate, Bird's donated baking and custard powders, Evans, Lescher & Webb provided all the lime juice. Jaeger gave a 40% discount on special clothing, Bovril supplied beef extract, and others made significant contributions.
### Ship
The expedition's ship was built by the Dundee Shipbuilders Company as a specialist research vessel designed for work in Antarctic waters, and was one of the last three-masted wooden sailing ships built in Britain. The construction cost was £34,050 (2009 = £2.7 million), plus £10,322 (£830,000) for the engines, and the final cost after all modifications was £51,000 (£4.1 m). The name had historic naval associations, most recently as one of the ships used in the Nares expedition, and certain features of this older vessel were incorporated into the design of the new ship. She was launched by Lady Markham on 21 March 1901 as S.Y. Discovery (the Royal Research Ship designation was acquired in the 1920s).
As she was not a Royal Naval vessel the Admiralty would not allow Discovery to fly the White Ensign. She eventually sailed under the Merchant Shipping Act, flying the RGS house flag and the Blue Ensign and burgee of the Royal Harwich Yacht Club.
### Dogs
Scott contacted Fridtjof Nansen in Oslo, whom he trusted more than his own "quarrelling" committee in London, and followed his advice on equipment. Subsequently, Armitage ordered 25 Siberian sledge-dogs via a Scots dog and ski expert based in Archangel, Russia. According to Huntford, however, this expert was not invited to join the expedition.
### Objectives
The Discovery Expedition, like those of Ross and Borchgrevink before it, was to work in the Ross Sea sector of Antarctica. Other areas of the continent had been considered, but the principle followed was that "in going for the unknown they should start from the known". The two main objectives of the expedition were summarised in the joint committee's "Instructions to the Commander" as: "to determine, as far as possible, the nature, condition and extent of that portion of the south polar lands which is included in the scope of your expedition", and "to make a magnetic survey in the southern regions to the south of the fortieth parallel and to carry out meteorological, oceanographic, geological, biological and physical investigations and researches". The instructions stipulated that "neither of these objectives was to be sacrificed to the other".
The instructions concerning the geographical objective became more specific: "The chief points of geographical interest are [...] to explore the ice barrier of Sir James Ross to its eastern extremity; to discover the land which was believed by Ross to flank the barrier to the eastward, or to ascertain that it does not exist [...] If you should decide to winter in the ice...your efforts as regards geographical exploration should be directed to [...] an advance to the western mountains, an advance to the south, and an exploration of the volcanic region".
## Expedition
### First years
#### Outward journey
Discovery left Isle of Wight on 6 August 1901, and arrived in New Zealand via Cape Town on 29 November after a detour below 40°S for a magnetic survey. Quail Island in Lyttelton Harbour was used as the quarantine station for the expedition's dogs. After three weeks of final preparation she was ready for the journey south. On 21 December, as the ship was leaving Lyttelton to the cheers of large crowds, a young able seaman, Charles Bonner, fell to his death from the top of the mainmast, which he had climbed so as to return the crowd's applause. He was buried at Port Chalmers, two days later.
Discovery then sailed south, arriving at Cape Adare on 9 January 1902. After a brief landing and examination of the remains of Borchgrevink's camp, the ship continued southwards along the Victoria Land coast. At McMurdo Sound Discovery turned eastward, touching land again at Cape Crozier where a pre-arranged message point was set up so that relief ships would be able to locate the expedition. She then followed the Barrier to its eastern extremity where, on 30 January, the land predicted by Ross was confirmed, and named King Edward VII Land.
On 4 February, Scott landed on the Barrier and unpacked an observation balloon which he had acquired for aerial surveys. Scott climbed aboard and rapidly ascended to above 600 feet (180 m) in the firmly tethered balloon. Shackleton followed with a second flight. All either could see was unending Barrier surface. Wilson privately thought the flights "perfect madness".
#### Winter Quarters Bay
Discovery then proceeded westward in search of permanent quarters. On 8 February she entered McMurdo Sound and later that day anchored in a spot near its southern limit which was afterwards christened Winter Quarters Bay. Wilson wrote: "We all realized our extreme good fortune in being led to such a winter quarter as this, safe for the ship, with perfect shelter from all ice pressure." Stoker Lashly, however, thought it looked "a dreary place." Work began ashore with the erection of the expedition's huts on a rocky peninsula designated Hut Point. Scott had decided that the expedition should continue to live and work aboard ship, and he allowed Discovery to be frozen into the sea ice, leaving the main hut to be used as a storeroom and shelter.
Of the entire party, none were skilled skiers and only Bernacchi and Armitage had any experience with dog-sledges. The results of the men's early efforts to master these techniques were not encouraging, and tended to reinforce Scott's preference for man-hauling. The dangers of the unfamiliar conditions were confirmed when, on 11 March, a party returning from an attempted journey to Cape Crozier became stranded on an icy slope during a blizzard. In their attempts to find safer ground, one of the group, Able Seaman George Vince, slid over the edge of a cliff and was killed. His body was never recovered; a cross with a simple inscription, erected in his memory, still stands at the summit of the Hut Point promontory.
During the winter months of May–August the scientists were busy in their laboratories, while elsewhere equipment and stores were prepared for the next season's work. For relaxation there were amateur theatricals, and educational activities in the form of lectures. A newspaper, the South Polar Times, was edited by Shackleton. Outside pursuits did not cease altogether; there was football on the ice, and the schedule of magnetic and meteorological observations was maintained. As winter ended, trial sledge runs resumed, to test equipment and rations in advance of the planned southern journey which Scott, Wilson and Shackleton were to undertake. Meanwhile, a party under Royds travelled to Cape Crozier to leave a message at the post there, and discovered an emperor penguin colony. Another group, under Armitage, reconnoitred in the mountains to the west, returning in October with the expedition's first symptoms of scurvy. Armitage later blamed the outbreak on Scott's "sentimental objection" to the slaughter of animals for fresh meat. The entire expedition's diet was quickly revised, and the trouble was thereafter contained. Nevertheless, the scurvy outbreak did cause concern about the expedition's safety when news of it reached Britain, leading to demands for a relief expedition. For instance, The Yorkshire Evening Post claimed that ‘the lives of the gallant explorers and scientific staff of the Discovery may actually be in peril if they have to stay out for another winter.’
#### Southern journey
Scott, Wilson and Shackleton left on 2 November 1902 with dogs and supporting parties. Their goal was "to get as far south in a straight line on the Barrier ice as we can, reach the Pole if possible, or find some new land". The first significant milestone was passed on 11 November, when a supporting party passed Borchgrevink's Farthest South record of 78°50′. However, the lack of skill with dogs was soon evident, and progress was slow. After the support parties had returned, on 15 November, Scott's group began relaying their loads (taking half loads forward, then returning for the other half), thus travelling three miles for every mile of southward progress. Mistakes had been made with the dogs' food, and as the dogs grew weaker, Wilson was forced to kill the weakest as food for the others. The men, too, were struggling, afflicted by snow blindness, frostbite and symptoms of early scurvy, but they continued southwards in line with the mountains to the west. Christmas Day was celebrated with double rations, and a Christmas pudding that Shackleton had kept for the occasion, hidden with his socks. On 30 December 1902, without having left the Barrier, they reached their Furthest South at 82°17′S. Troubles multiplied on the home journey, as the remaining dogs died and Shackleton collapsed with scurvy. Wilson's diary entry for 14 January 1903 acknowledged that "we all have slight, though definite symptoms of scurvy". Scott and Wilson struggled on, with Shackleton, who was unable to pull, walking alongside and occasionally carried on the sledge. The party eventually reached the ship on 3 February 1903 after covering 960 miles (1,540 km) including relays, in 93 days' travel at a daily average of just over 10 miles (16 km).
### Arrival of relief ship
During the southern party's absence the relief ship Morning arrived, bringing fresh supplies. The expedition's organisers had assumed that the Discovery would be free from the ice in early 1903, enabling Scott to carry out further seaborne exploration and survey work before winter set in. It was intended that Discovery would return to New Zealand in March or April, then home to Britain via the Pacific, continuing its magnetic survey en route. Morning would provide any assistance that Scott might require during this period.
This plan was frustrated, as Discovery remained firmly icebound. Markham had privately anticipated this, and Morning'''s captain, William Colbeck, was carrying a secret letter to Scott authorising another year in the ice. This now being inevitable, the relief ship provided an opportunity for some of the party to return home. Among these, against his will, was the convalescent Shackleton, who Scott decided "ought not to risk further hardships in his present state of health". Stories of a Scott-Shackleton rift date from this point, or from a supposed falling-out during the southern journey which had provoked an angry exchange of words. Some of these details were supplied by Armitage, whose relationship with Scott had broken down and who, after Scott, Wilson and Shackleton were all dead, chose to reveal details which tended to show Scott in a poor light. Other evidence indicates that Scott and Shackleton remained on generally good terms for some while; Shackleton met the expedition on its return home in 1904, and later wrote a very cordial letter to Scott.
### Second year
After the 1903 winter had passed, Scott prepared for the second main journey of the expedition: an ascent of the western mountains and exploration of the interior of Victoria Land. Armitage's reconnaissance party of the previous year had pioneered a route up to altitude 8,900 feet (2,700 m) before returning, but Scott wished to march west from this point, if possible to the location of the South Magnetic Pole. After a false start due to faulty sledges, a party including Scott, Lashly and Edgar Evans set out from Discovery on 26 October 1903.
Ascending the Ferrar Glacier, which they named after the party's geologist, they reached a height of 7,000 feet (2,100 m) before being held in camp for a week by blizzards. This prevented them from reaching the glacier summit until 13 November. They then marched on beyond Armitage's furthest point, discovered the Polar Plateau and became the first party to travel on it. After the return of geological and supporting parties, Scott, Evans and Lashly continued westward across the featureless plain for another eight days, covering a distance of about 150 miles to reach their most westerly point on 30 November. Having lost their navigational tables in a gale during the glacier ascent, they did not know exactly where they were, and had no landmarks to help them fix a position. The return journey to the Ferrar Glacier was undertaken in conditions which limited them to no more than a mile an hour, with supplies running low and dependent on Scott's rule of thumb navigation. On the descent of the glacier Scott and Evans survived a potentially fatal fall into a crevasse, before the discovery of a snow-free area or dry valley, a rare Antarctic phenomenon. Lashly described the dry valley as "a splendid place for growing spuds". The party reached Discovery on 24 December, after a round trip of seven hundred miles covered in 59 days. Their daily average of over 14 miles on this man-hauling journey was significantly better than that achieved with dogs on the previous season's southern journey, a fact which further strengthened Scott's prejudices against dogs. Polar historian David Crane calls the western journey "one of the great journeys of polar history".
Several other journeys were completed during Scott's absence. Royds and Bernacchi travelled for 31 days on the Barrier in a SE direction, observing its uniformly flat character and making further magnetic readings. Another party had explored the Koettlitz Glacier to the south-west, and Wilson had travelled to Cape Crozier to observe the emperor penguin colony at close quarters.
### Second relief expedition
Scott had hoped on his return to find Discovery free from the ice, but she remained held fast. Work had begun with ice saws, but after 12 days' labour only two short parallel cuts of 450 feet (140 m) had been carved, with the ship still 20 miles (32 km) from open water. On 5 January 1904 the relief ship Morning returned, this time with a second ship, the Terra Nova. Colbeck was carrying firm instructions from the Admiralty that, if Discovery could not be freed by a certain date she was to be abandoned and her complement brought home on the two relief ships. This ultimatum resulted from Markham's dependence on the Treasury for meeting the costs of this second relief expedition, since the expedition's coffers were empty. The Admiralty would foot the bill only on their own terms. The deadline agreed between the three captains was 25 February, and it became a race against time for the relief vessels to reach Discovery, still held fast at Hut Point. As a precaution Scott began the transfer of his scientific specimens to the other ships. Explosives were used to break up the ice, and the sawing parties resumed work, but although the relief ships were able to edge closer, by the end of January Discovery remained icebound, two miles (approx. 3 km) from the rescuers. On 10 February Scott accepted that he would have to abandon her, but on 14 February most of the ice suddenly broke up, and Morning and Terra Nova were at last able to sail alongside Discovery. A final explosive charge removed the remaining ice on 16 February, and the following day, after a last scare when she became temporarily grounded on a shoal, Discovery began the return journey to New Zealand.
## Homecoming and results
On its return to Britain the expedition's reception was initially muted. Some press reporters were surprised at the good physical condition of the men when they arrived in Portsmouth, as they had read previous reports about the expedition's problems with scurvy and bad food. Markham was present to meet the ship in Portsmouth when Discovery docked there on 10 September 1904, but no dignitaries greeted the party when it arrived in London a few days later. However, there was considerable public enthusiasm for the expedition, and official recognition followed. Scott was quickly promoted to Captain, and invited to Balmoral Castle to meet King Edward VII, who invested him as a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO). He also received a cluster of medals and awards from overseas, including the French Légion d'honneur. Polar Medals and promotions were given to other officers and crew members.
The main geographical results of the expedition were the discovery of King Edward VII Land; the ascent of the western mountains and the discovery of the Polar Plateau; the first sledge journey on the plateau; the Barrier journey to a Furthest South of 82°17′S. The island nature of Ross Island was established, the Transantarctic Mountains were charted to 83°S, and the positions and heights of more than 200 individual mountains were calculated. Many other features and landmarks were also identified and named, and there was extensive coastal survey work.
There were also discoveries of major scientific importance. These included the snow-free Dry Valleys in the western mountains, the emperor penguin colony at Cape Crozier, scientific evidence that the Ice Barrier was a floating ice shelf, and a leaf fossil discovered by Ferrar which helped to establish Antarctica's relation to the Gondwana super-continent. Thousands of geological and biological specimens had been collected and new marine species identified. The location of the South Magnetic Pole had been calculated with reasonable accuracy. On the medical side, Wilson discovered the anti-scorbutic effects of fresh seal meat, which resolved the lethal threat of scurvy to this and subsequent expeditions.
A general endorsement of the scientific results from the navy's Chief Hydrographer (and former Scott opponent) Sir William Wharton was encouraging. However, when the meteorological data were published their accuracy was disputed within the scientific establishment, including by the President of the Physical Society of London, Dr Charles Chree. Scott defended his team's work, while privately acknowledging that Royds's paperwork in this field had been "dreadfully slipshod".
The expedition succeeded in combating incipient scurvy through a fresh seal meat diet, and Scott recommended it for future polar expeditions. This was despite the medical profession being ignorant of the causes of the disease. At that time it was known that a fresh meat diet could provide a cure, but not that lack of fresh meat or other fresh food containing the as yet undiscovered vitamin C was a cause. Thus, fresh seal meat was taken on the southern journey "in case we find ourselves attacked by scurvy", On his 1907–09 Nimrod expedition Shackleton also avoided the disease through careful dietary provision, including extra penguin and seal meat. However, Lieutenant Edward Evans almost died of presumably self-inflicted scurvy during the 1910–13 Terra Nova Expedition, and scurvy was particularly devastating to Shackleton's marooned Ross Sea party during 1915–16. It remained a danger until its causes were finally established, some 25 years after the Discovery Expedition.
## Aftermath
Scott was given leave from the Navy to write the official expedition account, The Voyage of the Discovery; this was published in 1905, and sold well. However, Scott's account in the book of Shackleton's breakdown during the southern journey led to disagreement between the two men, particularly over Scott's version of the extent to which his companion had been carried on the sledge. The implication was that Shackleton's breakdown had caused the relatively unimpressive southern record.
Scott eventually resumed his naval career, first as an assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence and then, in August 1906, as Flag-captain to Rear-Admiral George Egerton on HMS Victorious. He had by this time become a national hero, despite his aversion to the limelight, and the expedition was being presented to the public as a triumph. This euphoria was not conducive to objective analysis, or to thoughtful appraisal of the expedition's strengths and weaknesses. In particular, the glorification by Scott of man-hauling as something intrinsically more noble than other ice travel techniques led to a general distrust of methods involving ski and dogs, a mindset that was carried forward into later expeditions. This mystified seasoned ice travellers such as Fridtjof Nansen, whose advice on such matters was usually sought, but often set aside.
The Discovery Expedition launched the Antarctic careers of several who became stalwarts or leaders of expeditions in the following fifteen years. Apart from Scott and Shackleton, Frank Wild and Ernest Joyce from the lower deck returned repeatedly to the ice, apparently unable to settle back into normal life. William Lashly and Edgar Evans, Scott's companions on the 1903 western journey, aligned themselves with their leader's future plans and became his regular sledging partners. Tom Crean followed both Scott and Shackleton on later expeditions. Lieutenant "Teddy" Evans, first officer on the relief ship Morning, began plans to lead an expedition of his own, before teaming up with Scott in 1910.
Soon after resuming his naval duties, Scott revealed to the Royal Geographical Society his intention to return to Antarctica, but the information was not at that stage made public. Scott was forestalled by Shackleton, who early in 1907 announced his plans to lead an expedition with the twin objectives of reaching the geographic and magnetic South Poles. Under duress, Shackleton agreed not to work from McMurdo Sound, which Scott was claiming as his own sphere of work. In the event, unable to find a safe landing elsewhere, Shackleton was forced to break this promise. His expedition was highly successful, its southern march ending at 88°23′, less than 100 geographical miles from the South Pole, while its northern party reached the location of the South Magnetic Pole. However, Shackleton's breach of his undertaking caused a significant break in relations between the two men, with Scott dismissing his former companion as a liar and a rogue.
Scott's plans gradually came to fruition – a large-scale scientific and geographical expedition with the conquest of the South Pole as its principal objective. Scott was anxious to avoid the amateurism that had been associated with the Discovery Expedition's scientific work. He appointed Edward Wilson as his chief scientist, and Wilson selected an experienced team. The expedition set off in June 1910 in Terra Nova, one of Discovery's'' relief ships. Its programme was complicated by the simultaneous arrival in the Antarctic of Roald Amundsen's Norwegian expedition. Amundsen's party reached the South Pole on 14 December 1911 and returned safely. Scott and four companions, including Wilson, arrived at the Pole on 17 January 1912; all five perished on the return journey.
## See also
- Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration
- List of Antarctic expeditions
|
333,116 |
Eurasian treecreeper
| 1,152,603,547 |
Small passerine bird found in temperate Eurasia
|
[
"Birds described in 1758",
"Birds of Eurasia",
"Certhia",
"Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus"
] |
The Eurasian treecreeper or common treecreeper (Certhia familiaris) is a small passerine bird also known in the British Isles, where it is the only living member of its genus, simply as treecreeper. It is similar to other treecreepers, and has a curved bill, patterned brown upperparts, whitish underparts, and long stiff tail feathers which help it creep up tree trunks. It can be most easily distinguished from the similar short-toed treecreeper, which shares much of its European range, by its different song.
The Eurasian treecreeper has nine or more subspecies which breed in different parts of its range in the Palearctic. This species is found in woodlands of all kinds, but where it overlaps with the short-toed treecreeper in western Europe it is more likely to be found in coniferous forests or at higher altitudes. It nests in tree crevices or behind bark flakes, and favours introduced giant sequoia as nest sites where they are available. The female typically lays five or six pink-speckled white eggs in the lined nest, but eggs and chicks are vulnerable to attack by woodpeckers and mammals, including squirrels.
The Eurasian treecreeper is insectivorous and climbs up tree trunks like a mouse, to search for insects which it picks from crevices in the bark with its fine curved bill. It then flies to the base of another tree with a distinctive erratic flight. This bird is solitary in winter, but may form communal roosts in cold weather.
## Description
Similar in appearance, all treecreepers are small birds with streaked and spotted brown upperparts, rufous rumps and whitish underparts. They have long decurved bills, and long rigid tail feathers that provide support as they creep up tree trunks looking for insects.
The Eurasian treecreeper is 12.5 cm (4.9 in) long and weighs 7.0–12.9 g (0.25–0.46 oz). It has warm brown upperparts intricately patterned with black, buff and white, and a plain brown tail. Its belly, flanks and vent area are tinged with buff. The sexes are similar, but the juvenile has duller upperparts than the adult, and its underparts are dull white with dark fine spotting on the flanks.
The contact call is a very quiet, thin and high-pitched sit, but the most distinctive call is a penetrating tsree, with a vibrato quality, sometimes repeated as a series of notes. The male's song begins with srrih, srrih followed in turn by a few twittering notes, a longer descending ripple, and a whistle that falls and then rises.
The range of the Eurasian treecreeper overlaps with that of several other treecreepers, which can present local identification problems. In Europe, the Eurasian treecreeper shares much of its range with the short-toed treecreeper. Compared to that species, it is whiter below, warmer and more spotted above, and has a whiter supercilium and slightly shorter bill. Visual identification, even in the hand, may be impossible for poorly marked birds. A singing treecreeper is usually identifiable, since short-toed treecreeper has a distinctive series of evenly spaced notes sounding quite different from the song of Eurasian treecreeper; however, both species have been known to sing the other's song.
Three Himalayan subspecies of Eurasian treecreeper are now sometimes given full species status as Hodgson's treecreeper, for example by BirdLife International, but if they are retained as subspecies of Eurasian, they have to be distinguished from three other South Asian treecreepers. The plain tail of Eurasian treecreeper differentiates it from bar-tailed treecreeper, which has a distinctive barred tail pattern, and its white throat is an obvious difference from brown-throated treecreeper. Rusty-flanked treecreeper is more difficult to separate from Eurasian, but has more contrasting cinnamon, rather than buff, flanks.
The North American brown creeper has never been recorded in Europe, but an autumn vagrant would be difficult to identify, since it would not be singing, and the American species' call is much like that of Eurasian treecreeper. In appearance, brown creeper is more like short-toed than Eurasian, but a vagrant might still not be possible to identify with certainty given the similarities between the three species.
## Taxonomy
The Eurasian treecreeper was first described under its current scientific name by Linnaeus in his Systema naturae in 1758. The binomial name is derived from Ancient Greek kerthios, a small tree-dwelling bird described by Aristotle and others, and Latin familiaris, familiar or common.
This species is one of a group of very similar typical treecreeper species, all placed in the single genus Certhia. Eight species are currently recognised, in two evolutionary lineages: a Holarctic radiation, and a southern Asian group. The Holarctic group has a more warbling song, always (except in C. familiaris from China) starting or ending with a shrill sreeh. Species in the southern group, in contrast, have a faster-paced trill without the sreeh sound. All the species have distinctive vocalizations and some subspecies have been elevated to species on the basis of their calls.
The Eurasian treecreeper belongs to the northern group, along with the North American brown creeper, C. americana, the short-toed treecreeper, C. brachydactyla, of western Eurasia, and, if it is considered a separate species, Hodgson's treecreeper, C. hodgsoni, from the southern rim of the Himalayas.
The brown creeper has sometimes been considered to be a subspecies of Eurasian treecreeper, but has closer affinities to short-toed treecreeper, and is normally now treated as a full species. Hodgson's treecreeper is a more recent proposed split following studies of its cytochrome b mtDNA sequence and song structure that indicate that it may well be a distinct species from C. familiaris.
There are nine to twelve subspecies of Eurasian treecreeper, depending on the taxonomic view taken, which are all very similar and often interbreed in areas where their ranges overlap. There is a general cline in appearance from west to east across Eurasia, with subspecies becoming greyer above and whiter below, but this trend reverses east of the Amur River. The currently recognised subspecies are as follows:
## Distribution and habitat
The Eurasian treecreeper is the most widespread member of its genus, breeding in temperate woodlands across the Palearctic from Ireland to Japan. It prefers mature trees, and in most of Europe, where it shares its range with short-toed treecreeper, it tends to be found mainly in coniferous forest, especially spruce and fir. However, where it is the only treecreeper, as in European Russia, or the British Isles, it frequents broadleaved or mixed woodland in preference to conifers. It is also found in parks and large gardens.
The Eurasian treecreeper breeds down to sea level in the north of its range, but tends to be a highland species further south. In the Pyrenees it breeds above 1,370 metres (4,490 feet), in China from 400–2,100 metres (1,300–6,900 ft) and in southern Japan from 1,065–2,135 metres (3,494–7,005 ft). The breeding areas have July isotherms between 14–16 °C and 23–24 °C (73–75 °F) and 72–73 °F).
The Eurasian treecreeper is non-migratory in the milder west and south of its breeding range, but some northern birds move south in winter, and individuals breeding on mountains may descend to a lower altitude in winter. Winter movements and post-breeding dispersal may lead to vagrancy outside the normal range. Wintering migrants of the Asian subspecies have been recorded in South Korea and China, and the nominate form has been recorded west of its breeding range as far as Orkney, Scotland. The Eurasian treecreeper has also occurred as a vagrant to the Channel Islands (where the short-toed is the resident species), Majorca and the Faroe Islands.
## Ecology and behaviour
### Breeding
The Eurasian treecreeper breeds from the age of one year, nesting in tree crevices or behind bark flakes. Where present, the introduced North American giant sequoia is a favourite nesting tree, since a nest cavity can be easily hollowed out in its soft bark. Crevices in buildings or walls are sometimes used, and artificial nest boxes or flaps may be preferred in coniferous woodland. The nest has a base of twigs, pine needles, grass or bark, and a lining of finer material such as feathers, wool, moss, lichen or spider web.
In Europe, the typical clutch of five–six eggs is laid between March and June, but in Japan three–five eggs are laid from May to July. The eggs are white with very fine pinkish speckles mainly at the broad end, measure 16 mm × 12 mm (0.63 in × 0.47 in) and weigh 1.2 g (0.042 oz) of which 6% is shell. The eggs are incubated by the female alone for 13–17 days until the altricial downy chicks hatch; they are then fed by both parents, but brooded by the female alone, for a further 15–17 days to fledging. Juveniles return to the nest for a few nights after fledging. About 20% of pairs, mainly in the south and west, raise a second brood.
Predators of treecreeper nests and young include the great spotted woodpecker, red squirrel, and small mustelids, and predation is about three times higher in fragmented landscapes than in solid blocks of woodland (32.4% against 12.0% in less fragmented woodlands). The predation rate increases with the amount of forest edge close to a nest site, and also the presence of nearby agricultural land, in both cases probably because of a higher degree of mustelid predation. This species is parasitised in the nest by the moorhen flea, Dasypsyllus gallinulae. The juvenile survival rate of this species is unknown, but 47.7% of adults survive each year. The typical lifespan is two years, but the maximum recorded age is eight years and ten months.
### Feeding
The Eurasian treecreeper typically seeks invertebrate food on tree trunks, starting near the tree base and working its way up using its stiff tail feathers for support. Unlike a nuthatch, it does not come down trees head first, but flies to the base of another nearby tree. It uses its long thin bill to extract insects and spiders from crevices in the bark. Although normally found on trees, it will occasionally hunt prey items on walls, bare ground, or amongst fallen pine needles, and may add some conifer seeds to its diet in the colder months.
The female Eurasian treecreeper forages primarily on the upper parts of the tree trunks, while the male uses the lower parts. A study in Finland found that if a male disappears, the unpaired female will forage at lower heights, spend less time on each tree and have shorter foraging bouts than a paired female.
This bird may sometimes join mixed-species feeding flocks in winter, but it does not appear to share the resources found by accompanying tits and goldcrests, and may just be benefiting from the extra vigilance of a flock. Wood ants share the same habitat as the treecreeper, and also feed on invertebrates on tree trunks. The Finnish researchers found that where the ants have been foraging, there are fewer arthropods, and male treecreepers spent a shorter time on spruce trunks visited by ants.
### Habits
As a small woodland bird with cryptic plumage and a quiet call, the Eurasian treecreeper is easily overlooked as it hops mouse-like up a vertical trunk, progressing in short hops, using its stiff tail and widely splayed feet as support. Nevertheless, it is not wary, and is largely indifferent to the presence of humans. It has a distinctive erratic and undulating flight, alternating fluttering butterfly-like wing beats with side-slips and tumbles. Migrating birds may fly by day or night, but the extent of movements is usually masked by resident populations. It is solitary in winter, but in cold weather up to a dozen or more birds will roost together in a suitable sheltered crevice.
## Conservation status
This species has an extensive range of about 10 million km<sup>2</sup> (3.8 million square miles). It has a large population, including an estimated 11–20 million individuals in Europe alone. Population trends have not been quantified, but the species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population decline criterion of the IUCN Red List (declining more than 30% in ten years or three generations). For these reasons, the species is evaluated as Least Concern.
It is common through much of its range, but in the northernmost areas it is rare, since it is vulnerable to hard winters, especially if its feeding is disrupted by an ice glaze on the trees or freezing rain. It is also uncommon in Turkey and the Caucasus. In the west of its range it has spread to the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, pushed further north in Norway, and first bred in the Netherlands in 1993.
|
52,361,272 |
Alan Rawlinson
| 1,169,708,211 |
Australian fighter pilot (1918–2007)
|
[
"1918 births",
"2007 deaths",
"Australian World War II flying aces",
"Australian recipients of the Air Force Cross (United Kingdom)",
"Officers of the Order of the British Empire",
"People from Fremantle",
"Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United Kingdom)",
"Royal Air Force officers",
"Royal Australian Air Force officers",
"Wing leaders"
] |
Alan Charles Rawlinson, (31 July 1918 – 27 August 2007) was an Australian airman who became a fighter ace in World War II. He was credited with at least eight aerial victories, as well as two aircraft probably destroyed, and another eight damaged.
Born in Fremantle, Western Australia, Rawlinson joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in 1938. He was posted to the Middle East in July 1940 and saw action with No. 3 (Army Cooperation) Squadron, flying Gloster Gladiator and Gauntlet biplanes initially, and later Hawker Hurricanes and P-40 Tomahawks. Twice credited with shooting down three enemy aircraft in a single sortie, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) in October 1941 and took command of No. 3 Squadron the next month. He received a bar to his DFC in December 1941, and returned to Australia in March 1942. In May the following year, Rawlinson was posted to the South West Pacific as the inaugural commanding officer of No. 79 Squadron, flying Supermarine Spitfires in New Guinea. After serving as commanding officer of the RAAF's Paratroop Training Unit at Richmond, New South Wales, between April 1944 and May 1945, he returned to the Pacific to command No. 78 (Fighter) Wing, which operated P-40 Kittyhawks in Borneo. Promoted to acting group captain in July 1945, he held command of No. 78 Wing until his discharge from the RAAF in December 1946.
Rawlinson was commissioned into the Royal Air Force (RAF) in March 1947. He flew de Havilland Vampire jet fighters as commanding officer of No. 54 Squadron in 1949, and then as commander of flying operations at RAF Odiham from 1949 to 1952. He was awarded the Air Force Cross in June 1952. Between 1953 and 1958 he was in charge of the RAF's Guided Weapons Trials Unit in the UK and Australia. Appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in June 1958, he commanded RAF Buchan in 1960–61 before retiring from the military to live in South Australia.
## Early life
Alan Charles Rawlinson was born on 31 July 1918 in Fremantle, Western Australia. He was the son of Arthur Rawlinson, who played for East Fremantle in the West Australian Football League. The Rawlinson family was among the earliest residents of Beaconsfield, and gave its name to a street in O'Connor. Moving to Melbourne when he was eight years old, Alan was educated at Geelong Road State School in Footscray and at Williamstown High School, representing both schools in football, swimming and athletics. Before leaving high school with his Intermediate Certificate, he joined the East Melbourne Harriers' Club, becoming its 1935–36 season champion.
Rawlinson was living in the Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe and had been working as a clerk for two-and-a-half years when he joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) on 19 July 1938. He underwent flying instruction as an air cadet at No. 1 Flying Training School, Point Cook, and was granted a short-service commission as a pilot officer on probation from 22 June 1939. On 7 July he was posted to No. 3 (Army Cooperation) Squadron, which operated Hawker Demon biplane fighters out of RAAF Station Richmond, New South Wales. He spent much of the remainder of the year learning instrument flying on the Link Trainer, and undertaking a parachute training course.
## World War II
### Middle East
#### Western Desert campaign
In April 1940, the RAAF confirmed Rawlinson's appointment as a pilot officer and his promotion to temporary flying officer backdated to 22 November 1939. He was posted in July 1940 to the Middle East with No. 3 Squadron, which was to support the 6th Division in the Western Desert campaign against Italian forces. Sailing via Bombay, the squadron arrived in Suez, Egypt, on 23 August 1940. The next month it was equipped with a flight of Westland Lysander high-wing monoplane reconnaissance aircraft and two flights of Gloster Gladiator biplane fighters, augmented by four Gloster Gauntlet biplanes to be used for dive bombing; Rawlinson initially trained on the Gauntlet.
Rawlinson took part in No. 3 Squadron's first aerial combat on 19 November 1940. Flying a Gladiator, he was one of three pilots escorting Flight Lieutenant Blake Pelly on a reconnaissance mission when they were engaged by eighteen Italian Fiat CR.42 biplanes near Rabia in western Egypt. The Australians claimed six CR.42s destroyed for the loss of one Gladiator. Rawlinson has been variously credited with one CR.42 destroyed, one probably destroyed, or one damaged. According to his biographer Lex McAulay, Rawlinson believed he destroyed a CR.42 in a head-on attack but did not see it crash, so his claim was downgraded to "damaged". He flew Gauntlets on dive-bombing missions in December; the type was withdrawn from service mid-month.
On 22 December 1940, as the Allies advanced along the Libyan coast to Bardia, Rawlinson's rank of flying officer was made substantive; it was the highest permanent rank he received during the war. Four days later, he was in a formation of eight Gladiators that attacked ten Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 bombers and their escort of twenty-four CR.42s; the Australians claimed two CR.42s destroyed, and five damaged including one probably destroyed, which was credited to Rawlinson. On 22 January 1941, Rawlinson and Flying Officer Wilfred Arthur were despatched in Gladiators to attack an Italian schooner off Tobruk; they machine-gunned the vessel, setting it on fire. Three days later, Rawlinson claimed two Fiat G.50 fighters damaged after five of the Italian monoplanes attacked five Gladiators patrolling near Mechili. He was notified of his promotion to temporary flight lieutenant, effective from New Year's Day, on 27 January.
No. 3 Squadron began re-arming with Hawker Hurricane fighters on 29 January 1941, and Rawlinson started his conversion on 3 February. A week later, the squadron moved to RAF Station Benina to take over the air defence of Benghazi, which had been occupied by the 6th Division. German aircraft began appearing at this time, as the Afrika Korps and a Luftwaffe contingent under General Erwin Rommel arrived in North Africa to reinforce the Italians; the Germans launched their offensive in March, and Benina was evacuated on 3 April. The same day, Rawlinson was credited with shooting down three German Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers, and damaging another, during a single sortie in his Hurricane.
#### Syria–Lebanon campaign and return to Western Desert
As the Allies retreated, No. 3 Squadron transferred to Lydda in Palestine, and began re-equipping with P-40 Tomahawks on 14 May. Rawlinson was appointed a flight commander the same month. He became an ace during the Syria–Lebanon campaign against the Vichy French in June–July 1941. On 28 June, he was leading a patrol of nine Tomahawks near Palmyra that came upon six French Martin 167 bombers, and shot down all six; Rawlinson was credited with three victories, raising his total to six. The squadron remained in Syria following the armistice with the French on 14 July. Rawlinson was allocated a new Tomahawk, nicknamed Sweet FA, which he shared with another No. 3 Squadron ace, Peter Turnbull. On 22 August, Rawlinson was practising aerobatics in Sweet FA when the right tailplane detached, damaging the tailfin in the process; he could only control the aircraft by flying at 150 miles per hour (240 km/h) but was able to bring it in for a landing, without flaps, at the higher-than-normal speed.
No. 3 Squadron transferred to Sidi Haneish in Egypt on 3 September 1941, to resume operations in the Western Desert. On 10 October, Rawlinson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) for leading his flight with "determination and daring, pressing home attacks at close range"; the citation noted his six confirmed aerial victories in 121 sorties. He was posted as an instructor to No. 71 Operational Training Unit in the Sudan on 19 October, ostensibly for a rest from operations, but was soon recalled to take over leadership of No. 3 Squadron from Peter Jeffrey, who had been promoted to wing commander. Rawlinson was promoted acting squadron leader on 9 November, and assumed command the next day.
On 22 November 1941, during Operation Crusader, Rawlinson led No. 3 Squadron on a bomber escort mission near Bir el Gubi in Italian Libya in the morning, and a fighter sweep south-east of El Adem in the afternoon. German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters shot down three Tomahawks for the loss of two of their own in the first action, Rawlinson claiming a 109 damaged. In the second action, a drawn-out battle for air superiority, the squadron lost six Tomahawks against three 109s destroyed, one of which was claimed by Rawlinson along with one probable and two damaged. He had also taken a shot at a distant 109 and, believing he had missed it, did not claim. After the war it was established that Rawlinson's bullets had damaged the 109 and wounded its pilot, Ernst Düllberg, who made a forced landing back at base. Rawlinson was credited with his final victory on 30 November, when he downed an Italian Macchi C.200 in an engagement that saw No. 3 Squadron's tally of claims rise to 106 aircraft destroyed.
Rawlinson handed over command of No. 3 Squadron on 12 December 1941. After a brief posting to RAF Headquarters Middle East, he took command of the RAF Air Firing and Fighting School on 26 December. The same day, he was awarded a bar to his DFC, for having "fostered great keenness and a fine fighting spirit amongst pilots of his squadron". He reverted to the rank of flight lieutenant on 12 February 1942, as he no longer held a squadron leader's position, and returned to Australia. Rawlinson is generally credited with a total of eight victories in the Middle East, plus two probables and eight damaged (not counting Düllberg), though the RAAF Historical Section gives him a score of ten victories.
### South West Pacific
Arriving in Melbourne on 28 March 1942, Rawlinson was re-raised to temporary squadron leader on 1 April and took charge of the newly formed No. 2 Operational Training Unit (No. 2 OTU) on 13 April. Peter Jeffrey assumed command two weeks later, Rawlinson becoming chief flying instructor. Other instructors at the school included desert aces Clive Caldwell and Wilf Arthur. Rawlinson and Jeffrey had been dissatisfied with the flying standards of replacement pilots in the Middle East, and all the veterans were eager to get trainees "operational" before they posted to frontline units. Initially based at Port Pirie, South Australia, No. 2 OTU relocated to Mildura, Victoria, on 14 May and shortly afterwards began receiving P-40 Kittyhawks. In June 1942, Rawlinson, Arthur and a United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) pilot conducted comparative trials pitting the new CAC Boomerang against a Kittyhawk and a Bell Airacobra, reporting favourably on the Boomerang's handling characteristics.
On 21 September 1942, Rawlinson was posted to RAAF Headquarters, Melbourne, as an assistant at the office of the Chief of the Air Staff. There he was asked to lead the only RAAF Supermarine Spitfire squadron to be formed in Australia, No. 79 Squadron. Rawlinson married Thora Doreen Buckland, a Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force officer, on 3 April 1943.
No. 79 Squadron was formed on 26 April 1943 at Laverton, Victoria. It received its first Spitfire VCs on 3 May, and a fortnight later began moving to Goodenough Island, off New Guinea's east coast. Along with two Kittyhawk units, Nos. 76 and 77 Squadrons, No. 79 Squadron came under control of No. 73 Wing, which was part of No. 9 Operational Group, the RAAF's main mobile formation in the South West Pacific. The Spitfires were to provide top cover for the Kittyhawks in the New Guinea campaign against Japanese forces. Rawlinson picked the squadron code letters UP, and his own aircraft's identifier U, to spell UP-U ("up you") on his Spitfire's fuselage. After a quiet spell at Goodenough, in August the squadron moved to Kiriwina, the closest Allied airfield to the major Japanese base at Rabaul. This promised enemy raids but none occurred during the first weeks of the squadron's deployment, and the pilots saw no combat while patrolling in support of USAAF attacks on Rabaul; Rawlinson commented that it was "a disappointment to us. What a letdown." The Japanese began attacking Kiriwina in early October, and No. 79 Squadron claimed its first victory on 31 October, when one of the Spitfires shot down a Kawasaki Ki-61 "Tony" fighter north of the airfield.
Having been promoted to temporary wing commander on 1 August 1943, Rawlinson handed over command of No. 79 Squadron on 7 November and was appointed wing leader of No. 73 Wing, headquartered at Kiriwina. The wing leader was responsible for tactical command of the formation in the air. Minimal offensive air activity by the Japanese meant that No. 79 Squadron's Spitfires saw relatively little action; the wing's Kittyhawks, with their ground-attack capability, were heavily engaged. On 15 December, the day of the Allied landings at Arawe, No. 76 Squadron Kittyhawks patrolled above the beaches while the Spitfires remained at Kiriwina in case of strikes by Japanese raiders, though none came.
Rawlinson returned to Australia to undertake the War Staff Course at the RAAF Staff School in Mount Martha, Victoria, from 4 January to 24 March 1944. His health had suffered as a result of his service in the Pacific and he was judged unfit for operational flying. His next posting was as commanding officer of the RAAF's Paratroop Training Unit, based at Richmond, from 1 April 1944 to 23 April 1945; the school was responsible for training Australian Army personnel, including the 1st Parachute Battalion and Z Special Forces. Rawlinson's assessing officer at Richmond considered him "particularly keen and adaptable", having performed well despite the challenges of his "unique appointment".
After a brief posting as Director of Air Staff Policy at RAAF Headquarters, Rawlinson succeeded Wilf Arthur as commander of No. 78 (Fighter) Wing at Tarakan, Borneo, on 25 May 1945. The wing came under the control of the First Tactical Air Force, which had taken over No. 9 Group's mobile role and was supporting Australian forces during the Borneo campaign. No. 78 Wing's complement included Nos. 75, 78 and 80 Squadrons, operating Kittyhawks, and several ancillary units. In June and July, the wing took part in the assaults on Labuan and Balikpapan, undertaking convoy escort in the former and, joined by Spitfires of No. 452 Squadron, ground-attack missions in support of the 7th Division in the latter. Rawlinson was raised to acting group captain on 24 July. At the end of the war, No. 78 Wing departed Tarakan for Australia, arriving at RAAF Station Deniliquin, New South Wales, in December 1945. It relocated in May–June to RAAF Station Schofields, and then in August to RAAF Station Williamtown, where it re-equipped with P-51 Mustangs.
## Post-war career
Rawlinson retained command of No. 78 Wing until his commission was terminated on 19 December 1946. "The peace-time RAAF was not to his liking", according to McAulay, and on 21 March 1947, Rawlinson took a commission in Britain with the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a substantive squadron leader (seniority from 1 June 1944) and temporary wing commander (seniority from 1 August 1943 until 1 November 1947). His initial posting was at Headquarters Fighter Command (HQFC). Between June and October 1949 he was commanding officer of No. 54 Squadron, which operated de Havilland Vampire jet fighters at RAF Odiham in Hampshire. He then served as wing commander (flying) for the Odiham Wing, comprising three Vampire units including Nos. 54, 72 (replaced by No. 421 Squadron RCAF in January 1951) and 247 Squadrons, until May 1952. Recalling training for Cold War operations, he said: "The introduction of jet fighters meant, roughly, that speeds were doubled and endurances halved. Precision was the name of the game. [...] The aim was to achieve, as close as possible, the maximum effort with day operations in all-weather conditions against the nuclear threat". Reduced flying hours owing to "budgetary limitations" meant that "as much as possible of the HQFC syllabus was crammed into each sortie".
On 26 May 1951, Rawlinson led the Odiham Wing and three formations of Gloster Meteors in a flypast over Hyde Park, London, to mark the presentation of the King's Colour to the RAF. He was awarded the Air Force Cross on 5 June 1952, and promoted to substantive wing commander on 1 July. Rawlinson's next command posting was RAF Filton in Bristol, where he controlled a Vampire wing consisting of two Royal Auxiliary Air Force squadrons, No. 501 (City of Gloucester) at Filton and No. 614 (County of Glamorgan) at RAF Llandow in Wales. In late 1953 he became the inaugural commanding officer of the RAF Guided Weapons Trials Unit, responsible for testing beam-riding missiles for the Meteor NF.11; his duties took him from Wales to Woomera in South Australia, where he flew test aircraft in attacks against target drones including unmanned Fairey Fireflies and the GAF Jindivik. Rawlinson's next posting, to command RAF Patrington in Yorkshire, was announced on 3 February 1958. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours promulgated on 12 June. On 22 February 1960, he was raised to acting group captain and placed in charge of RAF Buchan, a Fighter Command sector station in Scotland.
## Retirement
At his own request, Rawlinson was discharged from the RAF as a group captain on 13 November 1961, and retired to South Australia. By 2003, he was living in Naracoorte, where in October he was visited by No. 79 Squadron's commanding officer, Wing Commander Peter Campbell, as part of the unit's sixtieth anniversary celebrations. Two of the squadron's Hawk 127 fighter trainers later overflew the town in Rawlinson's honour. Rawlinson died in Naracoorte on 27 August 2007, aged eighty-nine. He was survived by his wife and two sons, and cremated in a private ceremony. His portrait, painted in 1944 by Flight Lieutenant Vernon Jones, is held by the State Library of Victoria.
|
50,402,274 |
TRAPPIST-1
| 1,173,824,212 |
Ultra-cool red dwarf star in the constellation Aquarius
|
[
"2017 in space",
"2MASS objects",
"Aquarius (constellation)",
"Astronomical objects discovered in 1999",
"M-type main-sequence stars",
"Planetary systems with seven confirmed planets",
"Planetary transit variables",
"TRAPPIST-1"
] |
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TRAPPIST-1 is a cool red dwarf star with seven known exoplanets. It lies in the constellation Aquarius about 40.66 light-years away from Earth, and has a surface temperature of about 2,566 kelvins (2,290 degrees Celsius; 4,160 degrees Fahrenheit). Its radius is slightly larger than Jupiter and it has a mass of about 9% of the Sun. It is estimated to be 7.6 billion years old, making it older than the Solar System. The discovery of the star was first published in 2000.
Observations in 2016 from the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) at La Silla Observatory in Chile and other telescopes led to the discovery of two terrestrial planets in orbit around TRAPPIST-1. In 2017, further analysis of the original observations identified five more planets, of unknown types. It takes the seven planets between about 1.5 and 19 days to orbit around the star in circular orbits. They are likely tidally locked to TRAPPIST-1, such that one side of each planet always faces the star, leading to permanent day on one side and permanent night on the other. Their masses are comparable to that of Earth and they all lie in the same plane; from Earth they seem to move past the disk of the star.
Up to four of the planets – designated d, e, f and g – orbit at distances where temperatures are suitable for the existence of liquid water, and are thus potentially hospitable to life. There is no evidence of an atmosphere on any one the planets. It is unclear whether radiation emissions from TRAPPIST-1 would allow for such atmospheres. The planets have low densities; they may consist of large amounts of volatile materials. Due to the possibility of several of the planets being habitable, the system has drawn interest from researchers and has appeared in popular culture.
## Discovery
The star now known as TRAPPIST-1 was discovered in 1999 by astronomer John Gizis and colleagues during a survey of close-by ultra-cool dwarf stars. It appeared in sample C of the surveyed stars, which was obtained in June 1999. Publication of the discovery took place in 2000. The name is a reference to the TRansiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) project that discovered the first two exoplanets around the star.
Its planetary system was discovered by a team led by Michaël Gillon, a Belgian astronomer at the University of Liege, in 2016 during observations made at the La Silla Observatory, Chile, using the TRAPPIST telescope. The discovery was based on anomalies in the light curves measured by the telescope in 2015. These were initially interpreted as indicating the existence of three planets. In 2016, separate discoveries revealed that the third planet was in fact multiple planets. The telescopes and observatories involved were the Spitzer Space Telescope; the ground-based TRAPPIST and TRAPPIST-North in Oukaïmeden Observatory, Morocco; the South African Astronomical Observatory; and the Liverpool Telescopes and William Herschel Telescopes in Spain.
The observations of TRAPPIST-1 are considered among the most important research findings of the Spitzer Space Telescope. Complementing the findings were observations by the Himalayan Chandra Telescope, the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope, and the Very Large Telescope. Since then, research has confirmed the existence of at least seven planets in the system, the orbits of which have been calculated using measurements from the Spitzer and Kepler telescopes. Some news reports incorrectly attributed the discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 planets to NASA; in fact the TRAPPIST project that led to their discovery received funding from both NASA and the European Research Council of the European Union (EU).
## Description
TRAPPIST-1 is in the constellation Aquarius, five degrees south of the celestial equator. It is a relatively close star located 40.66±0.04 light-years from Earth, with a large proper motion and no companion stars.
It is a red dwarf of spectral class M8.0±0.5, meaning it is relatively small and cold. With a radius 12% of that of the Sun, TRAPPIST-1 is only slightly larger than the planet Jupiter (though much more massive). Its mass is approximately 9% of that of the Sun, being just sufficient to allow nuclear fusion to take place. TRAPPIST-1's density is unusually low for a red dwarf. It has a low effective temperature of 2,566 K (2,293 °C) making it, as of 2022, the coldest-known star to host planets. TRAPPIST-1 is cold enough for condensates to form in its photosphere; these have been detected through the polarisation they induce in its radiation during transits of its planets.
There is no evidence that it has a stellar cycle. Its luminosity, emitted mostly as infrared radiation, is about 0.055% that of the Sun. Low precision measurements from the XMM-Newton satellite and other facilities show that the star emits faint radiation at short wavelengths such as x-rays and UV radiation. There are no detectable radio wave emissions.
### Rotation period and age
Measurements of TRAPPIST-1's rotation have yielded a period of 3.3 days; earlier measurements of 1.4 days appear to have been caused by changes in the distribution of its starspots. Its rotational axis may be slightly offset from that of its planets.
Using a combination of techniques, the age of TRAPPIST-1 has been estimated at about 7.6±2.2 billion years, making it older than the Solar System, which is about 4.5 billion years old. It is expected to shine for ten trillion years – about 700 times longer than the present age of the Universe – whereas the Sun will run out of hydrogen and leave the main sequence in a few billion years.
### Activity
Photospheric features have been detected on TRAPPIST-1. The Kepler and Spitzer Space Telescopes have observed possible bright spots, which may be faculae, although some of these may be too large to qualify as such. Bright spots are correlated to the occurrence of some stellar flares.
The star has a strong magnetic field with a mean intensity of about 600 gauss. The magnetic field drives high chromospheric activity, and may be capable of trapping coronal mass ejections.
According to Garraffo et al. (2017), TRAPPIST-1 loses about 3×10<sup>−14</sup> solar masses per year to the stellar wind, a rate which is about 1.5 times that of the Sun. Dong et al. (2018) simulated the observed properties of TRAPPIST-1 with a mass loss of 4.1×10<sup>−15</sup> solar masses per year. Simulations to estimate mass loss are complicated because, as of 2019, most of the parameters that govern TRAPPIST-1's stellar wind are not known from direct observation.
## Planetary system
TRAPPIST-1 is orbited by seven planets, designated TRAPPIST-1b, 1c, 1d, 1e, 1f, 1g, and 1h in alphabetic order going out from the star. These planets have orbital periods ranging from 1.5–19 days, at distances of 0.011–0.059 astronomical units (1,700,000–8,900,000 km).
All the planets are much closer to their star than Mercury is to the Sun, making the TRAPPIST-1 system very compact. Kral et al. (2018) did not detect any comets around TRAPPIST-1, and Marino et al. (2020) found no evidence of a Kuiper belt, although it is uncertain whether a Solar System-like belt around TRAPPIST-1 would be observable from Earth. Observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array found no evidence of a circumstellar dust disk.
The inclinations of planetary orbits relative to the system's ecliptic are less than 0.1 degrees, making TRAPPIST-1 the flattest planetary system in the NASA Exoplanet Archive. The orbits are highly circular, with minimal eccentricities and are well-aligned with the spin axis of TRAPPIST-1. The planets orbit in the same plane and, from the perspective of the Solar System, transit TRAPPIST-1 during their orbit and frequently pass in front of each other.
### Size and composition
The radii of the planets are estimated to range between 77.5 and 112.9% of Earth's radius. The planets:star mass ratio of the TRAPPIST-1 system resembles that of the moons:planet ratio of the Solar System's gas giants.
The TRAPPIST-1 planets are expected to have compositions that resemble each other as well as that of Earth. The estimated densities of the planets are lower than Earth's which may imply that they have large amounts of volatile chemicals. Alternatively, their cores may be smaller than that of Earth; or include large amounts of elements other than iron; or their iron may exist in an oxidised form rather than as a core; or they may be rocky planets with less iron than that of Earth. Their densities are too low for a pure magnesium silicate composition, requiring the presence of lower-density compounds such as water. Planets b, d, f, g and h are expected to contain large quantities of volatile chemicals. The planets may have deep atmospheres and oceans, and contain vast amounts of ice. Several compositions are possible considering the large uncertainties in their densities. The photospheric features of the star may introduce inaccuracies in measurements of the properties of TRAPPIST-1's planets, including their densities being underestimated by 8 percent, and incorrect estimates of their water content.
### Resonance and tides
The planets are in orbital resonances. The durations of their orbits have ratios of 8:5, 5:3, 3:2, 3:2, 4:3 and 3:2 between neighbouring planet pairs, and each set of three is in a Laplace resonance. Simulations have shown such resonances can remain stable over billions of years but that their stability is strongly dependent on initial conditions. Many configurations become unstable after less than a million years. The resonances enhance the exchange of angular momentum between the planets, resulting in measurable variations – earlier or later – in their transit times in front of TRAPPIST-1. These variations yield information on the planetary system, such as the masses of the planets, when other techniques are not available. The resonances and the proximity to the host star have led to comparisons between the TRAPPIST-1 system and the Galilean moons of Jupiter. Kepler-223 is another exoplanet system with a TRAPPIST-1-like long resonance.
The mutual interactions of the planets could prevent them from reaching full synchronisation, which would have important implications for the planets' climates. These interactions could force periodic or episodic full rotations of the planets' surfaces with respect to the star on timescales of several Earth years. Vinson, Tamayo and Hansen (2019) found the planets TRAPPIST-1d, e and f likely have chaotic rotations due to mutual interactions, preventing them from becoming synchronised to their star. Lack of synchronisation potentially makes the planets more habitable. Other processes that can prevent synchronous rotation are torques induced by stable triaxial deformation of the planets, which would allow them to enter 3:2 resonances.
The closeness of the planets to TRAPPIST-1 results in tidal interactions stronger than those on Earth. All the planets have reached an equilibrium with slow planetary rotations and tidal locking, which can lead to the synchronisation of a planet's rotation to its revolution around its star.
The planets are likely to undergo substantial tidal heating due to deformations arising from their orbital eccentricities and gravitational interactions with one another. Such heating would facilitate volcanism and degassing especially on the innermost planets, with degassing facilitating the establishment of atmospheres. According to Luger et al. (2017), tidal heating of the four innermost planets is expected to be greater than Earth's inner heat flux. For the outer planets Quick et al. (2020) noted that their tidal heating could be comparable to that in the Solar System bodies Europa, Enceladus, and Triton.
Tidal heating could influence temperatures of the night sides and cold areas where volatiles may be trapped, and gases are expected to accumulate; it would also influence the properties of any subsurface oceans where volcanism and hydrothermal venting could occur. It may further be sufficient to melt the mantles of the four innermost planets, in whole or in part, potentially forming subsurface magma oceans. This heat source is likely dominant over radioactive decay, both of which have substantial uncertainties and are considerably less than the stellar radiation received.
Intense tides could fracture the planets' crusts even if they are not sufficiently strong to trigger the onset of plate tectonics. Tides can also occur in the planetary atmospheres.
### Skies and impact of stellar light
Because most of TRAPPIST-1's radiation is in the infrared region, there may be very little visible light on the planets' surfaces; Amaury Triaud, one of the system's co-discoverers, said the skies would never be brighter than Earth's sky at sunset and only a little brighter than a night with a full moon. Ignoring atmospheric effects, illumination would be orange-red. All of the planets would be visible from each other and would, in many cases, appear larger than Earth's Moon in the sky of Earth; observers on TRAPPIST-1e, f and g, however, could never experience a total stellar eclipse. Assuming the existence of atmospheres, the star's long-wavelength radiation would be absorbed to a greater degree by water and carbon dioxide than sunlight on Earth; it would also be scattered less by the atmosphere and less reflected by ice, although the development of highly reflective hydrohalite ice may negate this effect. The same amount of radiation results in a warmer planet compared to Sun-like irradiation; more radiation would be absorbed by the planets' upper atmosphere than by the lower layers, making the atmosphere more stable and less prone to convection.
### Habitable zone
For a dim star like TRAPPIST-1, the habitable zone is located closer to the star than for the Sun. Three or four planets might be located in the habitable zone; these include e, f, and g; or d, e, and f. As of 2017, this is the largest-known number of planets within the habitable zone of any known star or star system. The presence of liquid water on any of the planets depends on several other factors, such as albedo (reflectivity), the presence of an atmosphere and any greenhouse effect. Surface conditions are difficult to constrain without better knowledge of the planets' atmospheres. A synchronously rotating planet might not entirely freeze over if it receives too little radiation from its star because the day-side could be sufficiently heated to halt the progress of glaciation. Other factors for the occurrence of liquid water include the presence of oceans and vegetation; the reflective properties of the land surface; the configuration of continents and oceans; the presence of clouds; and sea ice dynamics. The effects of volcanic activity may extend the system's habitable zone to TRAPPIST-1h.
Intense extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and X-ray radiation can split water into its component parts of hydrogen and oxygen, and heat the upper atmosphere until they escape from the planet. This was thought to have been particularly important early in the star's history, when radiation was more intense and could have heated every planet's water to its boiling point. This process is believed to have removed water from Venus. In the case of TRAPPIST-1, different studies with different assumptions on the kinetics, energetics, and XUV emissions have come to different conclusions on whether any TRAPPIST-1 planet may retain substantial amounts of water. Because the planets are most likely synchronised to their host star, any water present could become trapped on the planets' night sides and would be unavailable to support life unless heat transport by the atmosphere or tidal heating are intense enough to melt ice.
### Moons
No moons with a size comparable to Earth's have been detected in the TRAPPIST-1 system, and they are unlikely in such a densely packed planetary system. This is because moons would likely be either destroyed by their planet's gravity after entering its Roche limit or stripped from the planet by leaving its Hill radius Although the TRAPPIST-1 planets appear in an analysis of potential exomoon hosts, they do not appear in the list of habitable-zone exoplanets that could host a moon for at least one Hubble time, a timeframe slightly longer than the current age of the Universe. Despite these factors, it is possible the planets could host moons.
### Magnetic effects
The TRAPPIST-1 planets are expected to be within the Alfvén surface of their host star, the area around the star within which any planet would directly magnetically interact with the corona of the star, possibly destabilising any atmosphere the planet has. Stellar energetic particles would not create a substantial radiation hazard for organisms on TRAPPIST-1 planets if atmospheres reached pressures of about 1 bar. Estimates of radiation fluxes have considerable uncertainties due to the lack of knowledge about the structure of TRAPPIST-1's magnetic field. Induction heating from the star's time-varying electrical and magnetic fields may occur on its planets but this would make no substantial contribution to their energy balance and is vastly exceeded by tidal heating.
### Formation history
The TRAPPIST-1 planets most likely formed further from the star and migrated inwards, although it is possible they formed in their current locations. According to Ormel et al. (2017), the planets formed when a streaming instability at the water-ice line gave rise to precursor bodies, which accumulated additional fragments and migrated inwards, eventually giving rise to planets. The migration may initially have been fast and later slowed, and tidal effects may have further influenced the formation processes. The distribution of the fragments would have controlled the final mass of the planets, which would consist of approximately 10% water consistent with observational inference. Resonant chains of planets like those of TRAPPIST-1 usually become unstable when the gas disk that gave rise to them dissipates, but in this case, the planets remained in resonance. The resonance may have been either present from the system's formation and was preserved when the planets simultaneously moved inwards, or it might have formed later when inward-migrating planets accumulated at the outer edge of the gas disk and interacted with each other. Inward-migrating planets would contain substantial amounts of water – too much for it to entirely escape – whereas planets that formed in their current location would most likely lose all water. According to Flock et al. (2019), the orbital distance of the innermost planet TRAPPIST-1b is consistent with the expected radius of an inward-moving planet around a star that was one order of magnitude brighter in the past, and with the cavity in the protoplanetary disc created by TRAPPIST-1's magnetic field. Alternatively, TRAPPIST-1h may have formed in or close to its current location.
The presence of other bodies and planetesimals early in the system's history would have destabilised the TRAPPIST-1 planets' resonance if the bodies were massive enough. Raymond et al. (2021) concluded the TRAPPIST-1 planets assembled in 1–2 million years, after which time little additional mass was accreted. This would limit any late delivery of water to the planets and also implies the planets cleared the neighbourhood of any additional material. The lack of giant impact events (the rapid formation of the planets would have quickly exhausted pre-planetary material) would help the planets preserve their volatile materials.
Due to a combination of high insolation, the greenhouse effect of water vapour atmospheres and remnant heat from the process of planet assembly, the TRAPPIST-1 planets would likely have initially had molten surfaces. Eventually the surfaces would cool until the magma oceans solidified, which in the case of TRAPPIST-1b may have taken between a few billions of years, or a few millions of years. The outer planets would then have become cold enough for water vapour to condense.
## List of planets
### TRAPPIST-1b
TRAPPIST-1b has a semi-major axis of 0.0115 astronomical units (1,720,000 km) and an orbital period of 1.51 Earth days. It is expected to be tidally locked to its star. The planet is outside the habitable zone; its expected irradiation is more than four times that of Earth. TRAPPIST-1b has a slightly larger measured radius and mass than Earth but estimates of its density imply it does not exclusively consist of rock. Owing to its black-body temperature of 124 °C (397 K), TRAPPIST-1b may have had a runaway greenhouse effect similar to that of Venus; its atmosphere, if present, may be similarly deep, dense, and hot. Based on several climate models, the planet would have been desiccated by TRAPPIST-1's stellar wind and radiation; it could be quickly losing hydrogen and therefore any hydrogen-dominated atmosphere. Water, if any exists, could persist only in specific settings on the planet, whose surface temperature could be as high as 1,200 °C (1,470 K), making TRAPPIST-1b a candidate magma ocean planet.
### TRAPPIST-1c
TRAPPIST-1c has a semi-major axis of 0.0158 AU (2,360,000 km) and orbits its star every 2.42 Earth days. It is close enough to TRAPPIST-1 to be tidally locked. Its atmosphere could either be absent or thick like that of Venus. TRAPPIST-1c is outside the habitable zone as it receives about twice as much stellar irradiation as Earth and thus either is or has been a runaway greenhouse. Based on several climate models, the planet would have been desiccated by TRAPPIST-1's stellar wind and radiation. TRAPPIST-1c could harbour water only in specific settings on its surface. Observations in 2017 showed no escaping hydrogen, but observations by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in 2020 indicated that hydrogen may be escaping at a rate of 1.4×10<sup>7</sup> g/s.
### TRAPPIST-1d
TRAPPIST-1d has a semi-major axis of 0.022 AU (3,300,000 km) and an orbital period of 4.05 Earth days. It is more massive but less dense than Mars. Based on fluid dynamical arguments, TRAPPIST-1d is expected to have weak temperature gradients on its surface if it is tidally locked, and may have significantly different stratospheric dynamics than that of Earth. Several climate models suggest that the planet may or may not have been desiccated by TRAPPIST-1's stellar wind and radiation; density estimates, if confirmed, indicate it is not dense enough to consist solely of rock. The current state of TRAPPIST-1d depends on its rotation and climatic factors like cloud feedback; it is close to the inner edge of the habitable zone, but the existence of either liquid water or alternatively a runaway greenhouse effect (that would render it uninhabitable) are dependent on detailed atmospheric conditions. Water could persist in specific settings on the planet.
### TRAPPIST-1e
TRAPPIST-1e has a semi-major axis of 0.029 AU (4,300,000 km) and orbits its star every 6.10 Earth days. It has density similar that of Earth. Based on several climate models, the planet is the most likely of the system to have retained its water, and the most likely to have liquid water for many climate states. A dedicated climate model project called TRAPPIST-1 Habitable Atmosphere Intercomparison (THAI) has been launched to study its potential climate states. Based on observations of its Lyman-alpha radiation emissions, TRAPPIST-1e may be losing hydrogen at a rate of 0.6×10<sup>7</sup> g/s.
TRAPPIST-1e is in a comparable position within the habitable zone to that of Proxima Centauri b, which also has an Earth-like density. TRAPPIST-1e could have retained masses of water equivalent to several of Earth's oceans. Moderate quantities of carbon dioxide could warm TRAPPIST-1e to temperatures suitable for the presence of liquid water.
### TRAPPIST-1f
TRAPPIST-1f has a semi-major axis of 0.038 AU (5,700,000 km) and orbits its star every 9.21 Earth days. It is likely too distant from its host star to sustain liquid water, being instead an entirely glaciated snowball planet. Moderate quantities of CO<sub>2</sub> could warm TRAPPIST-1f to temperatures suitable for the presence of liquid water. TRAPPIST-1f may have retained masses of water equivalent to several of Earth's oceans and which could comprise up to half of the planet's mass; it could thus be an ocean planet.
### TRAPPIST-1g
TRAPPIST-1g has a semi-major axis of 0.047 AU (7,000,000 km) and orbits its star every 12.4 Earth days. It is likely too distant from its host star to sustain liquid water, being instead a snowball planet. Moderate quantities of CO<sub>2</sub> or internal heat from radioactive decay and tidal heating may warm its surface to above the melting point of water. TRAPPIST-1g may have retained masses of water equivalent to several of Earth's oceans; density estimates of the planet, if confirmed, indicate it is not dense enough to consist solely of rock. Up to half of its mass may be water.
### TRAPPIST-1h
TRAPPIST-1h has a semi-major axis of 0.062 astronomical units (9,300,000 km); it is the system's least massive known planet and orbits its star every 18.9 Earth days. It is likely too distant from its host star to sustain liquid water and may be a snowball planet, or have a methane/nitrogen atmosphere resembling that of Titan. Large quantities of CO<sub>2</sub>, hydrogen or methane, or internal heat from radioactive decay and tidal heating, would be needed to warm TRAPPIST-1h to the point where liquid water could exist. TRAPPIST-1h could have retained masses of water equivalent to several of Earth's oceans.
## Potential planetary atmospheres
As of 2020, there is no definitive evidence that any of the TRAPPIST-1 planets have an atmosphere, but atmospheres could be detected in the future. The outer planets are more likely to have atmospheres than the inner planets. Several studies have simulated how different atmospheric scenarios would look to observers, and the chemical processes underpinning these atmospheric compositions. The visibility of an exoplanet and of its atmosphere scale with the inverse square of the radius of its host star. Detection of individual components of the atmospheres – in particular CO<sub>2</sub>, ozone, and water – would also be possible, although different components would require different conditions and different numbers of transits. A contamination of the atmospheric signals through patterns in the stellar photosphere is a further impediment to detection.
The existence of atmospheres around TRAPPIST-1's planets depends on the balance between the amount of atmosphere initially present, its rate of evaporation, and the rate at which it is built back up by meteorite impacts, incoming material from a protoplanetary disk, and outgassing and volcanic activity. Impact events may be particularly important in the outer planets because they can both add and remove volatiles; addition is likely dominant in the outermost planets where impact velocities are slower. Although the properties of TRAPPIST-1 are unfavourable to the continued existence of atmospheres around its planets, the formation conditions of the planets would give them large initial quantities of volatile materials, including oceans over 100 times larger than those of Earth.
If the planets are tidally locked to TRAPPIST-1, surfaces that permanently face away from the star can cool sufficiently for any atmosphere to freeze out on the night side. This frozen-out atmosphere could be recycled through glacier-like flows to the day side with assistance from tidal or geothermal heating from below, or could be stirred by impact events. These processes could allow an atmosphere to persist. In a carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) atmosphere, carbon-dioxide ice is denser than water ice, under which it tends to be buried. CO<sub>2</sub>-water compounds named clathrates can form. Further complications are a potential runaway feedback loop between melting ice and evaporation, and the greenhouse effect.
Numerical modelling and observations constrain the properties of hypothetical atmospheres around TRAPPIST-1 planets:
- Theoretical calculations and observations have ruled out the possibility the TRAPPIST-1 planets have hydrogen-rich or helium-rich atmospheres. Hydrogen-rich exospheres may be detectable but have not been reliably detected, except perhaps for TRAPPIST-1b and 1c by Bourrier et al. (2017).
- Water-dominated atmospheres, though suggested by some density estimates, are improbable for the planets because they are expected to be unstable under the conditions around TRAPPIST-1, especially early in the star's life. The spectral properties of the planets imply they do not have a cloud-free, water-rich atmosphere.
- Oxygen-dominated atmospheres can form when radiation splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, and the hydrogen escapes due to its lighter mass. The existence of such an atmosphere and its mass depends on the initial water mass, on whether the oxygen is dragged out of the atmosphere by escaping hydrogen and of the state of the planet's surface; a partially molten surface could absorb sufficient quantities of oxygen to remove an atmosphere.
- Atmospheres formed by ammonia and/or methane near TRAPPIST-1 would be destroyed by the star's radiation at a sufficient rate to quickly remove an atmosphere. The rate at which ammonia or methane are produced, possibly by organisms, would have to be considerably larger than that on Earth to sustain such an atmosphere. It is possible the development of organic hazes from ammonia or methane photolysis could shield the remaining molecules from degradation caused by radiation. Ducrot et al. (2020) interpreted observational data as implying methane-dominated atmospheres are unlikely around TRAPPIST-1 planets.
- Nitrogen-dominated atmospheres are particularly unstable with respect to atmospheric escape, especially on the innermost planets, although the presence of CO<sub>2</sub> may slow evaporation. Unless the TRAPPIST-1 planets initially contained far more nitrogen than Earth, they are unlikely to have retained such atmospheres.
- CO<sub>2</sub>-dominated atmospheres escape slowly because CO<sub>2</sub> effectively radiates away energy and thus does not readily reach escape velocity; on a synchronously rotating planet, however, CO<sub>2</sub> can freeze out on the night side, especially if there are no other gases in the atmosphere. The decomposition of CO<sub>2</sub> caused by radiation could yield substantial amounts of oxygen, carbon monoxide (CO), and ozone.
Theoretical modelling by Krissansen-Totton and Fortney (2022) suggests the inner planets most likely have oxygen-and-CO<sub>2</sub>-rich atmospheres, if any. If the planets have an atmosphere, the amount of precipitation, its form and location would be determined by the presence and position of mountains and oceans, and the rotation period. Planets in the habitable zone are expected to have an atmospheric circulation regime resembling Earth's tropical regions with largely uniform temperatures. Whether greenhouse gases can accumulate on the outer TRAPPIST-1 planets in sufficient quantities to warm them to the melting point of water is controversial; on a synchronously rotating planet, CO<sub>2</sub> could freeze and precipitate on the night side, and ammonia and methane would be destroyed by XUV radiation from TRAPPIST-1. Carbon dioxide freezing-out can occur only on the outermost planets unless special conditions are met, and other volatiles do not freeze out.
### Stability
The emission of extreme ultraviolet (XUV) radiation by a star has an important influence on the stability of its planets' atmospheres, their composition and the habitability of their surfaces. It can cause the ongoing removal of atmospheres from planets. XUV radiation-induced atmospheric escape has been observed on gas giants. M dwarfs emit large amounts of XUV radiation; TRAPPIST-1 and the Sun emit about the same amount of XUV radiation and because TRAPPIST-1's planets are much closer to the star than the Sun's, they receive much more intense irradiation. TRAPPIST-1 has been emitting radiation for much longer than the Sun. The process of atmospheric escape has been modelled mainly in the context of hydrogen-rich atmospheres and little quantitative research has been done on those of other compositions such as water and CO<sub>2</sub>.
TRAPPIST-1 has moderate to high stellar activity, and this may be another difficulty for the persistence of atmospheres and water on the planets:
- Dwarfs of the spectral class M have intense flares; TRAPPIST-1 averages about 0.38 flares per day and four to six superflares per year. Such flares would have only small impacts on atmospheric temperatures but would substantially affect the stability and chemistry of atmospheres. According to Samara, Patsourakos and Georgoulis (2021), the TRAPPIST-1 planets are unlikely to be able to retain atmospheres against coronal mass ejections.
- The stellar wind from TRAPPIST-1 may have a pressure 1,000 times larger than that of the Sun at Earth's orbit, which could destabilise atmospheres of the star's planets up to planet f. The pressure would push the wind deep into the atmospheres, facilitating loss of water and evaporation of the atmospheres. Stellar wind-driven escape in the Solar System is largely independent from planetary properties such as mass; stellar wind from TRAPPIST-1 could remove the atmospheres of its planets on a timescale of 100 million to 10 billion years.
- Ohmic heating of the atmosphere of TRAPPIST-1e, f, and g amounts to 5–15 times the heating from XUV radiation; if the heat is effectively absorbed, it could destabilise the atmospheres.
The star's history also influences the atmospheres of its planets. Immediately after its formation, TRAPPIST-1 would have been in a pre-main-sequence state, which may have lasted between hundreds of millions and two billion years. While in this state, it would have been considerably brighter than it is today and the star's intense irradiation would have impacted the atmospheres of surrounding planets, vaporising all common volatiles such as ammonia, CO<sub>2</sub>, sulfur dioxide, and water. Thus, all of the system's planets would have been heated to a runaway greenhouse for at least part of their existence. The XUV radiation would have been even higher during the pre-main-sequence stage.
## Possible life
Life may be possible in the TRAPPIST-1 system, and some of the star's planets are considered promising targets for its detection. On the basis of atmospheric stability, TRAPPIST-1e is theoretically the planet most likely to harbour life; the probability that it does is considerably less than that of Earth. There are an array of factors at play:
- Due to multiple interactions, TRAPPIST-1 planets are expected to have intense tides. If oceans are present, the tides could: lead to alternate flooding and drying of coastal landscapes triggering chemical reactions conducive to the development of life; favour the evolution of biological rhythms such as the day-night cycle that otherwise would not develop in a synchronously rotating planet; mix oceans, thus supplying and redistributing nutrients; and stimulate periodic expansions of marine organisms similar to red tides on Earth.
- TRAPPIST-1 may not produce sufficient quantities of radiation for photosynthesis to support an Earth-like biosphere. Mullan and Bais (2018) speculated that radiation from flares may increase the photosynthetic potential of TRAPPIST-1, but according to Lingam and Loeb (2019), the potential would still be small.
- Due to the proximity of the TRAPPIST-1 planets, it is possible rock-encased microorganisms ripped from one planet may arrive at another planet while still viable inside the rock, allowing life to spread between the planets if it originates on one.
- Too much UV radiation from a star can sterilise the surface of a planet but too little may not allow the formation of chemical compounds that give rise to life. Inadequate production of hydroxyl radicals by low stellar-UV emission may allow gases such as carbon monoxide that are toxic to higher life to accumulate in the planets' atmospheres. The possibilities range from UV fluxes from TRAPPIST-1 being unlikely to be much larger than these of early Earth – even in the event that TRAPPIST-1's emissions of UV radiation are high – to being sufficient to sterilise the planets if they do not have protective atmospheres. As of 2020 it is unclear which effect would predominate around TRAPPIST-1, although observations with the Kepler Space Telescope and the Evryscope telescopes indicate the UV flux may be insufficient for the formation of life or its sterilisation.
- The outer planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system could host subsurface oceans similar to those of Enceladus and Europa in the Solar System. Chemolithotrophy, the growth of organisms based on non-organic reduced compounds, could sustain life in such oceans. Very deep oceans may be inimical to the development of life.
- Some planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system may have enough water to completely submerge their surfaces. If so, this would have important effects on the possibility of life developing on the planets, and on their climates, as weathering would decrease, starving the oceans of nutrients like phosphorus as well as potentially leading to the accumulation of carbon dioxide in their atmospheres.
In 2017, a search for technosignatures that would indicate the existence of past or present technology in the TRAPPIST-1 system found only signals coming from Earth. In less than two millennia, Earth will be transiting in front of the Sun from the viewpoint of TRAPPIST-1, making the detection of life on Earth from TRAPPIST-1 possible.
## Reception and scientific importance
### Public reaction and cultural impact
The discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 planets drew widespread attention in major world newspapers, social media, streaming television and websites. As of 2017, the discovery of TRAPPIST-1 led to the largest single-day web traffic to the NASA website. NASA started a public campaign on Twitter to find names for the planets, which drew responses of varying seriousness, although the names of the planets will be decided by the International Astronomical Union. The dynamics of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system have been represented as music, such as Tim Pyle's Trappist Transits, in Isolation's single Trappist-1 (A Space Anthem) and Leah Asher's piano work TRAPPIST-1. The alleged discovery of an SOS signal from TRAPPIST-1 was an April Fools prank by researchers at the High Energy Stereoscopic System in Namibia. In 2018, Aldo Spadon created a giclée (digital artwork) named "TRAPPIST-1 Planetary System as seen from Space". A website was dedicated to the TRAPPIST-1 system.
Exoplanets are often featured in science-fiction works; books, comics and video games have featured the TRAPPIST-1 system, the earliest being The Terminator, a short story by Swiss author Laurence Suhner published in the academic journal that announced the system's discovery. At least one conference was organised to recognise works of fiction featuring TRAPPIST-1. The planets have been used as the basis of science education competitions and school projects. Websites offering TRAPPIST-1-like planets as settings of virtual reality simulations exist, such as the "Exoplanet Travel Bureau" and the "Exoplanets Excursion" – both by NASA. Scientific accuracy has been a point of discussion for such cultural depictions of TRAPPIST-1 planets.
### Scientific importance
TRAPPIST-1 has drawn intense scientific interest. Its planets are the most easily studied exoplanets within their star's habitable zone owing to their relative closeness, the small size of their host star, and because from Earth's perspective they frequently pass in front of their host star. Future observations with space-based observatories and ground-based facilities may allow further insights into their properties such as density, atmospheres, and biosignatures. TRAPPIST-1 planets are considered an important observation target for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and other telescopes under construction. Together with the discovery of Proxima Centauri b, the discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 planets and the fact that three of the planets are within the habitable zone has led to an increase in studies on planetary habitability. The planets are considered prototypical for the research on habitability of M dwarfs. The star has been the subject of detailed studies of its various aspects including the possible effects of vegetation on its planets; the possibility of detecting oceans on its planets using starlight reflected off their surfaces; possible efforts to terraform its planets; and difficulties any inhabitants of the planets would encounter with discovering the law of gravitation and with interstellar travel.
The role EU funding played in the discovery of TRAPPIST-1 has been cited as an example of the importance of EU projects, and the involvement of a Moroccan observatory as an indication of the Arab world's role in science. The original discoverers were affiliated with universities spanning Africa, Europe, and North America, and the discovery of TRAPPIST-1 is considered to be an example of the importance of co-operation between observatories. It is also one of the major astronomical discoveries from Chilean observatories.
### Exploration
TRAPPIST-1 is too distant from Earth to be reached by humans with current or expected technology. Spacecraft mission designs using present-day rockets and gravity assists would need hundreds of millennia to reach TRAPPIST-1; even a theoretical interstellar probe travelling at the speed of light would need decades to reach the star. The speculative Breakthrough Starshot proposal for sending small, laser-accelerated, uncrewed probes would require around two centuries to reach TRAPPIST-1.
## See also
- HD 10180, a star with at least six known planets, and three more exoplanet candidates
- Tabby's Star, another star with notable transit data
- LHS 1140, another star with a planetary system suitable for atmospheric studies
- LP 890-9, the second-coolest star found to host a planetary system, after TRAPPIST-1.
- List of potentially habitable exoplanets
|
140,955 |
Cai Lun
| 1,172,543,493 |
Chinese Han dynasty official, credited with inventing paper
|
[
"121 deaths",
"1st-century Chinese people",
"2nd-century Chinese people",
"Chinese inventors",
"Chinese politicians who committed suicide",
"Deified Chinese people",
"Han dynasty eunuchs",
"Han dynasty government officials",
"Papermakers",
"Papermaking in China",
"People from Leiyang",
"Suicides by poison",
"Suicides in the Han dynasty",
"Year of birth uncertain"
] |
Cai Lun (; courtesy name: Jingzhong (); c. 50–62 – 121 CE), formerly romanized as Ts'ai Lun, was a Chinese eunuch court official of the Eastern Han dynasty. He is traditionally regarded as the inventor of paper and the modern papermaking process. Although early forms of paper had existed since the 3rd century BCE, he occupies a pivotal place in the history of paper due to his addition of pulp via tree bark and hemp ends which resulted in the large-scale manufacture and worldwide spread of paper.
Born in Guiyang Commandery [zh] (in what is now Leiyang), Cai arrived at the imperial court in Luoyang [zh] by 75 CE, where he served as a chamberlain for Emperor Ming, and then as Xiao Huangmen, an imperial messenger for Emperor Zhang. To assist Lady Dou in securing her adopted son as designated heir, he interrogated Consort Song and her sister, who then killed themselves. When Emperor He ascended the throne in 88 CE, Dou awarded Cai with two positions: Zhongchang shi [zh], a political counselor to the emperor that was the highest position for eunuchs of the time, and also as Shangfang Ling, where Cai oversaw the production of instruments and weapons at the Palace Workshop.
Despite Emperor He's successful coup d'état against the Dou family in 92 CE, Cai was undisturbed by his former ally's downfall. His position in the Palace Workshop increased in scope; he became responsible for the production of ceremonial weapons, which the Hou Hanshu reports were of exemplary craftsmanship. However, Cai's most noted innovation was in 105 CE, when he substantially improved the papermaking process with the use of tree bark, hemp waste, old rags, and fishnets. His new type of paper quickly displaced the bamboo and wooden slips used until then, and Cai received wealth and fame throughout the empire. In 110 CE, Lady Deng, who had become the empress dowager to the young Emperor An, appointed Cai to oversee 100 scholars' new edition of the Five Classics. Cai was rewarded for his imperial service in 114 CE; he received the title of marquis, and was enfeoffed lord of Longting [zh], a small village. When his ally Deng died in 121 CE, Cai was ordered to the Ministry of Justice because of his involvement in the death of the emperor's grandmother, Consort Song. Ashamed at his predicament and expecting to be sentenced to death, he committed suicide that year and died in the capital city in which he had spent almost his entire adult life.
Cai's improvements to paper-making are considered to have had an enormous impact on human history, and of those who created China's Four Great Inventions—the compass, gunpowder, papermaking and printing—Cai is the only inventor whose name is known. Although in China he is revered in ancestor worship, deified as the god of papermaking, and appears in Chinese folklore, he is mostly unknown outside of East Asia. His hometown in Leiyang remains an active center of paper production.
## Life and career
### Birth and background
Cai Lun was born in Guiyang Commandery (桂阳郡; modern-day Leiyang, Hunan province) in the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE). His exact year of birth is unknown; estimates include c. 50, c. 57, and c. 62. Other than being born into a poor family, virtually nothing is known of his early life. Guiyang was a southern commandery, where Han Chinese had immigrated for hundreds of years to plant and cultivate rice. Legends suggest there was a pool near his home, south of which was a stone mortar that Cai would later use for papermaking.
### Early imperial court service
It is not known how Cai came to be in the service of the imperial court in Luoyang [zh] (modern-day Luoyang, Henan province), which was distant from his birthplace. The Hou Hanshu reports that he was first employed during the end of the Yongping era (58–75) of Emperor Ming. The site of modern Guiyang Commandery was known to have had various iron mines at the time, so the former director of the Paper Museum in Tokyo, Kiyofusa Narita, suggested that "through the assistance of some who were in charge of the iron foundry, he found opportunity to go to the capital city". Narita cited Cai's future court appointment to oversee the production of weapons, especially swords, as evidence that he must have learned the skills to do so earlier in his life, likely from the iron foundry. Alternatively, if there is any truth to the various folktales about Cai, his supposed habits of trickery may have helped him receive a court appointment.
Cai is known to have been a eunuch in 75 CE, although it is possible he was employed somewhat earlier in the Yongping era; sinologist Rafe de Crespigny suggested this was in the early 70s. In the Han dynasty, eunuchs were employed in imperial service and were the only people eligible for certain specialized tasks, such as watching over the imperial harem and the imperial household; there were also certain promotions available exclusively for them. Cai's position was probably as a liaison between the privy council and the emperor, and likely involved duties akin to a chamberlain for the imperial family. Narita notes Cai's role meant he would have had many chances to become acquainted with the most powerful people in the empire. Around 80 CE, during the subsequent Jianchu era (76–84) under Emperor Zhang, Cai was promoted to a Xiao Huangmen (小黄門; "Attendant at the Yellow Gates"). The position, with a salary-rank of 600 shi or dan, involved delivering and receiving messages between the imperial palace apartments and the outside court.
### Palace intrigue and workshop
Since 82 CE, Liu Qing, Zhang's son from his concubine Consort Song, had been the designated heir, secured by the favor of Empress Ma. However, Ma's death in 79 CE made Lady Dou the empress, and—aiming to develop her family's power—she adopted Prince Zhao with the intention of installing him as heir. As a result, when Song became ill in 82 and asked for herbs, Dou falsely accused her of planning to use the herbs for witchcraft against Zhang. Dou then ordered Cai to interrogate Consort Song and her sister, another imperial consort, to force a confession; they both killed themselves. Believing Dou's accusation, Zhang replaced Liu Qing with Prince Zhao as heir.
Prince Zhao, ruling as Emperor He, was 10 years old at his accession in 88 CE, so Dou took control as empress dowager and secured her authority by giving various positions to her four brothers, particularly Dou Xian, who promoted Cai to Zhongchang shi [zh] (中常侍; "Regular Attendant") for his loyalty. Cai served as a private counselor to He in political matters; this post gave Cai a salary-rank of 2000 shi, and was the highest eunuch-exclusive position, which also made him a chief eunuch of the palace. In the Hou Hanshu, Cai was characterized as, in the words of de Crespigny, "honest, cautious and a good judge of policy". Cai was also designated Shangfang Ling (尚方令; "Prefect of the Palace Workshop" or "Prefect of the Masters of Techniques") later in 88 or 89 CE. While in this eunuch-only position, he would have been responsible for the production of instruments and weapons for imperial use. The role had a salary-rank of 600 shi—though this was in addition to the 2000 shi from his continued Zhongchang shi post.
When Emperor He came of age in 92 CE he led various officials, especially Zheng Zhong, in a coup d'état to overthrow the Dou family. Cai was not involved in their removal, and though he was previously allied with the family, he was undisturbed by the Emperor's coup. In 97 CE, his position as Shangfang Ling expanded in scope, as he became responsible for ceremonial swords and other items. The Hou Hanshu describes his craftsmanship as high-quality and a model for later generations.
### Development of paper
In 105, Cai publicly declared that he had invented a new composition for paper with a new papermaking process. Writing had a long history in China with writing surfaces being bamboo and wooden slips (wood for short text and bamboo for lengthy text). These media were inconvenient as they were awkward to store, heavy, and difficult to write on. After Meng Tian purportedly created an animal-hair brush for writing in 3rd-century BCE, silk and cloth became alternatives that addressed these issues, but they were too expensive for widespread use. The absence of a practical solution motivated continued experimentation with different materials; Cai's pulp solution proved the most effective. His process still used bamboo, but also introduced hemp waste, old rags, fishnets, and most importantly, bark from trees (likely mulberry). The materials were boiled to a pulp that was beaten with a wood or stone mallet before being mixed with a large amount of water. The resulting mixture was then processed with wooden sieves and the excess water removed, leaving the paper finished once dry. The paper that resulted from this method is often referred to as "Cai Hou paper" (蔡侯纸). This event and its context are relayed in an often cited passage of the Hou Hanshu:
> > In ancient times writings and inscriptions were generally made on tablets of bamboo or on pieces of silk called . But silk being costly and bamboo heavy, they were not convenient to use. Cai Lun then initiated the idea of making paper from the bark of trees, hemp, old rags, and fishing nets. He submitted the process to the emperor in the first year of [105] and received praise for his ability. From this time, paper has been in use everywhere and is universally called the "paper of Lord Cai."
Many legends about the inspiration for Cai's invention exist; one of the most popular said that Cai was inspired by watching paper wasps make their nests. Tsien suggested that Cai was inspired by the people of his birthplace, who used bark from mulberry trees to create cloth as a writing surface. Irrespective of its origin, in 105 CE, Cai's new papermaking process both impressed He and earned him fame throughout the empire.
### Final years and death
After the infant Emperor Shang's eight-month reign, in 106 CE Emperor He was succeeded by 13-year-old Emperor An, while Lady Deng ruled as empress dowager. Both Cai and Zheng maintained influence in Deng's court. In 110 CE, Deng assembled more than 100 scholars—including Liu Zhen [zh], Liu Taotu [zh] and Ma Rong—in the Eastern Pavilion of the palace to begin creating a definitive edition of the Five Classics. She appointed Cai to oversee and supervise the production; de Crespigny said that this meant Cai "was seriously concerned with scholarship". In 114 CE, he was awarded the title of marquis and the imperial court enfeoffed him as the lord of Longting [zh], a small village of 300 families in modern-day Yang County, Shaanxi. Later that year Zheng died and Cai succeeded him as the head of the Dowager's household.
An assumed power after Deng's death in 121 CE, though the court was dominated by the influence of Empress Yan Ji and her brothers. Remembering Cai's part in the death of his grandmother, Consort Song, An ordered Cai to report to the Ministry of Justice to answer the charges, and presumably sentence him to death. Ashamed that the Emperor would send him to death in a dishonorable way, Cai bathed and dressed in formal clothes before killing himself by drinking poison.
## Legacy
### Global influence
#### Historical assessment
Due to modern archeological investigations, it is now certain that different forms of paper existed in China as early as 3rd-century BCE, though the findings do not necessarily discount the credit given to Cai. The Chinese scholar Tsien Tsuen-hsuin explained that the term used in Cai's ancient biography, zào yì (造意), can be understood as "to initiate the idea", meaning that he furthered the ongoing process with the addition of important materials. Additionally, Cai is responsible for the earliest known use of tree bark and hemp as ingredients for paper, and it is clear that paper did not see widespread use in China until Cai's improvements. As such, scholars have revised his contributions as ones that furthered an ongoing process instead of a sudden discovery. However, due to the pivotal significance of his improvements and the resulting spread of paper use throughout China, Cai continues to be traditionally credited with inventing paper. There is also speculation that Cai was the patron of this achievement and took credit from someone else, as Feng Dao may have done with his improvements to printing.
#### Spread of paper
Cai's improvements to paper and the papermaking process are considered especially impactful to human history, as they resulted in the spread of literature and knowledge around the world, and advancements in communications. However, Cai is only somewhat known outside East Asia and is often excluded from major encyclopedias. The scholar of paper history, Thomas Francis Carter, drew parallels between Cai and Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the first movable type printing press in Europe, calling them "spiritual father and son" respectively — although the Chinese inventor of the first moveable type printing press in the world, Bi Sheng, might have been a more apt comparison. In his 1978 book, The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History, Michael H. Hart ranked him 7th, above figures such as Gutenberg, Christopher Columbus, Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin. In 2007, Time ranked him among the "Best Inventors" of all time.
After Cai's efforts in 105 CE, a renowned paper maker who may have been an apprentice to Cai—variously recorded by modern sources as Zuo Bo; Tso Po (左伯, courtesy name: Tzu-i: 子邑; Ziyi) from Donghai, Shandong; or Tso Tzǔ-yi—improved the process in 150 CE or later in the Han dynasty. Other than this, the basic principles of Cai's papermaking process have changed little over time, and the new form of paper spread throughout China. According to legend, the Buddhist monk Damjing brought the process to Japan, though this is unconfirmed. Damjing occupies a similar patron saint position in Japan that Cai does in China. By the 600s the process appeared in Turkestan, Korea, and India, while Chinese prisoners from the Battle of Talas spread the knowledge to Arabs in the Abbasid Caliphate. Unlike many Chinese inventions that were created independently in Western Europe, the modern papermaking process was a wholly Chinese product and gradually spread via the Arabs to Europe, where it also saw widespread manufacturing by the 12th century. In August 2010, the International Astronomical Union honored Cai's legacy by naming a crater on the Moon after him.
### Influence in China
#### Folklore
While Cai's personal life is mostly unknown, a popular folktale suggests he was a shopkeeper and trickster with a wife and brother, though there is no historical confirmation for this. The story goes that after Cai's improvements to paper there was little demand for the product so he had an ever-growing surplus. As such, Cai and his wife developed a ploy to increase sales; they told townsfolk that paper becomes money in the afterlife when burned.
In the most popular variation to the tale, Cai Mo and Hui Niang—Cai's brother and sister-in-law of unconfirmed historicity—take the place of Cai and his wife. In this version, Hui convinced Cai Mo to learn the new papermaking trade from his younger brother, and when he returned in only three months, the paper he and his wife produced was too low quality to sell. To address this, Hui pretended to have died, and Cai Mo stood beside her coffin, wailing and burning money as tribute. Then, their neighbors checked in on them, and Hui sprung out of the coffin, explaining that the burned money was transferred to her in the afterlife, with which she paid ghosts to return her from the dead. Believing the story, the neighbors quickly purchased large amounts of paper for their own use. While mostly a fictitious story, intense wailing and burning offerings are commonplace in Chinese culture.
#### Deification and remembrance
Of those who originated China's Four Great Inventions of the ancient world—the compass, gunpowder, papermaking and printing—only the inventor of papermaking, Cai Lun, is known. Additionally, in comparison to other Chinese inventions such as the writing brush and ink, the development of paper is the best documented in literary sources.
After his death in 121 CE, a shrine with his grave was built in his hometown, but was soon neglected and damaged by floods while his name was largely forgotten. During the early Tang dynasty, many national heroes were deified, such as Li Bai and Guan Yu as the gods of wine and war respectively. Cai was among the important people declared gods, and was deified as the national god of papermaking. Cai also became a patron saint for papermakers, with his image often being painted or printed onto paper mills and paper shops in not only China, but also Japan. In 1267, a man named Chen Tsunghsi raised funds to repair the long-damaged shrine, and renovated it to include a statue of Cai and a mausoleum. Chen stated that "Tsai Lung's [Cai Lun's] extraordinary talent and his achievement are exemplary to all ages." A stone mortar, which legends claim Cai used to make paper, may have been brought to the mausoleum, although other sources say it was brought to the Imperial Museum in the capital of Lin'an. A great ceremony was held for the new mausoleum, though it fell into ruin again and was restored in 1955. Today, the temple still stands in Leiyang as the Cai Lun Temple [zh] near a pool, renamed the "Cai Lun Pool", that was thought to be near Cai's home. In the Song dynasty, Fei Chu () said there was a temple in Chengdu where hundreds of families in the papermaking business would come to worship Cai.
During the late Qing dynasty, papermakers created religious groups, known as either "spirit-money associations" (shenfubang) or "Cai Lun associations" (Cai Lun hui). In 1839, the shenfubang from the town of Yingjiang was sued by shenfubangs in Macun and Zhongxing of Jiajiang County, Sichuan. The conflict began when the shenfubang of Yingjiang claimed that their statue of Cai—which they carried throughout Jiajiang County annually—gave them ritual supremacy over Macun and Zhongxing papermakers, whom they demanded pay for and take part in their celebrations. The shenfubangs from Macun and Zhongxing denied the demand, citing their long history of worshipping Cai, which resulted in increasing conflict between the sides and eventually a lawsuit. The county magistrate reproached both parties for descending into conflict and said: "Did they not understand that all of them owed their livelihood to Lord Cai, who had taught them the art of papermaking? Were they not all disciples of Lord Cai, who wanted them to share the benefits of the trade?"
In the 21st century, Leiyang is still famous as Cai's birthplace and has active paper production. His traditional tomb lays in the Cai Lun Paper Culture Museum of Longting, Hanzhong, Shaanxi Province. In modern-day China, Cai's name is closely associated with paper, and is the namesake of at least five roads: Cailun Road [zh], Pudong, Shanghai; Cailun Road, Minhang District, Shanghai; Cailun Road, Fuyang District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang; Cailun Road East Crossing, Weiyang District, Xi'an; and Cailun Road, Yaohai District, Hefei, Anhui.
|
33,930,403 |
South Park: The Stick of Truth
| 1,169,202,922 |
2014 video game
|
[
"2014 video games",
"Alien abduction in video games",
"Censored video games",
"Cultural depictions of Al Gore",
"Fiction about social media",
"Nazis in fiction",
"Nintendo Switch games",
"Obscenity controversies in video games",
"Obsidian Entertainment games",
"Open-world video games",
"PlayStation 3 games",
"PlayStation 4 games",
"Role-playing video games",
"Satirical video games",
"Self-censorship",
"Self-reflexive video games",
"Single-player video games",
"Ubisoft games",
"Video games about size change",
"Video games based on South Park",
"Video games developed in the United States",
"Video games scored by Jamie Dunlap",
"Video games set in 2014",
"Video games set in Canada",
"Video games set in Colorado",
"Video games set in the United States",
"Windows games",
"Works about Facebook",
"Xbox 360 games",
"Xbox One games"
] |
South Park: The Stick of Truth is a 2014 role-playing video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment in collaboration with South Park Digital Studios and published by Ubisoft. Based on the American animated television series South Park, the game follows the New Kid, who has moved to the eponymous town and becomes involved in an epic role-play fantasy war involving humans, wizards, and elves, who are fighting for control of the all-powerful Stick of Truth. Their game quickly escalates out of control, bringing them into conflict with aliens, Nazi zombies, and gnomes, threatening the entire town with destruction.
The game is played from a 2.5D, third-person perspective replicating the aesthetic of the television series. The New Kid is able to freely explore the town of South Park, interacting with characters and undertaking quests, and accessing new areas by progressing through the main story. By selecting one of four character archetypes, Fighter, Thief, Mage, or Jew, each offering specific abilities, the New Kid and a supporting party of characters use a variety of melee, ranged, and magical fart attacks to combat with their enemies.
Development began in 2009 after South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone approached Obsidian about making a role-playing game designed to look exactly like the television series. Parker and Stone were involved throughout the game's production: they wrote its script, consulted on the design, and as in the television program, they voiced many of the characters. The Stick of Truth's production was turbulent; following the bankruptcy of the original publisher, THQ, the rights to the game were acquired by Ubisoft in early 2013, and its release date was postponed several times from its initial date in March 2013 to its eventual release in March 2014, for PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360.
The Stick of Truth was subject to censorship in some regions because of its content, which includes abortions and Nazi imagery; Parker and Stone replaced the scenes with detailed explanations of what occurs in each scene. The game was released to positive reviews, which praised the comedic script, visual style, and faithfulness to the source material. It received criticism for a lack of challenging combat and technical issues that slowed or impeded progress. A sequel, South Park: The Fractured but Whole, was released in October 2017, and The Stick of Truth was re-released in February 2018, for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and on Nintendo Switch in September 2018.
## Gameplay
South Park: The Stick of Truth is a role-playing video game that is viewed from a 2.5D, third-person perspective. The player controls the New Kid as he explores the fictional Colorado town of South Park. The player can freely move around the town although some areas remain inaccessible until specific points in the story are reached. Notable characters from the series – including Cartman, Butters, Stan, and Kyle – join the New Kid's party and accompany him on his quests, though only one character can be active at any time. The game features a fast travel system, allowing the player to call on the character Timmy to quickly transport them to any other visited fast travel station. At the beginning of the game, the player selects one of four character archetypes; the Fighter, Thief, Mage (which represent standard fantasy types), and the Jew. The Jew class specializes in "Jew-jitsu" and long-range attacks. Each class has specific abilities; armor and weapons are not limited by class, allowing a Mage to focus on melee attacks like a Fighter.
The New Kid and his allies possess a variety of melee, ranged, and magic attacks. Experience points rewarded for completing tasks and winning battles allow the New Kid to level up, unlocking new abilities and upgrades such as increasing the number of enemies an attack hits or the amount of damage inflicted. Magic is represented by the characters' ability to fart; different farts are used to accomplish specific tasks. For example, the "Cup-A-Spell" allows the player to throw a fart to interact with a distant object, the "Nagasaki" destroys blockades, and the "Sneaky Squeaker" can be thrown to create a sound that distracts enemies. Attacks can be augmented with farts if the player has enough magical energy.
The player has access to unlockable abilities that can open new paths of exploration, such as shrinking to access small areas like vents, teleportation which allows the player to reach otherwise unreachable platforms, and farts which trigger an explosion that defeats nearby enemies when combined with a naked flame. Actions committed against enemies outside of battle affects them in combat; the player or opponent who strikes first to trigger a fight will have the first turn in battle. Combat takes place in a battle area separate from the open game world. Battles use turn-based gameplay and each character takes a turn to attack or defend before yielding to the next character.
During the player's turn, a radial wheel listing the available options—class-based basic melee attacks, special attacks, long-ranged attacks, and support items—appears. Basic attacks are used to hit unarmored enemies and wear down shields; heavy attacks weaken armored enemies. A flashing icon indicates that attacks or blocks can be enhanced to inflict more damage, or mitigate incoming attacks more effectively. Each special attack costs a set amount of "Power Points" or "PP" (pronounced peepee) to activate. Only one party member can join the player in battle. Certain characters, such as Tuong Lu Kim, Mr. Hankey, Jesus, and Mr. Slave can be summoned during battle to deliver a powerful attack capable of defeating several enemies simultaneously; Jesus sprays damaging gunfire, while Mr. Slave squeezes an enemy into his rectum, scaring his allies away.
One support item can be used each turn, including items that restore health or provide beneficial status effects that improve the character's abilities. Weapons and armor can be enhanced using optional "strap-ons", such as fake vampire teeth, bubble gum, or a Jewpacabra claw. These items can cause enemies to bleed and lose health, weaken enemy armor, boost player health or steal health from opponents, and disgust foes to make them "grossed out" and cause them to vomit. Additionally, the "strap-ons" can set opponents on fire, electrocute them, or freeze them. Some enemies are immune to one or more of these effects. Enemies can deflect certain attacks entirely; those in a riposte stance will deflect any melee attack, requiring the use of ranged weapons, while those in reflect stance will deflect ranged weapons.
The player is encouraged to explore the wider game world to find Chinpokomon toys or new friends who are added to the character's Facebook page. Collecting friends allows the player to unlock perks that permanently improve the New Kid's statistics, providing extra damage or resistance to negative effects. The character's Facebook page also serves as the game's main menu, containing the inventory and a quest journal. The Stick of Truth features several mini-games, including defecating by repeatedly tapping a button that rewards the player with feces that can be thrown at enemies to trigger the "grossed out" effect, performing an abortion, and using an anal probe. Some of these scenes are absent from some versions of the game because of censorship.
## Synopsis
### Setting
South Park: The Stick of Truth is set in the fictional town South Park in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The main character, whom the player controls, is the New Kid—nicknamed "Douchebag"—a silent protagonist who has recently moved to the town. Befriending the local boys, he becomes involved in an epic fantasy live action role-playing game featuring wizards and warriors battling for control of the Stick of Truth, a twig that possesses limitless power.
The humans, led by Wizard King Cartman, make their home in the Kingdom of Kupa Keep, a makeshift camp built in Cartman's backyard; among their number are paladin Butters, thief Craig, Clyde, cleric Token, Tweek, and Kenny—a young boy who dresses as a princess. The humans' rivals are the drow elves, who live in the elven kingdom in the backyard of their leader, High Jew Elf Kyle; they also include the warrior Stan and Jimmy the bard. The boys conduct their game throughout the town, the surrounding forest, and even into Canada (represented as a pixelated overhead 16-bit RPG). Locations from the show, including South Park Elementary, South Park Mall, the Bijou Cinema, City Wok restaurant, and Tweek Bros. Coffeehouse, are featured in the game.
The Stick of Truth features the following historical South Park characters: Stan's father Randy Marsh, school teacher Mr. Garrison, Jesus, school counsellor Mr. Mackey, former United States Vice-President Al Gore, the sadomasochism-loving Mr. Slave, sentient feces Mr. Hankey, City Wok restaurant owner Tuong Lu Kim, Stan's uncle Jimbo, Mayor McDaniels, Priest Maxi, Skeeter, Canadian celebrities Terrance and Phillip, the Underpants Gnomes, the Goth kids, the Ginger kids, the Crab People; the Christmas Critters, and local boys Timmy, Scott Malkinson, and Kevin Stoley.
### Plot
The New Kid has moved with his parents to South Park to escape his forgotten past. He quickly allies with Butters, Princess Kenny and their leader Cartman. Nicknamed "Douchebag", the New Kid is introduced to the coveted Stick of Truth. Shortly thereafter, the elves attack Kupa Keep and take the Stick. Cartman banishes Clyde from the group for failing to defend the Stick from the elves. With the help of Cartman's best warriors, Douchebag recovers the Stick from Jimmy. That night, Douchebag and several town residents are abducted by aliens. Douchebag escapes his confinement with the help of Stan's father, Randy, and crashes the alien ship into the town's mall.
By morning, the UFO crash site has been sealed off by the US government, who has put out a cover-story that claims a Taco Bell is being built. Douchebag visits Kupa Keep and learns that the Stick has again been stolen by the elves. Cartman and Kyle task Douchebag with recruiting the Goth kids for their respective sides, each claiming that the other has the Stick. Randy agrees to help Douchebag recruit the Goths after Douchebag infiltrates the crash site and discovers that government agents are plotting to blow up the town in order to destroy an alien goo released from the ship. The goo turns living creatures into Adolf Hitler-esque Nazi Zombies; an infected person escapes government containment, unleashing the virus on South Park.
That night, Cartman or Kyle (dependent on which character the player chooses to follow) leads his side against the other at the school. Here, the children learn that Clyde stole the Stick as revenge for his banishment. Clyde rallies defectors from the humans and elves, and uses the alien goo to create an army of Nazi Zombies. The humans and elves join together to oppose Clyde but there are too few to fight him. Later, Gnomes steal Douchebag's underpants; after defeating them, Douchebag gains the ability to change size at will.
Out of desperation, Douchebag is told to invite the girls to play. They agree to join after Douchebag infiltrates an abortion clinic and travels across Canada to discover which of their friends is spreading gossip. Flanked by the girls, kindergarten pirates, and Star Trek role-players, the humans and elves attack Clyde's dark tower. Randy arrives and reveals that the government agents have planted a nuclear device in Mr. Slave's anus to blow up South Park, forcing Douchebag to shrink and enter Mr. Slave to disarm the bomb. After exiting Mr. Slave, Douchebag finally confronts Clyde and is forced to fight a resurrected Nazi Zombie Chef; Chef is defeated. Clyde decides he is not playing any more and Cartman kicks him from the tower.
The government agents arrive, revealing that Douchebag went into hiding to escape them because of his ability to quickly make friends on social networks such as Facebook, which the government wanted to use for its own ends. Learning of the Stick's supposed power, the chief agent takes it and bargains with Douchebag to help him use it. Douchebag refuses but Princess Kenny betrays the group, uses the Stick to fight them and infects himself with the Nazi Zombie virus. Unable to defeat Nazi Zombie Princess Kenny, Cartman tells Douchebag to break their sacred rule by farting on Kenny's balls, which he does. The resulting explosion defeats Kenny and cures the town of the Nazi Zombie virus. In the epilogue as South Park is rebuilt, the group retrieves the Stick of Truth; they decide its power is too great for any person to hold and throw it into Stark's Pond.
## Development
Development of South Park: The Stick of Truth took four years, beginning in 2009 when South Park co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone contacted Obsidian Entertainment to discuss their desire to make a South Park game. Parker, a fan of Obsidian games, including Fallout: New Vegas (2010), wanted to create a role-playing game, a genre which he and Stone had enjoyed since their childhoods. Parker and Stone insisted that the game must replicate the show's visual style. Parker's original concept was for a South Park version of the 2011 role-playing fantasy game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and he estimated the first script he produced to be 500 pages long. The South Park Digital Studios team animated a concept of the game's opening scene to show what they wanted to accomplish with Obsidian in terms of appearance and gameplay mechanics. While the series had inspired several licensed games, such as South Park (1998) and South Park Rally (1999), Parker and Stone were not involved in these games' development and later criticized the titles' quality. Negative reaction to those games made the pair protective of their property and led to their greater involvement on The Stick of Truth; they refused several requests to license the series for new ventures.
Stone and Parker worked closely with Obsidian on the project, sometimes having two-to-three-hour meetings over four consecutive days. They worked with Obsidian until two weeks before the game was shipped. Their involvement extended beyond creative input; their company initially financed the game, believing that a game based on the controversial television show would struggle to receive financial support from publishers without them placing restrictions on the content to make it more marketable. The initial funding was intended to allow Obsidian to develop enough of the game to show a more complete concept to potential publishers. In December 2011, THQ announced that they would work with Obsidian on South Park: The Game, as it was then known. This partnership developed into a publishing arrangement after South Park owner Viacom, having grown wary of video games, cut its funding. Obsidian was aware when it signed with THQ that the latter was experiencing financial difficulties.
In March 2012, Microsoft canceled Obsidian's upcoming Xbox One project codenamed "North Carolina" after seven months of development, resulting in the layoff of between 20 and 30 employees, including members of the Stick of Truth team. In May 2012, the game's final title was announced. In December 2012, THQ filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy after suffering several product release failures. The Stick of Truth remained on schedule as THQ tried to use the bankruptcy period to restructure and return its business to profit, but the company failed to find a buyer and a Delaware court ordered that THQ was worth more if its assets were sold individually.
The rights to The Stick of Truth were auctioned in late December 2012; Obsidian was not made aware of the sale until the auction was announced. South Park Digital Studios filed an objection to the auction, stating that THQ did not have the authority to sell the publishing rights and that THQ had been granted exclusive use of specific South Park trademarks and copyrights. South Park Digital also argued that even if the rights were sold, THQ would still owe them and that they held the option of reclaiming all elements of the game and South Park related creations. THQ requested that the court overrule South Park Digital, stating that their rights were exclusive and thus transferable. On January 24, 2013, the United States bankruptcy court approved the sale of THQ's assets, including The Stick of Truth.
The rights were bought by Ubisoft for . Within three weeks they had decided that the game required significant changes, pushing its release date back by six months to March 2014. Parker and Stone, with input from a Ubisoft creative consultant, concluded that their original vision would take too long and would be too costly to produce. In a 2014 interview, Obsidian leader Feargus Urquhart said he could not comment on changes that were made following Ubisoft's involvement. South Park: The Stick of Truth was officially released to manufacturing on February 12, 2014. Following its release, Stone said that the work involved in making the game was much more than he and Parker had anticipated. He said, "I'll [admit] to the fact that we retooled stuff that we didn't like and we worked on the game longer than other people would've liked us to".
### Design
During early discussions with Obsidian, Parker and Stone were adamant that the game should faithfully replicate the show's unique 2D-style visuals, which are based on cutout animation. Obsidian provided proofs of concept that they could achieve the South Park look; Stone and Parker were satisfied with this. The show is animated using Autodesk Maya, but Obsidian produced the game assets and animations in Adobe Flash. Skyrim was the game's initial influence and further inspiration came from the 1995 role-playing game EarthBound. Parker and Stone said that the blended 2D/3D visuals of Paper Mario and the silent protagonist Link from The Legend of Zelda series also provided inspiration for the design. The characters' costumes and classes are taken from the 2002 South Park episode "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers". Obsidian created various fantasy-styled items, armor, and weapons but Parker and Stone told them to "make it crappier" to create the impression that the children had found or made the objects themselves; weapons consisted of golf clubs, hammers, suction cup arrows and wooden swords, while bathrobes, oven mitt gloves, and towels worn as capes served as clothing. South Park studios provided Obsidian with access to the show's full archive of art assets, allowing Obsidian to include previously unused ideas, such as discarded Chinpokomon designs. Actors from the show provided voice work, and Obsidian was given access to South Park's audio resources, including sound effects, music, and the show's composer Jamie Dunlap.
Describing the writing of a comedy script for a game in which lines of dialog may be heard repeatedly and jokes could appear dated, Stone said:
> We write jokes, and the jokes are funny. With a game, the fourth, fifth, sixth, 80th, 100 millionth time you've seen that joke it becomes not funny, then you lose faith in it, and then you question it, and you go round this emotional circle ... We've always liked fresh-baked stuff a little better but, with a video game, it doesn't work that way. But the game isn't just a collection of funny South Park scenes, hopefully it's more than that.
Like the show, The Stick of Truth satirizes political and social issues including abortion, race relations, anal probes, drug addiction, sex, extreme violence, and poverty. Creative consultant Jordan Thomas said, "The way we looked at [humor] was if this moment was a hot button for the audience, should we make it worse, because [Stone and Parker] love to push boundaries and their default response was definitely not to back down, but the really healthy counterbalance was, can we make it funnier—and the answer was often yes".
The game underwent several changes during its development. While the final game features four playable character types (Fighter, Thief, Mage, and Jew), an early version featured five playable classes: Paladin, Wizard, Rogue, Adventurer, and Jew. The latter was described as a cross between a Monk and a Paladin, that is "high risk, high reward" and strongest when closest to death. The game had included other enemies and locations, including vampire children who were fought in a cemetery and church, hippies, a mission to recover Cartman's doll from the Ginger children, and boss fights against a large, winged monster, and celebrity Paris Hilton—her main attack being called the "vag blast". The Crab People had a larger role and shared a demilitarized zone with the Underpants Gnomes—only one Crab Person appears in the final game—and Mr. Hankey and his family lived in a large, Christmas-themed village which became a small house in the town's sewers. Urquhart later said that when development began, video games were less protected by freedom of speech laws than other media, restricting the content that could be included in The Stick of Truth. While under THQ's publishing deal, the developers planned that the Xbox 360 version would support the console's input device, Kinect, enabling players to give characters voice commands, taunt enemies, and insult Cartman—to which the character would respond. Exclusive Xbox 360 downloadable content (DLC) including the Mysterion Superhero pack and Good Times with Weapons packs each featuring a unique weapon, outfit, and special attack, and three story-based campaign expansions was announced. These features were not present in the Ubisoft release.
## Release
South Park: The Stick of Truth was released in North America on March 4, 2014, for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles, and Windows. It was released on March 6 in Australia and on March 7 in Europe. The game had been scheduled for release on March 5, 2013, but this was postponed two months by then-publisher THQ. After THQ filed for bankruptcy in January 2013, Ubisoft purchased the rights to publish the game and did not specify a release date. By May 2013, Ubisoft had confirmed that it would be released that year after it was omitted from their upcoming games release schedule. On September 26, 2013, Ubisoft announced that The Stick of Truth would be released in December 2013, but in October 2013 the game's release was again postponed until March 2014. The game was scheduled for release on March 6, 2014 in Germany and Austria, but it was delayed after the localized version of the game was found to contain Nazi references. Alongside the Steam version of the game, The Stick of Truth received a digital download release for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on June 13, 2016. The console versions were only available as a free pre-order incentive to customers who pre-ordered its sequel, The Fractured but Whole. A stand-alone physical and digital download was released on for February 13, 2018, for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A Nintendo Switch version, available as a digital download, was released on September 25, 2018.
A collector's edition called the "Grand Wizard Edition" containing the game, a 6-inch figure of Grand Wizard Cartman created by Kidrobot, a map of the South Park kingdom, and the Ultimate Fellowship DLC was made available. The Ultimate Fellowship content includes four outfits with different abilities; the Necromancer Sorcerer outfit provides increased fire damage, the Rogue Assassin outfit rewards the player with extra money, the Ranger Elf outfit raises weapon damage, and the Holy Defender outfit increases defense. Additional content included the Super Samurai Spaceman pack containing three outfits; the Superhero costume provides a buff at the start of battle, the Samurai costume provides a buff on defeating an enemy, and the Spaceman costume provides a defensive shield.
In November and December 2013, the South Park television series featured the "Black Friday" trilogy of episodes—"Black Friday", "A Song of Ass and Fire", and "Titties and Dragons"—which was a narrative prequel to the game and featured the characters wearing outfits and acting out roles similar to those in the game. The episodes satirized the game's lengthy development; in "Black Friday" Cartman tells Kyle not to "pre-order a game that some assholes in California haven’t even finished making yet", referring to California-based Obsidian, while "Titties and Dragons" concludes with an advertisement announcing the game's release date accompanied by Butters declaring his skepticism. Discussing "Black Friday", IGN said that it "felt like a sneak peek" and provided some marketing for Stick of Truth.
### Censorship
Shortly before the game's release, Ubisoft announced that it would voluntarily censor seven scenes, calling it a "market decision made by Ubisoft EMEA" and not a response to input from censors. PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were affected in European territories, the Middle East, Africa, and Russia, while the Windows version remained uncensored. The censorship affected all formats in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, Austria, and Taiwan. The North American release was the only version that was uncensored on all formats. The German version was specifically censored because of the use of Nazi and Hitler-related imagery, including swastikas and Nazi salutes, which are illegal in that country. A spokesman for the European video game content rating system Pan European Game Information (PEGI) confirmed that the uncensored version had been submitted and approved for release with an 18 rating, meaning the game would be acceptable for people over eighteen years of age. Ubisoft resubmitted the censored version without input from PEGI; this version was passed with an 18-rating.
The scenes Ubisoft removed depict anal probing by aliens and the player-character performing an abortion. In their place, the game displays a still image of a statue holding its face in its hand, with an explicit description of events depicted in the scene. In Australia, the same scenes were removed because the Australian Classification Board refused to rate the game for release due to the depiction of sexual violence—specifically the child player-character being subjected to anal probing and the interactive abortion scene. Like the European version, these scenes were replaced with a placeholder card with an explanation of what was removed on a background image of a koala crying.
Discussing the situation, Stone said he had been told changes were required for the game to be released and that he and Parker inserted the placeholder images so the censorship would not be hidden. He called the censorship a double standard that the pair resisted, and said he felt it did not ruin the game and the cards allowed them to mock the changes. A post-release user-created game modification was released for the Windows version that disabled the censorship.
## Reception
### Critical response
South Park: The Stick of Truth received positive reviews from critics. Aggregating review website Metacritic provides a score of 85 out of 100 from 48 critics for the Windows version, 85 out of 100 from 31 critics for the PlayStation 3 version, and 82 out of 100 from 33 critics for the Xbox 360 version.
The game was considered a successful adaptation of licensed material to a video game, with critics describing it as one of the most faithful video game adaptations ever, such that moving the player-character was like walking on the set of the show. GamesRadar+ said that The Stick of Truth was to South Park as Batman: Arkham Asylum was to the Batman franchise in terms of reverence to the source material while breaking new ground in video games. They praised the "open-world South Park to explore, with a solid 12–14 hours of inside jokes, obscure references, and humor that pulls from 17 TV seasons' worth of social commentary and offensive humor." Computer and Video Games said that the game contained so many references to the show's history that it made Batman: Arkham City appear sparse. Destructoid said that the ability to walk around the detailed town provided a sense of wonderment similar to exploring The Simpsons's home town in Virtual Springfield. The visual translation was highlighted as a significant component of the game's success, appearing indistinguishable from an episode of the show and providing a consistent aesthetic that remained faithful to the series while being original to gaming. Some reviewers said that the art style was occasionally detrimental, obscuring objects and prompts, and that repetitive use of animations grew stale over the course of the game. Computer and Video Games said that Obsidian had built a game world that seemed as though it had always existed.
Reviewers consistently highlighted its comedic achievement. Game Informer said it is frequently hilarious, ranking it among the best comedic games ever released. IGN praised The Stick of Truth for its witty and intelligent satire of the role-playing genre, while others said that as well as being consistently funny, the game was suitably boisterous, shocking, provocative, self-effacing, and fearless in its desire to offend. Many reviewers agreed that much of the content was more appealing to South Park fans; some jokes are lost on the uninitiated but others said that enough context was provided for most jokes to be funny regardless of players' familiarity with the source material. IGN said that it is the game South Park fans have always wanted, but some reviewers said that without the South Park license, the game's shallowness would be more obvious.
Combat received a polarized response; critics alternately called the battles deep and satisfying or shallow and repetitive. Reviewers considered the combat mechanics to be simplistic while allowing for complex tactics, and others said that the requirement to actively defend against enemy attacks and enhance offense kept fights engaging. Others also praised the combat but considered the mechanics to be robust and elaborate, presenting a solid role-playing combat system concealed under the intentionally simplistic visuals. Some reviewers said that a lack of depth made combat gradually become repetitive; they said that even when combat is funny and engaging, by the end of the game the battles can become routine. Joystiq stated that defense was more interesting than offense because it relied on time-sensitive reactions to creative enemy attacks such as Al Gore giving a presentation. Destructoid said there are too few powers available for offense for the game to remain interesting for long. GameSpot found combat was too easy and lacking in challenge because of an abundance of supplement items such as health packs that were found more frequently than they were used, and powerful abilities that quickly subdued opponents. Others disagreed, stating that the variety offered in combat, such as character abilities, allies, weapons, armor, and upgrades, ensured it always felt fun. The effects of the enhancements were sometimes considered to be confusing, and typically relying on simply equipping the highest level item available. Joystiq said the special characters that can be summoned during battle were extreme in terms of power and entertainment value.
IGN said that the difference between character classes such as Thief and Jew were disappointingly minimal, offering little variety or incentive to replay as another class. IGN also said some missions and side quests were tedious, and were elevated by their setting rather than their quality, while the reviewer thought the environmental puzzles were a clever option for avoiding combat and were rare enough to be enjoyable when available. However, GameSpot said the puzzles felt scripted and simple. Reviewers said that many of the gameplay functions and controls were poorly explained, making them difficult to activate; others were critical of excessive loading times upon entering new locations and slow menus such as the Facebook panel.
### Sales
During the first week of sales in the United Kingdom, South Park: The Stick of Truth became the best-selling game on all available formats (In terms of boxed sales), replacing Thief. The Xbox 360 version accounted for 53% of sales, followed by the PlayStation 3 (41%), and Windows (6%). In its second week, sales fell 47% and the game dropped to third place behind Titanfall and Dark Souls II. South Park: The Stick of Truth was the top-selling game on the digital-distribution platform Steam between March 2 and 15, 2014. It was the third best-selling game of March 2014, behind Titanfall and Thief, and the thirty-first best-selling physical game of 2014.
In North America, South Park: The Stick of Truth was the third best-selling physical game of March 2014, behind Titanfall and Infamous Second Son. Digital distribution accounted for 25% of the game's sales, making it Ubisoft's most downloaded title at the time. It was the ninth best-selling downloadable game of 2014 on the PlayStation Store. In May 2015, Ubisoft confirmed that the game had sold 1.6 million copies as of March 2015. As of February 2016, Ubisoft had shipped 5 million copies of the game.
### Accolades
At the 2012 Game Critics Awards, The Stick of Truth was named the Best Role-Playing Game. At the 2014 National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR) awards the game received awards for Writing in a Comedy, Animation in the artistic category, and best non-original role playing game. It also received nominations for Game of the Year, Original Light Mix Score (Franchise) and Sound Effects. Parker's multi-character voice work won him the award for Performance in a Comedy, Supporting; Stone was also nominated. At the 2014 Golden Joystick Awards, The Stick of Truth received three nominations for Game of the Year, Best Storytelling, and Best Visual Design. At the inaugural Game Awards event, Trey Parker won for Best Performance for his multiple roles, and the game received two nominations for Best Role-Playing Game, and Best Narrative. At the 2015 South by Southwest festival, the game received the Excellence in Convergence award for achievements in adapting material from another entertainment medium. In 2014, the game received a D.I.C.E. Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Story.
IGN listed it as the 50th-best game of the contemporary console generation, and Giant Bomb named it the Best Surprise of 2014 for overcoming its development issues. Shacknews and Financial Post labeled it the seventh-best game of 2014, while The Guardian named it as the 12th-best. Kotaku listed Dunlap's score as one of the best of the year, saying that it was "a really good tongue-in-cheek Skyrim knockoff that captured South Park's bright musicality." In 2017, IGN listed the pixelated Canada area at number 98, on its list of the Top 100 Unforgettable Video Game Moments, and PC Gamer named it one of the best role playing games of all time. In 2018, Game Informer labeled it the 82nd-best RPG of all time, stating "in the world of licensed video games, few titles stand out as exceptional or worthy of the source material."
## Sequel
In March 2014, Stone said that he and Parker were open to making a sequel, depending on the reception for The Stick of Truth. A sequel, South Park: The Fractured but Whole, was announced in June 2015. The game was developed by Ubisoft San Francisco, replacing Obsidian Entertainment, for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One. The sequel was released worldwide on October 17, 2017 to generally positive reviews. In it, the player again controls the New Kid, joining the children of South Park as they role-play superheroes. A Nintendo Switch version, adapted by Ubisoft Pune, was released in 2018.
|
9,997,145 |
God of War: Chains of Olympus
| 1,168,187,626 |
2008 video game
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"Ready at Dawn games",
"Single-player video games",
"Sony Interactive Entertainment games",
"Video game prequels",
"Video games based on Arabian mythology",
"Video games based on Greek mythology",
"Video games based on multiple mythologies",
"Video games developed in the United States",
"Video games scored by Gerard Marino",
"Video games set in ancient Greece",
"Video games set in antiquity",
"Video games with stereoscopic 3D graphics"
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God of War: Chains of Olympus is an action-adventure hack and slash video game developed by Ready at Dawn, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE). It was first released for the PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld console on March 4, 2008. The game is the fourth installment in the God of War series, the second chronologically, and a prequel to the original God of War. It is loosely based on Greek mythology and set in ancient Greece, with vengeance as its central motif. The player controls Kratos, a Spartan warrior who serves the Olympian gods. Kratos is guided by the goddess Athena, who instructs him to find the Sun God Helios, as the Dream God Morpheus has caused many of the gods to slumber in Helios' absence. With the power of the Sun and the aid of the Titan Atlas, Morpheus and the Queen of the Underworld Persephone intend to destroy the Pillar of the World and in turn Olympus.
The gameplay is similar to the previous installments, with a focus on combo-based combat, achieved through the player's main weapon—the Blades of Chaos—and secondary weapons acquired throughout the game. It features quick time events that require the player to complete game controller actions in a timed sequence to defeat stronger enemies and bosses. The player can use up to three magical attacks as alternative combat options. The game also features puzzles and platforming elements. The series' control scheme was reconfigured to compensate for the smaller number of buttons on the PSP compared to the PlayStation 2's controller; Ready at Dawn's solutions for the controls were praised by critics.
Chains of Olympus was acclaimed by critics, becoming the highest-rated PSP title on Metacritic and GameRankings. The game's graphics were particularly praised, with 1UP declaring the game was "a technical showpiece for Sony, and arguably the best-looking game on the system." It won several awards, including "Best PSP Action Game", "Best Graphics Technology", and "Best Use of Sound". As of June 2012, the game has sold 3.2 million copies worldwide, making it the seventh best-selling PlayStation Portable game of all time. Together with 2010's God of War: Ghost of Sparta, Chains of Olympus was remastered and released on September 13, 2011, as part of the God of War: Origins Collection for the PlayStation 3. The remastered version was included in the God of War Saga released on August 28, 2012, also for PlayStation 3.
## Gameplay
God of War: Chains of Olympus is a third-person single-player video game viewed from a fixed camera perspective. The player controls the character Kratos in combo-based combat, platforming, and puzzle game elements, and battles foes who primarily stem from Greek mythology, including cyclopes, Gorgons, satyrs, harpies, minotaurs, hoplites, and sphinxes. Morpheus beasts, shades, banshees, fire guards, fire sentries, hyperion guards, and death knights were created specifically for the game. Platforming elements require the player to climb walls, jump across chasms, swing on ropes, and balance across beams to proceed through sections of the game. Some puzzles are simple, such as moving a box so that the player can use it as a jumping-off point to access a pathway unreachable with normal jumping, but others are more complex, such as finding several items across different areas of the game to unlock one door.
### Combat
Kratos' main weapon is the Blades of Chaos: a pair of blades attached to chains that are wrapped around the character's wrists and forearms. In gameplay, the blades can be swung offensively in various maneuvers. As the game progresses, Kratos acquires new weapons—the Sun Shield and Gauntlet of Zeus—offering alternative combat options. Kratos only learns three magical abilities, as opposed to four in previous installments, including the Efreet, the Light of Dawn, and Charon's Wrath, giving him a variety of ways to attack and kill enemies. He acquires the relic Triton's Lance—similar to Poseidon's Trident in God of War— which allows him to breathe underwater; a necessary ability as parts of the game require long periods of time there.
The challenge mode in this game is called the Challenge of Hades (five trials), and requires players to complete a series of specific tasks (e.g., Burn 50 soldiers with the Efreet). It is unlocked by completing the game. The player may unlock bonus costumes for Kratos, behind-the-scenes videos, and concept art of the characters and environments, as rewards. Completion of each of the game's difficulty levels unlocks additional rewards.
## Synopsis
### Setting
As with the previous games in the God of War franchise, God of War: Chains of Olympus is set in an alternate version of ancient Greece, populated by the Olympian gods, Titans, and other beings of Greek mythology. With the exception of flashbacks, the events are set between those of the games Ascension (2013) and God of War (2005). Several locations are explored, including the real-world locations of the ancient cities of Attica and Marathon, the latter including fictional settings of the Temple of Helios and the Caves of Olympus, and several other fictional locations, including the Underworld, which features scenes at the River Styx, Tartarus, the Fields of Elysium, and the Temple of Persephone.
Attica is a war-torn city under assault by the Persian Empire and their pet basilisk and is the site of Eurybiades' last battle. The city of Marathon is covered in the black fog of the Dream God, Morpheus. Just beyond the city is the Temple of Helios, which sits atop the Sun Chariot, which has plummeted to Earth in Helios' absence. Boreas, Zephyros, Euros, and Notos, the gods of the north, west, east, and south winds, respectively, reside in the temple and guide the chariot. The Caves of Olympus is a cavern below Mount Olympus and houses the dawn-goddess Eos, the Primordial Fires, and a statue of Triton. The Underworld is the underground realm of the dead and is host to the River Styx and the ferryman of the dead, Charon. Tartarus is the prison of the dead and the Titans where the massive Titan Hyperion is chained. The Fields of Elysium are home to deserving souls that roam peacefully and are overlooked by the Temple of Persephone.
### Characters
The protagonist of the game is Kratos (voiced by Terrence C. Carson), a former Captain of Sparta's Army, and once servant to the God of War, Ares. He now serves the other Olympian gods in hopes that they will free him of his nightmares. Other characters include Kratos' mentor and ally Athena (Erin Torpey), the Goddess of Wisdom; Eos (Erin Torpey), the Goddess of Dawn and sister of Helios; Persephone (Marina Gordon), the Queen of the Underworld and the main antagonist; and Atlas (Fred Tatasciore), a four-armed Titan imprisoned in Tartarus after the Great War. Kratos' deceased daughter Calliope (Debi Derryberry) briefly reunites with him in the Fields of Elysium and his wife Lysandra appears in a flashback. Minor characters include Helios (Dwight Schultz), the captured Sun God; Charon (Dwight Schultz), the ferryman of the Underworld; and the Persian King (Fred Tatasciore), leader of the Persian forces attacking Attica. The Dream God Morpheus is an unseen character that affects the plot.
### Plot
During Kratos' ten years of service to the Olympian gods, he is sent to the city of Attica to help defend it from the invading Persian army. After successfully killing the Persian King, decimating his army, and slaying their pet basilisk, Kratos observes the Sun fall from the sky, plunging the world into darkness. As he fights his way through the city of Marathon, the Spartan witnesses the black fog of the Olympian Morpheus covering the land. He hears a haunting flute melody, which he recognizes as a melody once played by his deceased daughter Calliope. Finding the Temple of Helios, Kratos learns from Athena that Morpheus has caused many of the gods to fall into a deep slumber due to the absence of light. Before she succumbs to slumber, Athena tasks Kratos to find Helios, return him to the sky, and break Morpheus’ grasp on the world. The Spartan eventually locates Helios' sister, Eos, who tells Kratos that the Titan Atlas has abducted her brother. Eos advises Kratos to seek the Primordial Fires, which he uses to awaken the fire steeds of Helios. The steeds take the Spartan to the Underworld, where he has two encounters with Charon at the River Styx. Although Charon initially defeats Kratos and banishes him to Tartarus, the Spartan returns with the Gauntlet of Zeus and destroys the ferryman.
After locating the Temple of Persephone and confronting the Queen of the Underworld, Kratos is given a choice: renounce his power and be with his deceased daughter (at a cost to mankind) or proceed with his mission. Kratos sacrifices his weapons and power to be reunited with his daughter but discovers that Persephone is embittered by Zeus' betrayal and her imprisonment in the Underworld with her husband Hades. While he was distracted by his reunion with Calliope, Persephone's ally Atlas was using the power of the kidnapped Helios to destroy the Pillar of the World, which would also end Olympus. As the resulting destruction of the Pillar will also cause the souls of the Underworld, including Calliope, to be lost, Kratos abandons his daughter forever in order to save her life. Taking back his power, Kratos battles Persephone and Atlas, binding the Titan to the Pillar before slaying the goddess. Although victorious, he is warned by a dying Persephone that his suffering will never end. Atlas, forced to hold the weight of the world on his shoulders for eternity, also warns Kratos that he will eventually regret helping the gods and that he and Atlas will meet again. Kratos then rides the Sun Chariot back to the mortal world and into the sky as Morpheus retreats.
In a post-credits scene, Kratos is still riding Helios' chariot back into the sky and after seeing the return of the Sun, Kratos loses consciousness from the exertion and plummets to the ground. At the last moment, Kratos is saved by Athena and Helios, and Athena tells Helios that "He will live."
## Development
Game developer Ready at Dawn pitched the idea of a God of War game for the PlayStation Portable to Santa Monica Studio soon after the original God of War launched. In February 2007, Ready at Dawn posted a teaser featuring "Coming Soon" in the God of War font. An editor from 1UP obtained an early copy of God of War II and posted the game's instruction manual, featuring a one-page teaser with "PSP" in the Omega symbol and stating "Coming 2007". On March 12, 2007, God of War II was launched at the Metreon: God of War II Game Director Cory Barlog officially confirmed the development of Chains of Olympus, stating "It is its own story that connects to the overall story. God of War, God of War II, and then if all the stars align God of War III will be the telling of a trilogy. This PSP story will be a further fleshing out." An initial trailer for Chains of Olympus was released on April 25, 2007, coinciding with the announcement of a demo on UMD—the optical disc medium for the PSP. The trailer is narrated by voice actress Linda Hunt.
God of War: Chains of Olympus uses a proprietary, in-house engine referred to as the Ready at Dawn engine, which expanded on the engine created for their previous game, Daxter (2006), to include a fluid and cloth simulator. The camera system was modified to cater to the fixed cinematic camera for God of War gameplay, and the lighting system was reworked to aid in presenting realistic graphics. The game was originally designed for the PlayStation Portable's restricted 222 megahertz (MHz) processor. Ready at Dawn repeatedly contacted Sony regarding increasing the clock speed of the PSP on account of the difference to the game and had developed a version of the game with higher speed. Sony released a firmware upgrade that allowed games to use the full 333 MHz processor. The faster processor allowed for more realistic blood effects, lighting effects, and shadows as well as improved enemy intelligence. The upgrade, however, noticeably decreased battery life. After the game's completion, Game Director Ru Weerasuriya stated multiplayer options and other puzzles, characters, and dialogue had to be removed due to time constraints.
### Audio
Two of the voice actors returned from the previous installments to reprise their roles, which were Terrence C. Carson and Linda Hunt, who voiced Kratos and the narrator respectively. Erin Torpey adopted the dual roles of Athena and Eos. Fred Tatasciore, who voiced different characters in previous installments, returned, and in this game, voiced both Atlas and the Persian King. Carole Ruggier and Michael Clarke Duncan did not return to reprise their roles, which were Athena and Atlas respectively. Voice actor Dwight Schultz voiced both Charon and Helios; Debi Derryberry voiced Calliope and continued this role in a later installment; and Marina Gordon provided the voice of Persephone. Brian Kimmet, Don Luce, and Andrew Wheeler provided the voices of several minor characters and Keythe Farley was the Voice Director.
The soundtrack was composed by Gerard K. Marino, but was never commercially released. After the release of the demo disc, Ready at Dawn offered pre-order customers a music track on disc titled "Battle of Attica". Composer Gerard Marino stated that it was the first cue written for the game, based on concept art and screenshots. Marino composed roughly thirteen minutes of music for the game and re-worked other music from the previous titles. Three tracks from the soundtrack are included as bonus tracks on the God of War: Ghost of Sparta soundtrack.
## Release
The demo disc, officially titled God of War: Chains of Olympus – Special Edition: Battle of Attica, was released on September 27, 2007. In the demo, Kratos battles Persian soldiers and a giant basilisk. The demo progresses through the city of Attica as Kratos chases the basilisk, culminating with Kratos fighting the Persian King. The disc also included a developer video and a lanyard in the shape of the Greek letter Omega. Following the demo's release, a downloadable version was made available through the PlayStation Store in North American and European regions. Due to the delay of the game, Ready at Dawn offered a "special edition" version of the demo to pre-order customers, with one Ready at Dawn developer stating that preparation of the special demo disc took up to 40% of the team's production time.
God of War: Chains of Olympus was originally scheduled to be released during the fourth quarter of 2007, but it was rescheduled and released on March 4, 2008, in North America, March 27 in Australia, March 28 in Europe, and July 10 in Japan, where it was published by Capcom. The game was a commercial success, debuting at No. 5 on the North American charts with 340,500 copies sold in the first month. The game was re-released in Europe on October 17, 2008, as part of Sony's Platinum Range and was also re-released in Japan and North America in April 2009 under Capcom's Best Price and Sony's Greatest Hits labels, respectively. It became available for download from the PlayStation Store on September 30, 2009, in North America, October 1 in Europe, and November 11, 2010, in Japan. Sony released a limited-edition bundle pack only in North America, on June 3, 2008. The pack included the game, a UMD of the 2007 film Superbad, a voucher for the PSP title Syphon Filter: Combat Ops, and a red edition of the console imprinted with an image of Kratos' face on the rear. As of June 2012, Chains of Olympus has sold more than 3.2 million copies worldwide.
Together with God of War: Ghost of Sparta, the game was released for the PlayStation 3 as part of the God of War: Origins Collection (called God of War Collection – Volume II in Europe) on September 13, 2011, in North America, September 16 in Europe, September 29 in Australia, and October 6 in Japan. The collection is a remastered port of both games to the PS3 hardware, with features including high-definition resolution, stereoscopic 3D, anti-aliased graphics locked at 60 frames per second, DualShock 3 vibration function, and PlayStation 3 Trophies. God of War: Origins Collection and full trials of its two games were also released for download on the PlayStation Store on September 13, 2011, in North America. By June 2012, the collection had sold 711,737 copies worldwide. On August 28, 2012, God of War Collection, God of War III, and Origins Collection were released as part of the God of War Saga under Sony's line of PlayStation Collections for the PlayStation 3 in North America.
## Reception
God of War: Chains of Olympus received "universal acclaim", according to review aggregator Metacritic, achieving the highest composite score for a PlayStation Portable title. The game was praised for its graphics and presentation. Matt Leone of 1UP claimed Chains of Olympus is "a technical showpiece for Sony, and arguably the best-looking game on the system." Robert Falcon of Modojo.com similarly praised the presentation, calling it "an absolute stunner, the pinnacle of PSP development". He also praised the visuals as "absolutely breathtaking," and that the "game moves beautifully throughout, with very little loss in detail or speed." However, G4's Jonathan Hunt said that it "occasionally suffers from screen tearing and framerate drops."
Several reviewers praised Ready at Dawn's solution for the controls and gameplay. Because the PlayStation 2 (PS2) controller has two analog sticks and the PSP only has one, GamePro stated "the lack of a second analog stick could have been problematic but it's not." Modojo.com similarly stated that despite the lack of a second analog stick, "Kratos handles superbly on the PSP" and that the weapon and magic attacks are "mapped out perfectly around the PSP's control set-up." IGN's Chris Roper even claimed the control scheme "works better than on the PS2." Roper further claimed that Ready at Dawn "has done a stellar job of keeping Kratos' move set intact," stating that "combat is extremely responsive." Matt Leone of 1UP similarly praised developers solution for the control scheme as well as the game's "fantastic" pacing. However, GamePro criticized the relative lack of variety in enemies. The puzzles were criticized, and G4 claimed that some "are so maddeningly difficult to solve", while GameSpot's Aaron Thomas noted the lack of puzzles, claiming that it "could have used more". GamePro also criticized the fact that "You still have to lug boxes around to solve environmental puzzles". Kristan Reed of Eurogamer also criticized Ready at Dawn for cutting some puzzles, as well as cutting co-op play, multiplayer, dialogue, and characters.
GameSpot and IGN criticized the short length and minimal boss fights, although GamePro stated that it has "the same epic feel" as the previous installments and claimed that if it was the only God of War title, "it would still stand on its own merits." Cheat Code Central claimed Chains of Olympus is "one of the best games ever made for the PSP." They claimed that it is "definitely a must-buy game for all current fans" and that it "has everything you've come to expect from God of War, just in a little disc and on a smaller screen." GameTrailers went on to praise the replay value for being able to "bring your powered-up methods of destruction with you."
### Awards and accolades
In IGN's Best of 2008 Awards, Chains of Olympus received the awards for "Best PSP Action Game", "Best Graphics Technology", and "Best Use of Sound". In GameSpot's Best Games of 2008, it received the "Readers' Choice Award". Diehard GameFAN awarded it "Best PSP Game" for 2008. At the 2008 Spike Video Game Awards, it was a nominee for "Best Handheld Game". It was Metacritic's 2008 "PSP Game of the Year". In September 2010, GamePro named God of War: Chains of Olympus the best PSP game.
|
1,423,769 |
Thomas C. Kinkaid
| 1,157,002,663 |
United States Navy admiral (1888–1972)
|
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Thomas Cassin Kinkaid (3 April 1888 – 17 November 1972) was an admiral in the United States Navy, known for his service during World War II. He built a reputation as a "fighting admiral" in the aircraft carrier battles of 1942 and commanded the Allied forces in the Aleutian Islands Campaign. He was Commander Allied Naval Forces and the Seventh Fleet under General of the Army Douglas MacArthur in the Southwest Pacific Area, where he conducted numerous amphibious operations, and commanded an Allied fleet during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle of World War II and the last naval battle between battleships in history.
Born into a naval family, Kinkaid was ranked in the lower half of his class on his graduation from the United States Naval Academy in June 1908. His early commissioned service was spent aboard battleships. In 1913, he began instruction in ordnance engineering and served in that field for many years. He saw action during the 1916 United States occupation of the Dominican Republic. During World War I, he was attached to the Royal Navy before serving as Gunnery Officer aboard the battleship USS Arizona. After the war, he was Assistant Chief of Staff to the Commander U.S. Naval Detachment in Turkey. Kinkaid received his first command, the destroyer USS Isherwood, in 1924. He was executive officer of the battleship USS Colorado when the 1933 Long Beach earthquake struck, and participated in relief efforts. He received his second command in 1937, the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis.
From 1938 to 1941, Kinkaid was a naval attaché in Italy and Yugoslavia. In the months prior to U.S. entry into World War II, he commanded a destroyer squadron. Promoted to rear admiral in 1941, he assumed command of a U.S. Pacific Fleet cruiser division. His cruisers defended the aircraft carrier USS Lexington during the Battle of the Coral Sea and USS Hornet during the Battle of Midway. After that battle, he took command of Task Force 16, a task force built around the carrier USS Enterprise, which he led during the long and difficult Solomon Islands campaign, participating in the Battles of the Eastern Solomons and the Santa Cruz Islands. Kinkaid was placed in charge of the North Pacific Force in January 1943 and commanded the operations that regained control of the Aleutian Islands. He was promoted to vice admiral in June 1943.
In November 1943, Kinkaid became Commander Allied Naval Forces South West Pacific Area, and Commander of the Seventh Fleet, directing U.S. and Royal Australian Navy forces supporting the New Guinea campaign. During the Battle of the Surigao Strait, he commanded the Allied ships in the last naval battle between battleships in history. Following the demise of Japanese naval power in the region, the Allied navies supported the campaigns in the Philippines and Borneo. Kinkaid was promoted to admiral on 3 April 1945. After the Pacific War ended in August 1945, the Seventh Fleet assisted in operations on the Korean and China coasts. Admiral Kinkaid was Commander Eastern Sea Frontier and the Sixteenth Fleet from 1946 until his retirement in May 1950. He was a member of the National Security Training Commission for much of the rest of the decade. He also served with the American Battle Monuments Commission for 15 years.
## Early life
Thomas Cassin Kinkaid was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on 3 April 1888, the second child and only son of Thomas Wright Kinkaid, a naval officer, and his wife Virginia Lee née Cassin. At the time, Thomas Wright Kinkaid was on leave from the U.S. Navy and employed at the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts. When Thomas was only a year old, his father was posted to USS Pinta, and the family moved to Sitka, Alaska, where a third child, Dorothy, was born in 1890. Over the next few years the family successively moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Norfolk, Virginia; Annapolis, Maryland and Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Thomas attended Western High School for three years before entering a U.S. Naval Academy preparatory school. He sought and secured an appointment to Annapolis from President Theodore Roosevelt, and was asked to take the admission examination. The Navy was undergoing a period of expansion, and the intake of midshipmen was double that of two years earlier. Of the 350 who took the examination, 283 were admitted. The class was the largest since the Academy had opened in 1845.
Kinkaid was admitted to Annapolis as a midshipman in July 1904. His instructors included four future Chiefs of Naval Operations: William S. Benson, William V. Pratt, William D. Leahy and Ernest J. King. In 1905 he took an instructional cruise on USS Nevada. He also spent six weeks on USS Hartford, his only experience of a warship under sail. In subsequent years, his training cruises were on USS Newark and USS Arkansas which, while much newer, were by this time also obsolete. He participated in sports, particularly in rowing, earning a seat in the Academy's eight-oar racing shell. He graduated on 5 June 1908, ranked 136th in his class of 201. One of his classmates was Richmond K. Turner.
## Early career
Kinkaid's first posting was to San Francisco where he joined the crew of the battleship USS Nebraska, part of the Great White Fleet. During the next year, he circumnavigated the globe with the fleet, visiting New Zealand and Australia. The fleet returned to its home port of Norfolk, Virginia in February 1909. In 1910, Kinkaid took his examinations for the rank of ensign but failed navigation. While his classmates were promoted in June 1910, Kinkaid remained a midshipman, pending the result of a makeup examination in December 1910. In July, he developed pleurisy and was hospitalized in New York, New York, before being sent to Annapolis to recuperate. At the time, his father was in charge of the Naval Engineering Experiment Station there, which allowed Kinkaid to stay with his parents while studying for his navigation examination. In October, he was posted to the battleship USS Minnesota whose skipper, Commander William Sims, an Annapolis classmate of his father's, encouraged Kinkaid's early interest in gunnery. Kinkaid passed his navigation examination on 7 December and was promoted to ensign on 14 February 1911, backdated to 6 June 1910. While still at Annapolis, Kinkaid met Helen Sherburne Ross (1892–1980), the daughter of a Philadelphia businessman. The two were married on 24 April 1911 in the Silver Chapel of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia in a ceremony attended by a small number of guests. Their marriage produced no children. They enjoyed playing contract bridge and golf, and Helen was the women's golf champion for the District of Columbia in 1921 and 1922.
In 1913, Kinkaid, now a lieutenant (junior grade), commenced a course in ordnance at the Naval Academy Postgraduate School. This consisted of four months of classroom instruction followed by tours with the leading naval ordnance manufacturers, and concluded with a tour of duty at the Indian Head Naval Proving Ground. Students had to commit to remain in the Navy for at least eight years. After completing the four months in the classroom at Annapolis, Kinkaid commenced a three-month assignment at Midvale Steel, but this was interrupted after two months by the United States occupation of Veracruz. Kinkaid was ordered to report to the gunboat USS Machias for duty in the Caribbean, during which the ship participated in the 1916 United States occupation of the Dominican Republic. Kinkaid came under fire for the first time when the ship was fired upon from ashore. Machias replied with its machine guns. When one jammed, Kinkaid exposed himself to fire to assist in clearing the weapon. He fired it in response to gunfire against the ship. Machias returned home in December, and in February Kinkaid resumed his ordnance studies and went to Bausch & Lomb in Rochester, New York, where he studied the manufacture of spotting and fire control systems. In March he reported to the Washington Navy Yard, where he wrote a pamphlet on fire control. He also created a design for a human torpedo, but the Bureau of Ordnance decided that his concept was unsound. He completed his ordnance studies with tours at Bethlehem Steel, the Indian Head Naval Proving Ground and the Sperry Gyroscope Company in Brooklyn.
In July 1916, Kinkaid reported to USS Pennsylvania, the navy's newest battleship, as a gunfire spotter. He was promoted to lieutenant in January 1917. In November 1917, seven months after the American entry into World War I, he was ordered to supervise the delivery of a newly developed 20 ft (6.1 m) rangefinder from the Norfolk Navy Yard to the Grand Fleet. On reaching London, Kinkaid reported to Sims, now a vice admiral, who then ordered Kinkaid to deliver secret documents to Admiral William S. Benson at a meeting with Allied naval leaders in Paris. Afterwards, Kinkaid returned to the United Kingdom and tested the rangefinder at HMS Excellent on Whale Island, Hampshire. He visited optical works in London, York and Glasgow to study the British Royal Navy's rangefinders, and the Grand Fleet at its anchorages. On returning to the United States in January 1918, he visited Sperry Gyroscope and Ford Instruments to consult with them on fire control systems. Promoted to lieutenant commander in February 1918, he was posted to Pennsylvania's sister ship, USS Arizona. In May 1919, Arizona was sent to cover the Greek occupation of Smyrna. For his services from September 1918 to July 1919, Kinkaid was recommended for the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, but it was not awarded.
## Between the wars
Following the normal pattern of alternating assignments afloat and ashore, Kinkaid was posted to a shore billet as the Chief of the Supply Section of the Bureau of Ordnance in Washington D.C. During this time he published two articles in the United States Naval Institute magazine Proceedings. The first, on the "Probability and Accuracy of Gun Fire", was a technical article arguing for more rather than bigger guns on battleships and cruisers. The Washington Naval Conference would prevent these ideas from being put into practice, by restricting the number and size of warships and their guns. The second, entitled "Naval Corps, Specialization and Efficiency", argued for increasing the specializations of line officers rather than creating separate corps of specialists, a more controversial topic at a time when naval aviators were agitating for the creation of a new specialist branch of their own.
In 1922, Kinkaid became Assistant Chief of Staff to the Commander U.S. Naval Detachment in Turkish Waters, Rear Admiral Mark L. Bristol. This tour saw the end of the Greek occupation of Smyrna. The ratification of the Treaty of Lausanne by Turkey resulted in a draw-down of U.S. naval forces in the region, reducing Bristol's post to a primarily diplomatic one. In 1924, Kinkaid, whose father had died in August 1920, requested a posting back to the United States owing to his mother's ill-health. The ship taking him back, the light cruiser USS Trenton, had to sail by way of Iran in order to collect the body of Vice Consul Robert Whitney Imbrie, who had been killed by an angry mob in Tehran.
Kinkaid received his first command, the destroyer USS Isherwood, on 11 November 1924. Since its home port was the Philadelphia Navy Yard and ships' captains did not have to spend their nights on board, Kinkaid was able to live with Helen at her parents' residence in Philadelphia. In July 1925, he was assigned to the Naval Gun Factory. He was promoted to commander in June 1926. For the next two years, he served as Fleet Gunnery Officer and Aide to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, Admiral Henry A. Wiley. In 1929 and 1930, Kinkaid attended the Naval War College. This was followed by duty on the Navy General Board. He was then seconded to the State Department as a Naval Advisor at the Geneva Disarmament Conference.
Kinkaid next became executive officer of USS Colorado, one of the navy's newest battleships, in February 1933. By coincidence the ship was at anchor in Long Beach, California, when the 1933 Long Beach earthquake struck. Over the next few days thousands of sailors and marines participated in relief activities. Kinkaid convinced the captain to allow homeless families of crew members to stay on the ship, and erected tarpaulins on the quayside to create family areas. He sent medical and relief supplies ashore from Colorado.
In 1934, he returned to Washington for a tour of duty with the Bureau of Navigation, in charge of the Officers' Detail Section. During this time, Kinkaid came up for promotion to captain. Classmates including Richmond K. Turner and Willis A. Lee were selected in January 1935, but Kinkaid was passed over for promotion. However, with the help of strong fitness reports from his superiors, Rear Admirals William D. Leahy and Adolphus Andrews, he was selected in January 1936 and, after passing the required physical and professional examinations, was promoted on 11 January 1937. Kinkaid was then given his second seagoing command, the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis. He assumed command from Captain Henry K. Hewitt on 7 June 1937.
## World War II
### Attaché
Kinkaid hoped his next assignment would be that of naval attaché to London, but that job went to Captain Alan G. Kirk. Kinkaid was offered and accepted the post in Rome instead. He took up his posting there in November 1938. In 1939, he was also accredited with the American embassy in Belgrade. Kinkaid reported that Italy was unprepared for war. Only in May 1940 did he warn that Italy was mobilizing. Soon after, he learned from Count Galeazzo Ciano that Italy would declare war on France and Britain between 10 and 15 June 1940. He provided accurate reports on the damage inflicted by the British in the Battle of Taranto. He returned to the U.S. in March 1941.
Kinkaid now faced the prospect of selection to rear admiral. He knew that captains normally required a certain amount of seagoing command experience to be considered, but because his tour of duty on Indianapolis had been cut short in order to take up the post in Rome, he did not have enough months, and it was unlikely that a billet as captain of a battleship or cruiser would come up in sufficient time before the next round of selections. He discussed the matter with head of the Officers' Detail Section at the Bureau of Navigation, Captain Arthur S. Carpender, an Annapolis classmate who had himself recently been selected for flag rank. Carpender came up with a solution: he recommended Kinkaid for command of a destroyer squadron. This was a seagoing command, although Kinkaid was somewhat senior for it. Good fitness reports as commander of Destroyer Squadron 8, based in Philadelphia, resulted in Kinkaid's promotion to rear admiral in August 1941, despite having no more than two years' worth of total command experience. He became the last of his class to be promoted to flag rank before the United States entered the war. No one ranking lower in the class was promoted to flag rank before retirement.
### Coral Sea and Midway
Kinkaid was ordered to relieve Rear Admiral Frank J. Fletcher as commander of Cruiser Division 6, consisting of the heavy cruisers USS Astoria, Minneapolis and San Francisco. This was part of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, based at Pearl Harbor. He did not reach his new command until after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which brought the U.S. into the war. When he reached Hawaii, Kinkaid stayed with his brother-in-law, the Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, who was married to Kinkaid's sister Dorothy. Kinkaid accompanied Fletcher as an observer during the attempt to relieve Wake Island, and did not formally assume command of the division until 29 December 1941.
The traditional job of cruisers was scouting and screening, but with the loss of most of the battleships at Pearl Harbor these roles largely passed to the aircraft carriers, while the cruisers' main mission became defending the carriers against air attack. Kinkaid's cruisers formed part of Rear Admiral Aubrey W. Fitch's Task Force 11, which was built around the carrier USS Lexington. Task Force 11 rendezvoused with Fletcher's Task Force 17, built around the carrier USS Yorktown, on 1 May 1942. Kinkaid then became commander of the Task Group 17.2, the screening cruisers and destroyers of both carriers. Carrier warfare was in its infancy, and at this stage American carriers neither embarked adequate numbers of fighters, nor skillfully employed what they had. When Task Force 17 was attacked three days later in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the burden of defending the Task Force fell on Kinkaid's gunners. Their task was complicated by the radical maneuvering of the carriers under attack, which made it impossible for the screen to keep station. Despite the gunners' best efforts, both carriers were hit, and Lexington caught fire and sank. For his part in the battle, Kinkaid was awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal.
Kinkaid was detached with the cruisers Astoria, Minneapolis and New Orleans, and four destroyers on 11 May 1942 and sailed for Nouméa, while Fletcher took the rest of Task Force 17 to Tongatapu. Kinkaid then headed north to join the Vice Admiral William F. Halsey's Task Force 16. Kinkaid's force became part of its screen which was under the command of Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance. Shortly after Task Force 16 returned to Pearl Harbor, Halsey was hospitalized with a severe case of dermatitis and, on his recommendation, was replaced as commander of Task Force 16 by Spruance. Kinkaid then became commander of the screen, also known as Task Group 16.2. He was one of only four American flag officers present during the subsequent Battle of Midway. However, he saw little action, as Task Force 16 did not come under attack.
### Solomon Islands
After the battle, Spruance became chief of staff to Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC) and Pacific Ocean Areas (CINCPOA). In Halsey's continued absence, Kinkaid became commander of Task Force 16, built around the carrier USS Enterprise, although he was not an aviator, and his experience with carriers had been restricted to commanding their screens at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway. In early July, Kinkaid was briefed by Nimitz about plans for a landing in the Solomon Islands, codenamed Operation Watchtower. For this operation, Kinkaid's Task Force 16 would be one of three carrier task forces under Fletcher's overall command. To protect his flagship, Enterprise, Kinkaid had the battleship USS North Carolina, heavy cruiser USS Portland, antiaircraft cruiser USS Atlanta, and five destroyers. The addition of the new battleship and its twenty 5 in (130 mm)/38 caliber dual-purpose guns greatly strengthened Task Force 16's antiaircraft defenses.
The American landing on Guadalcanal evoked a furious reaction from the Japanese, who sent their fleet to reinforce the Japanese garrison on Guadalcanal. Fletcher's carriers had the mission of protecting the sea lanes to the Solomons. The two carrier forces clashed in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Kinkaid disposed his carrier task force in a circular formation, with Enterprise at the center, the cruisers at 10 and 2 o'clock and the battleship aft at 6 o'clock. This proved to be a mistake. With a top speed of 27 kn (31 mph; 50 km/h), the battleship fell behind the carrier when the latter accelerated to 30 kn (35 mph; 56 km/h) while under attack, depriving itself of the protection of the battleship's guns. Enterprise came under direct attack by Japanese aircraft, taking three bomb hits that killed 74 of its crew. Extraordinary efforts permitted the carrier to continue operating aircraft, but it was forced to return to Pearl Harbor for repairs. In his report after the battle, Kinkaid recommended that the number of fighters carried by each carrier be further increased. For his part in the battle, he was awarded his second Distinguished Service Medal.
Task Force 16 returned to the South Pacific in October 1942, just in time to take part in the decisive action of the campaign, the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, when the Japanese Army and Navy made an all-out effort to recapture the airfield of Guadalcanal. In addition to Enterprise, Kinkaid's force included the battleship South Dakota, heavy cruiser Portland, anti-aircraft cruiser San Juan, and eight destroyers. Fortunately, both Enterprise and South Dakota had been fitted with the new Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft guns. In the three early carrier battles, Kinkaid had been a subordinate commander. This time, he was in overall command, in charge of Task Force 61, which included both his own Task Force 16 and Rear Admiral George D. Murray's Task Force 17, built around the aircraft carrier USS Hornet. The battle unfolded badly. Hornet was sunk, and Enterprise, South Dakota and San Juan were severely damaged. Aviators like Murray and John H. Towers blamed Kinkaid, as a non-aviator, for the loss of Hornet. It became a black mark on Kinkaid's record. The Japanese had won another tactical victory, but Kinkaid's carriers had gained the Americans precious time to prepare and reinforce.
### Aleutian Islands
On 4 January 1943, Kinkaid became Commander of the North Pacific Force (COMNORPACFOR) following the failure of his predecessor, Rear Admiral Robert A. Theobald, to work harmoniously with the U.S. Army. Command relationships in the North Pacific were complicated. Naval forces came under Fletcher's Northwestern Sea Frontier. The troops in Alaska, including Brigadier General William O. Butler's Eleventh Air Force, were commanded by Major General Simon B. Buckner, Jr., who was answerable to the head of the Western Defense Command, Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt. Kinkaid's command was responsible for coordinating these forces and retaking the Aleutian Islands captured by the Japanese. He found the Army eager to cooperate, but encountered more difficulty with Rear Admiral Francis W. Rockwell, the commander of the Amphibious Force, Pacific Fleet, and later the IX Amphibious Force. Rockwell was an Academy classmate of Kinkaid's, who was senior to him in rank, and convinced that he would both plan and command the amphibious phase of the operation rather than Kinkaid.
The War Department's original plan was to attack the main force on Kiska Island, but it took Kinkaid's suggestion to bypass Kiska in favor of an assault on the less heavily defended Attu Island. Kinkaid moved his headquarters to Adak to be with those of Buckner and Butler, and at Buckner's suggestion established a joint mess where their two staffs ate meals together. However, the amphibious planning was done in San Diego by Rockwell and his U.S. Marine Corps advisor, Brigadier General Holland M. Smith. The Battle of Attu was only the third American amphibious operation of the war, and was carried through to a costly success under difficult conditions. The slow rate of progress ashore caused Kinkaid to relieve the Army commander, Major General Albert E. Brown and replace him with Major General Eugene M. Landrum. In June 1943, Kinkaid was promoted to vice admiral, thereby removing any lingering doubts about who was in charge, and awarded his third Distinguished Service Medal. He now prepared Operation Cottage, the much larger invasion of Kiska. This was carried out as planned, but the invaders found that the Japanese had already evacuated the islands. In September 1943, Kinkaid was replaced by Vice Admiral Frank Fletcher.
### Southwest Pacific
In November 1943, Kinkaid replaced Carpender as Commander Allied Naval Forces, Southwest Pacific Area, and the Seventh Fleet, known as "MacArthur's Navy". General Douglas MacArthur had twice requested Carpender's relief, and Kinkaid's record working with the Army in Alaska made him a logical choice. Australian newspapers hailed the appointment of a "fighting admiral", but neither MacArthur nor the Australian government had been consulted about the appointment, which was made by the Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, Admiral Ernest King. This was a violation of the international agreement that had established the Southwest Pacific Area. The Navy Department then announced that the replacement of Carpender with Kinkaid was merely a proposal, and MacArthur and the Prime Minister of Australia, John Curtin, were asked if Kinkaid was acceptable. They agreed that he was. In his new role, Kinkaid had two masters. As commander of the Seventh Fleet, he was answerable to King, but as Commander Allied Naval Forces, Kinkaid was answerable to MacArthur. Operations were conducted on the basis of "mutual cooperation" rather than "unity of command", and relations between the Army and Navy were not good. Kinkaid was not the most senior naval officer in the theater, for the Royal Australian Navy's Admiral Sir Guy Royle and the Royal Netherlands Navy's Admiral Conrad Helfrich were both senior to him.
Despite the unpromising relationship with the army, Kinkaid's most troublesome subordinate was a U.S. Navy officer, as had been the case with Rockwell in the Aleutians. This time, the subordinate was Rear Admiral Ralph W. Christie, the commander of Task Force 71, the Seventh Fleet's submarines. Christie commonly greeted a returning submarine at the pier and awarded decorations on the spot. This practice bypassed military and naval award boards, and annoyed Kinkaid because confirmation of sinkings was accomplished by Ultra, and news of awards given so quickly could constitute a security breach. Kinkaid gave Christie and his other subordinates orders forbidding pierside awards, and the award of army medals to navy personnel. In June 1944, Christie accompanied a war patrol on Commander Samuel D. Dealey's submarine USS Harder. Afterward, Christie met with MacArthur and related the events of the war patrol to the general, who decided to award Dealey the Distinguished Service Cross and Christie the Silver Star. When Harder was lost with Dealey and all hands on its next patrol, Christie recommended Dealey for the Medal of Honor. Kinkaid turned down the recommendation on the grounds that Dealey had already received the Distinguished Service Cross for the same patrol. Angered, Christie sent a dispatch to Kinkaid in an easily decipherable low-order code that criticized him and urged him to reconsider. Upset by both Christie's attitude and his losses, which included Dealey and Kinkaid's nephew, Lieutenant Commander Manning Kimmel on USS Robalo in July 1944, Kinkaid requested Christie's relief. On 30 December 1944, Christie was replaced by Captain James Fife Jr.
Other forces under Kinkaid's command included the cruisers of Task Force 74 under Rear Admiral Victor Crutchley, Task Force 75 under Russell S. Berkey, and Task Force 76, the VII Amphibious Force, under Rear Admiral Daniel E. Barbey. The main role of the Seventh Fleet was supporting MacArthur's drive along the northern coast of New Guinea with a series of 38 amphibious operations, usually directed by Barbey. Kinkaid accompanied MacArthur for the landing in the Admiralty Islands, where the two men came ashore a few hours after the assault troops. With 215 vessels involved, Operations Reckless and Persecution in April 1944 together constituted the largest operation in New Guinea waters. It was followed in quick succession by four more operations, at Wakde, Biak, Noemfor and Sansapor.
For MacArthur's long-awaited return to the Philippines in October 1944, the Seventh Fleet was massively reinforced by Nimitz's Pacific Fleet. Kinkaid commanded the assault personally, with Barbey's VII Amphibious Force as Task Force 78, joined by Vice Admiral Theodore S. Wilkinson's III Amphibious Force from the Pacific Fleet as Task Force 79. Kinkaid was also given Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf's Task Force 77.2, a bombardment force built around six old battleships that had survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Rear Admiral Thomas L. Sprague's Task Force 77.4, a force of escort carriers. However, Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher's Task Force 38, the covering force of the fast carriers and battleships, remained part of Admiral Halsey's Third Fleet, which was not under MacArthur or Kinkaid's command.
Halsey's orders, which gave priority to the destruction of the Japanese fleet, led to the most controversial episode of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Four Japanese task forces converged on Kinkaid's forces in Leyte Gulf: a carrier task force under Vice Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa, from the north; a force under Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita through the Sibuyan Sea; and two task forces commanded by Vice Admirals Shōji Nishimura and Kiyohide Shima, which approached via the Surigao Strait. Carrier aircraft from Task Force 38 engaged Kurita in the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, and forced him to withdraw. In a controversial decision, Halsey concluded that Kurita was no longer a threat and headed north after Ozawa's force but, due to a misunderstanding, Kinkaid believed that Halsey was still guarding the San Bernardino Strait. Kinkaid deployed all available Seventh Fleet vessels in the Surigao Strait under Oldendorf facing Nishimura and Shima.
In the Battle of the Surigao Strait that night, Kinkaid engaged the Japanese with his PT boats and Oldendorf's destroyers, cruisers and battleships. Oldendorf was able to "cross the T" of the enemy fleet. It was the last occasion in history where battleships fought each other. Of Nishimura's two battleships and five lesser ships, only the destroyer Shigure survived; Kinkaid's PT force lost only PT-493, with 3 killed and 20 wounded. In Oldendorf's task force, only the destroyer Albert W. Grant was hit, mostly by friendly fire. Total Allied casualties were 39 men killed and 114 wounded.
However, the victory was marred when Kurita's force doubled back and engaged Sprague's escort carriers in the Battle off Samar the next day. Oldendorf's force headed back but Kurita withdrew after sinking an escort carrier, two destroyers and a destroyer escort. After the war, Halsey defended his actions in his memoirs. Kinkaid's position was that:
> Of course it would have been sound practice and better to have an overall commander of naval forces.... However, the Third Fleet and the Seventh Fleet each had an assigned mission which, if fulfilled, would have resulted in the destruction of the Japanese fleet then and there. The question of an overall commander at the scene of action would have been purely academic. Most surely Nimitz's orders to Halsey did not contemplate the withdrawal of covering forces at the height of battle. "Divided Command" is not the key to what happened at Leyte. "Mission" is the key.
Following the demise of Japanese naval power in the region, Kinkaid's Seventh Fleet supported the land campaigns in the Philippines and the Borneo. Kinkaid was promoted to admiral on 3 April 1945. After the Pacific War ended in August 1945, the Seventh Fleet assisted in landing troops in Korea and northern China to occupy these areas and repatriate Allied prisoners of war. Kinkaid elected not to land troops at Chefoo as originally instructed because the city was in the hands of the Communist Eighth Route Army; Qingdao was substituted instead. He was awarded the Legion of Merit by the theater commander in China, Lieutenant General Albert C. Wedemeyer, and the Grand Cordon of the Order of Precious Tripod by the Chinese government.
## Later life
Kinkaid returned to the United States to replace Vice Admiral Herbert F. Leary as Commander Eastern Sea Frontier and Commander Sixteenth Fleet, making his home in the historic Quarters A, Brooklyn Navy Yard. He served on a board chaired by Fleet Admiral Halsey which also included Admirals Spruance, Towers and Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher, whose task was to nominate 50 of the 215 serving rear admirals for early retirement. Kinkaid was soon facing this fate himself, when the House Armed Services Committee sought to reduce the number of four-star rank officers in 1947. Kinkaid was one of three admirals, the others being Spruance and Hewitt, who would have to retire or be reduced in rank to rear admiral. After some lobbying, this was averted, and they were permitted to remain in the grade until 1 July 1950, past Kinkaid's retirement age. Retirement ceremonies, including a parade through New York City, were held on 28 April 1950 and Kinkaid formally retired two days later.
In December 1946, it was announced that Halsey, Spruance and Turner had been awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal. A message soon arrived from MacArthur stating that he could not see why Kinkaid should not merit the same award, which had been recommended by Krueger during the war. The medal was duly presented by General Courtney Hodges in a ceremony on Governors Island on 10 April 1947. The Australian government chose to honor Kinkaid with an honorary Companion of the Order of the Bath, which was presented by the ambassador at a ceremony at the embassy in Washington on Australia Day, 26 January 1948. Kinkaid had already been created Grand Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in 1944. In March 1948, he was made a Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold and presented with the Croix de Guerre with Palm in a ceremony at the Belgian embassy in Washington, D.C.
He served as the naval representative with the National Security Training Commission from 1951 until it was abolished in 1957, and with the American Battle Monuments Commission for fifteen years, beginning in 1953. In this capacity, he attended the dedication of the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial, Brittany American Cemetery and Memorial, Rhone American Cemetery and Memorial, Manila American Cemetery and Memorial and the East Coast Memorial. He also paid a visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1951. Until 1961, he attended the annual reunions held to celebrate General MacArthur's birthday, 26 January, joining MacArthur and his old colleagues, including Krueger and Kenney. Kinkaid died at Bethesda Naval Hospital on 17 November 1972 and was buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery on 21 November. The Navy named a Spruance-class destroyer after him. USS Kinkaid was launched by his widow Helen at the Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Litton Industries at Pascagoula, Mississippi, on 1 June 1974.
|
5,219,137 |
Super Columbine Massacre RPG!
| 1,168,781,356 |
2005 role-playing video game
|
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"Cultural depictions of Friedrich Nietzsche",
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"Cultural depictions of John Lennon",
"Cultural depictions of Malcolm X",
"Cultural depictions of Richard Nixon",
"Cultural depictions of Ronald Reagan",
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"High school-themed video games",
"Indie games",
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"Video games about revenge",
"Video games about terrorism",
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"Video games set in 1999",
"Video games set in Colorado",
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"Windows games",
"Windows-only games",
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Super Columbine Massacre RPG! is a role-playing video game created by Danny Ledonne and released in April 2005. The game recreates the 1999 Columbine High School shootings in Columbine, Colorado. Players assume the roles of gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and act out the massacre, with flashbacks relating parts of Harris and Klebold's past experiences. The game begins on the day of the shootings and follows Harris and Klebold after their suicides to fictional adventures in perdition.
Ledonne had spent many years conceptualizing games, but never created one due to his lack of game design and programming knowledge. He was inspired to create a video game about Columbine by his own experience being bullied and the effect the shooting had on his life. The game represents a critique of how traditional media sensationalized the shooting, as well as parodying video games themselves. Super Columbine Massacre was created with ASCII's game development program RPG Maker 2000 and took approximately six months to complete. Ledonne initially published the game anonymously, releasing an artist's statement about the work after his identity was revealed. Super Columbine Massacre was released for free online and attracted little attention until 2006, when widespread media coverage fueled hundreds of thousands of downloads.
Reaction to Super Columbine Massacre was negative; the title was criticized as trivializing the actions of Harris and Klebold and the lives of the innocent. The game's cartoon presentation and the side-plot into hell were considered by critics as obscuring the game's message, but it received minor note as a game that transcended the stereotypical associations of the medium as entertainment for children. Super Columbine Massacre's themes and content led to it being included in discussions as to whether video games cause violence; the title was later listed as one of the possible motivating factors of the shooter after the 2006 Dawson College shooting. The game has been described as an art game, and Ledonne has become a spokesperson for video games as an art form, producing a documentary in 2008 called Playing Columbine about his game and its impact.
## Gameplay
Super Columbine Massacre RPG! is a role-playing video game. Players control the actions of teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold; the pair entered Colorado's Columbine High School on April 20, 1999 and killed 13 people before turning their guns on themselves in a library. Much of the game takes place in a third-person view, with players controlling Harris and Klebold from an overhead perspective. The graphics and characters are deliberately reminiscent of a 16-bit-era video game; while the content is violent, the violence is not graphically rendered.
When players engage in battle, the screen changes to a first-person view of the enemy; enemies are named by stereotypes or occupations, such as "Preppy girl", "Janitor", "Math teacher" and "Jock Type". Combat has two options: "auto play", where the game chooses the weapon to use, or "manual play", in which the player decides to use a hand-to-hand weapon, explosive, gun, or defensive maneuver against foes. Once a battle starts, it is impossible to avoid or escape; the player must kill the enemy or die themselves. Text narrates battle events and actions such as finding a bag or gaining a weapon.
As the game proceeds, flashbacks occur showing events in Harris and Klebold's who lives which may have caused them to commit murder; real life events are compressed into the game's timeframe for narrative purposes. Much of the plot is constructed around the events as they are believed to have occurred; lines of the gunmen's dialogue are often lifted verbatim from their writings or from their own home videos of each other. In contrast to the 16-bit graphics are digitized photographs from the shooting or full voice samples from news reports; photos of the school are used as backdrops during battle scenes.
## Plot
The game begins as Eric Harris' mother wakes him on April 20, 1999. Harris phones Dylan Klebold, and the pair meet in Harris' basement to plot a series of bombings that will precede their planned shooting. The two reminisce about the bullying they experienced at Columbine High and express rage at those they perceive to be their tormentors. Harris and Klebold make a video, apologizing to their parents, collect their weapons, and leave home.
At school, the pair plant timed propane bombs without being detected by security cameras or hall monitors. After the explosives are set, the two stop for a moment on a hill outside the school, discussing their alienation and hostility. After the bombs fail to explode as planned, Harris and Klebold decide to enter the school and murder as many people as they can; the final number killed is up to the player. After roaming around the school shooting innocents, Harris and Klebold commit suicide. A montage of clips showing Harris and Klebold's corpses, students comforting each other, and childhood photos of the gunmen plays.
The game's second half finds Klebold alone in Hell. After combating demons and monsters from the video game Doom, Klebold reunites with Harris, and they profess their enthusiasm for the opportunity to live out their favorite video game. The pair find themselves at the "Isle of Lost Souls", where they meet fictional characters such as Pikachu, Bart Simpson, Mega Man, Mario and personalities including J. Robert Oppenheimer, JonBenét Ramsey, Malcolm X, Ronald Reagan, and John Lennon. Next, they deliver a copy of Ecce Homo to Friedrich Nietzsche before fighting the South Park design of Satan. Upon their victory, Satan congratulates them for their deeds.
The game returns to Columbine High School, where a press conference addresses the murders. Some of the dialogue appears precisely as it was spoken after the actual event, while other lines caricature the political forces at work in the aftermath of the murders. The conference references gun control advocacy, religious fundamentalism, and the media's implication of Marilyn Manson and the video games they played as culpable in the shooting.
## Development
Super Columbine Massacre was created by Danny Ledonne of Alamosa, Colorado, then a student and independent filmmaker. As a high school student, the Columbine shootings resonated with Ledonne, who said that he himself had once been "a loner", "a misfit" and "a bullied kid" in high school like the shooters. "I was an easy target to be picked on, and that started in kindergarten", he said. "It was the kind of bullying that most kids who were bullied experienced [...] When you get pushed every day, and when you are ostracized not once, not twice, but years in and out, your perception of reality is distorted [...] These things really do warp your understanding and your perception of humanity in some almost irrevocable way", he said.
In 1999, director Stanley Kubrick's death and the Columbine High School massacre occurred within months of each other; Ledonne credited the two events with changing his life. After seeing A Clockwork Orange, Ledonne discovered that film could comment on culture; after the Columbine shootings, he realized he was headed down the same path as the shooters. "It was a bit scary, once I learned more about these boys, because it was like I was looking in the mirror and I didn't want the same fate for myself", Ledonne said. He began taking martial arts, studying film, and saw a therapist. By the time he graduated from Alamosa High School, Ledonne had a 4.0 grade point average and was voted "most likely to succeed" by his peers. He studied film at Emerson College and moved back to Colorado to form his own production company, Emberwild Productions, which mostly edits wedding videos.
In November 2004, Ledonne discovered a program called RPG Maker, which allows a developer to add images, text, story and objectives to design a game; RPG Maker creates the necessary programming automatically. Ledonne had always conceptualized video games throughout his childhood but never produced one due to his lack of technical knowledge; with RPG Maker he was able to fulfill his ambition. Ledonne decided to make a game that would explore why the Columbine shootings occurred, as well as refuting pervasive myths about the shooters and the alleged role video games played in the massacre.
The researching, planning, design and programming of the game took about six months and between 200 and 300 hours of work. All the footage and pictures in the game were taken from the internet. Final Fantasy VI influenced the sprite-based design. Many of the songs in the game are MIDI versions of 1990s grunge and alternative bands such as Radiohead, Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins. Ledonne paid meticulous attention to detail, including giving players access to the exact inventory the gunmen used on their rampage. He watched videos, read newspaper articles and pored over 11,000 pages of documents released by the county government regarding the massacre and the killers.
Ledonne added elements to the game to criticize subjects varying from public reaction to the disaster, to stereotypical role-playing game conventions. Every victory in battle displays the message "another victory for the Trenchcoat Mafia", in reference to the gang that Harris and Klebold were mistakenly affiliated with by the media. Ledonne added the hell segment and populated it with characters from the video game Doom, explaining that "[having the shooters] battle these monsters in an eternal recreation of their favorite videogame was a statement in and of itself." Super Columbine Massacre is the only video game Ledonne has created, and he has no future plans to create another.
### Release
The game was made available for download on April 20, 2005, the sixth anniversary of the Columbine massacre. Ledonne sought to remain anonymous at the game's debut to avoid any possible controversy, which he would later regret as it created the impression he had something to hide. Under the alias "Columbin", Ledonne regularly engaged gamers and critics alike on a message board he established to discuss the game's depiction of the shooting and the broader implications of the shooting. Ledonne's identity was revealed by Roger Kovacs, a friend of Rachel Scott, one of the Columbine victims. Kovacs learned of Ledonne's identity by donating to his website via PayPal; after his name and address were posted online, Ledonne stepped forward and was greeted with requests for interviews. "That's when I decided that I had to grow a backbone and stand up for my creation", Ledonne said.
The game is distributed as freeware, with donations in the amount of \$1 requested to defray bandwidth costs. Initially, the game attracted little attention, and was downloaded 10,000 times in its first year. In April 2006 Patrick Dugan of web site Gamasutra wrote about the game after meeting its host at Game Developers Conference. Impressed, Dugan sent an email to Georgia Institute of Technology professor Ian Bogost, who blogged about the game. Brian Crecente of gaming news site Kotaku and the Rocky Mountain News subsequently interviewed Bogost, and the Associated Press and mainstream media picked up the story. The increased visibility resulted in increased coverage, controversy, and downloads; in the first half of May 2006 the game was downloaded more than 30,000 times. Ledonne announced in September 2006 that the game was no longer available for download directly through its website (instead providing download links), as the title's popularity cost too much to sustain; in a single day in September, he reported 8,000 downloads. By March 2007, the game had been downloaded more than 400,000 times.
## Reception
Reception of Super Columbine Massacre has been negative amongst the mainstream media and those personally affected by the shootings. Upon revealing Columbine's identity as Ledonne, Kovacs said "One of the girls who died [in the shootings] was a friend of mine, Rachel. We were in the same church group. Anyone playing this game can kill Rachel over and over again." The father of one victim remarked to the press that the game "disgusts me. You trivialize the actions of two murderers and the lives of the innocent." One victim of the shooting played the game and voiced reserved support, remarking that "It probably sounds a bit odd for someone like me to say, but I appreciate the fact at least to some degree that something like this was made." While he took issue with what he saw as glamorization of the shooters, he also believed it would help open a dialogue about the shooting.
Super Columbine Massacre was largely condemned by the press. Betty Nguyen of CNN labeled the game as an example of a subculture that worships terrorists. Newspapers called the game "exploitive" and a "monstrosity". PC World declared the game \#2 on its list of "The 10 Worst Games of All Time." Even critics who were supportive of Ledonne's intent found the game hard to play; Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica said that he left the game "shaken", but that as an easily misunderstood game "the people who are most likely to gain anything from it will never play it." Crecente felt that the message of the game was obscured by the cartoon graphics of the medium. Ledonne has refused to alter the game as it represents his thoughts on the subject at a particular point in time, but has encouraged others to rework the game themselves.
The most positive reviews of Super Columbine Massacre came from critics who accepted Ledonne's intended message. Wired magazine writer Clive Thompson appreciated the game's attention to narrative detail, writing that "the upshot [of the game] is that Ledonne has done a surprisingly good job of painting the emotional landscape of [the gunmen]—whipsawing from self-pity to pompous grandiosity and blinding rage, then back again." Thompson called the game subtle, including jabs at the participants and gaming culture by using the language of games as a way to think about the killings. Writing for The Courier Mail, Paul Syvret's advice to those who found the game controversial and in bad taste was to "lighten up". Bogost summed up his review of the game by writing "this game is not fun, it is challenging, and difficult to play—not technically difficult, but conceptually difficult. We need more of that." David Kociemba, a professor at Emerson College, agreed with Bogost and commented that "the controversy should be that there aren't more games like Super Columbine Massacre RPG! that are as demanding and as artistically innovative." Dugan responded to common criticisms of the game, including that the game was made in bad taste, by writing a rebuttal on his blog:
> I think everyone who disses the Columbine RPG is gutless. Most haven't played the game, or have played it with such preconceptions that they're blinded to the genuis [sic], the honesty, the beauty of its social commentary. Super Columbine Massacre RPG is riddled with design flaws and has mediocre graphics by 1995, the maker of the game admits this, but it regardless is a work of art. It puts you in the mindset of the killers and provides a very clear suggestion of why they did what they did; they were enacting an ideological demonstration through a terrorist act, and the game shines light on this as an indictment of the American dream and way of life painfully close to the main nerve.
After the Dawson College shooting in September 2006, when gunman Kimveer Gill killed one student and injured 19 others, the Toronto Sun wrote that Gill had self-reported playing Columbine Massacre on a web site. The story was picked up by media and reported widely. Upon hearing media reports of a link to the game one of the shooting victims at Dawson College contacted Ledonne and told him that "I just suffered multiple gunshot wounds and I think you should take this game down." Ledonne expressed his reaction to the shooting and renewed media attention towards his game in an interview a week later:
> If one is interested in making something for the public to view—be it a painting, a book, an album, a film, or a video game, should the POSSIBLE harm that may come out of this work be grounds for its suppression from society? This is, in a sense, pre-crime. If you believe in what you're doing and you want to express yourself, the expression should be primary and any interpretations that come after must always remain of secondary importance to the creation of the work itself. On another level, the entire correlation between the Dawson College shooting and my game is unfounded. [...] What else did Kimveer like? Black clothes? Goth music? Pizza? [...] If anything, the Dawson College shooting is proof positive that games like [Super Columbine Massacre] should be made; until video games are no longer among the "usual suspects" for homicidal rampages, the public needs to more carefully consider why interactive electronic media is somehow the manufacturer of Manchurian Candidates.
Developer Ryan Lambourn created a flash game called V-Tech Rampage in 2007, which allows players to control the actions of gunman Seung-Hui Cho in the Virginia Tech massacre. Lambourn professed empathy for Cho, and said that he was a target of bullying in high school. "No one listens to you unless you've got something sensational to do. And that's why I feel sympathy for Cho Seung-Hui [sic]. He had to go that far", Lambourn stated. On the V-Tech Rampage site, Lambourn posted a statement that he would take the game off of Newgrounds if donations reached \$1000; at \$2000 in donations he would take the game down from the main site and for another \$1000 he would apologize for creating it. Ledonne posted a comment on Lambourn's website after V-Tech Rampage drew comparisons to Super Columbine Massacre, calling Lambourn's statement tantamount to a "hostage note", and asking bloggers to consider "not whether a game about the Virginia Tech shooting SHOULD be made but how we might go about making a game that accomplishes more than V-Tech Rampage does with the subject matter." Ledonne stated that he emailed Lambourn sympathetically, but that the creator responded to his emails with profanity; he reiterated that the two games had different motivations and were not easily comparable in content.
### Slamgate and legacy
In October 2006, Sam Roberts, the Guerilla Gamemaker Competition director of the Slamdance festival, emailed Ledonne encouraging him to submit the game to the contest. Ledonne looked at the selection of the game as one of the competition's finalists in December as evidence that "all forms of art can be valid tools for societal exploration (even painful topics like school shootings)". The event's organizer, Peter Baxter, announced the removal of the game from the festival's "Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition" after its selection as a finalist. Several reasons for the change of mind were given, including threatened sponsor withdrawal, possible lawsuits, and "moral grounds"; Baxter denied that sponsor pressure caused the drop, instead affirming that "the shootings are still a very touchy subject, and rightly so. We have to be sensitive to [victims and their families'] feelings." An additional consideration reported was that unnamed parties might sue for copyright violations in the game itself. The announcement marked the first time the festival had pulled jury-selected content from the contest; the incident was dubbed "Slamgate" by the gaming press.
Following the announcement, USC Interactive Media Division withdrew its sponsorship of the festival. Seven of the fourteen finalist games were removed from the contest by their developers in protest: Braid, flOw, Once Upon A Time, Toblo, Everyday Shooter, Book and Volume and Castle Crashers (Toblo was later reinstated by the DigiPen Institute of Technology, who owns the rights to the game). Developer Jonathan Blow of Braid stated: "[Super Columbine Massacre] lacks compassion, and I find the Artist's Statement disingenuous. But despite this, the game does have redeeming value. It does provoke important thoughts, and it does push the boundaries of what games are about. It is composed with more of an eye toward art than most games. Clearly, it belongs at the festival." Blow and the other developers sent an open letter to the festival, encouraging the reinstatement of the game as keeping with the festival's "trailblazing" efforts. Despite protests, Baxter refused to change his mind, citing consideration for the shooting's victims and their families. Ledonne told the other finalists that he planned to go to the festival anyway and distribute copies of the game. Acknowledging that the withdrawal of six finalists compromised the competition, Roberts let the attendees vote on whether any prizes would be awarded; they decided not to.
Brian Flemming, director of The God Who Wasn't There, saw Ledonne's demo of Super Columbine Massacre outside the festival, and convinced two fellow Slamdance film jurors to award the game a "Special Jury Prize" for Best Documentary, an unofficial award not endorsed by Slamdance itself. The jurors intended to present the special prize alongside the award for best documentary. Shortly before the ceremony, Baxter informed Flemming that he could not present the award due to "music clearance issues", and refused to allow it despite Flemming's protests. According to Ledonne, Flemming tried to hold his ground, but eventually gave in to Baxter's request.
Ledonne produced a documentary film based on his experiences after the release of Super Columbine Massacre. Titled Playing Columbine, the documentary uses the controversy surrounding the game to investigate the large issues facing video games as a medium for artistic expression. The film premiered at AFI Fest in Los Angeles, California on November 7, 2008.
As a result of the controversy of his game, Ledonne became an unwitting spokesman for the games industry, facing the medium's opponents in debates and forums. The furor resulting from Slamgate was called out by Ledonne and others in the media as a sign that video games had not yet outgrown the traditional stereotype of children's games. Keith Stuart of The Guardian wrote that despite being confused and tawdry, Super Columbine Massacre "symbolizes a growing understanding that videogames have more to say than 'shoot the enemies and pick up health.'" Authors Andreas Jahn-Sudmann and Ralf Stockmann consider controversial video games such as Super Columbine Massacre and the "Hot Coffee" mod of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas evidence of sociopolitical tensions present between gamers and older generations. The game and others like it continue to be at the center of the video games as art debate, and Gamasutra credited Super Columbine Massacre and Slamgate as having two highly positive and far-reaching effects; first, forcing print game journalism to focus on the issue; and second, the "evangelization of the notion that games can be as meaningful and important as other media, even if the example is offensive to the sensibilities of most Americans [...] To win is to lose, but to play is to experience an enrichment that cannot be scored."
## See also
- School Shooter: North American Tour 2012
- V-Tech Rampage
|
40,626,991 |
Yugoslav destroyer Zagreb
| 1,135,113,520 |
First warship built in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
|
[
"1938 ships",
"Beograd-class destroyers",
"Maritime incidents in April 1941",
"Scuttled vessels",
"Ships built in Yugoslavia",
"World War II destroyers of Yugoslavia"
] |
Zagreb was the second of three Beograd-class destroyers built for the Royal Yugoslav Navy (KM) in the late 1930s. She was designed to be deployed as part of a division led by the flotilla leader Dubrovnik and was the first warship built in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Zagreb entered service in August 1939, was armed with a main battery of four 120 mm (4.7 in) guns in single mounts, and had a top speed of 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph).
Yugoslavia entered World War II when the German-led Axis powers invaded in April 1941. On 17 April, Zagreb was scuttled by two of her officers at the Bay of Kotor to prevent her capture by approaching Italian forces. Both officers were killed by the explosion of the scuttling charges. A 1967 French film, Flammes sur l'Adriatique (Adriatic Sea of Fire), told the story of her demise and the deaths of the two officers. In 1973, on the thirtieth anniversary of the formation of the Yugoslav Navy, both men were posthumously awarded the Order of the People's Hero by President Josip Broz Tito.
## Background
In the early 1930s, the Royal Yugoslav Navy (Serbo-Croatian: Kraljevska mornarica; Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: Краљевска морнарица; КМ) pursued the flotilla leader concept, which involved building large destroyers similar to the World War I British Royal Navy V and W-class destroyers. In the interwar French Navy, flotilla leaders were intended to operate as half-flotillas of three ships, or with one flotilla leader operating alongside several smaller destroyers. The KM decided to build three such flotilla leaders, ships that could reach high speeds and would have long endurance. The endurance requirement reflected Yugoslav plans to deploy the ships to the central Mediterranean, where they would be able to cooperate with French and British warships. This resulted in the construction of the destroyer Dubrovnik in 1930–1931. Soon after she was ordered, the onset of the Great Depression and attendant economic pressures meant that only one ship of the planned half-flotilla was ever built. British diplomatic staff reported that although three large destroyers were not going to be built, the intent that Dubrovnik might operate with several smaller destroyers persisted. In 1934, the KM decided to acquire three smaller destroyers to operate in a division led by Dubrovnik.
## Description and construction
The Beograd class was developed from a French destroyer design, and the second ship of the class, Zagreb, was built by Jadranska brodogradilišta at Split, Yugoslavia, under French supervision. The shipyard she was constructed in was jointly owned by Yarrow and Chantiers de la Loire. The ship had an overall length of 98 m (321 ft 6 in), a beam of 9.45 m (31 ft), and a normal draught of 3.18 m (10 ft 5 in). Her standard displacement was 1,210 tonnes (1,190 long tons), and she displaced 1,655 tonnes (1,629 long tons) at full load. The crew consisted of 145 officers and enlisted men. The ship was powered by Parsons geared steam turbines driving two propellers, using steam generated by three Yarrow water-tube boilers. Her turbines were rated between 40,000–44,000 shaft horsepower (30,000–33,000 kW) and she was designed to reach a top speed of 38–39 knots (70–72 km/h; 44–45 mph), although she was only able to reach a practical top speed of 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph) in service. She carried 120 t (120 long tons) of fuel oil. Although data is not available for Zagreb, her sister ship Beograd had a range of 1,000 nautical miles (1,900 km; 1,200 mi).
Her main armament consisted of four Škoda 120 mm (4.7 in) L/46 superfiring guns in single mounts, two forward of the superstructure, and two aft, protected by gun shields. Her secondary armament consisted of four Škoda 40 mm (1.6 in) anti-aircraft guns in two twin mounts, located on either side of the aft shelter deck. She was also equipped with two triple mounts of 550 mm (22 in) torpedo tubes and two machine guns. Her fire-control system was provided by the Dutch firm Hazemeyer. As-built, she could also carry 30 naval mines.
She was laid down in 1936, and launched on 30 March 1938. Zagreb was the first warship to be built in Yugoslavia. Her launching ceremony was overseen by the wife of the Minister of Army and Navy and a public holiday was declared to mark the occasion. The destroyer was commissioned into the KM in August 1939.
## Career
At the time of the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, Zagreb and Beograd were allocated to the 1st Torpedo Division headquartered at the Bay of Kotor. From the outbreak of war on 6 April, there were Axis air attacks on the ships and shore installations in the Bay of Kotor, but despite near misses, Zagreb was not hit by any bombs. During the days following the invasion, Zagreb and other ships were moved to different locations within the bay and camouflaged. On 16 April, the ship's crew was informed of the imminent surrender of the Yugoslav armed forces and ordered not to resist the enemy any further. A large proportion of the crew left the ship upon receiving this news. The following day, with Italian forces closing on the Bay of Kotor, two junior officers, Milan Spasić and Sergej Mašera, forced the captain and remaining crew from the ship and set scuttling charges to prevent her capture. Both officers were killed in the explosions. Most of the ship sank, while the portions that remained on the surface burned over the following days. Spasić's remains washed ashore on 21 April and were given a full military funeral by Italian forces on 5 May. Mašera's severed head also washed up and was secretly buried by locals.
The destruction of Zagreb was portrayed in the 1967 French film Flammes sur l'Adriatique (Adriatic Sea of Fire), which was directed by Alexandre Astruc, and starred Gérard Barray. The film was partly filmed on location in Yugoslavia and was released in France in 1968. In 1973, on the thirtieth anniversary of the establishment of the Yugoslav Navy, the President of Yugoslavia and wartime Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito posthumously awarded both officers the Order of the People's Hero for their courage. In the mid-1980s, Mašera's head was disinterred and forensically identified, after which it was buried at a cemetery in Ljubljana (in modern-day Slovenia). A portion of Zagreb's bow is kept on display at the Maritime Museum of Montenegro in Kotor.
|
10,942,685 |
Red River Trails
| 1,159,344,119 |
Network of trails connecting the Red River Colony and Fort Garry in British North America
|
[
"Historic trails and roads in Manitoba",
"Historic trails and roads in Minnesota",
"Historic trails and roads in North Dakota",
"Historic trails and roads in South Dakota",
"National Register of Historic Places in Crow Wing County, Minnesota",
"National Register of Historic Places in Pennington County, Minnesota",
"National Register of Historic Places in Todd County, Minnesota",
"Red River Colony",
"Roads on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota"
] |
The Red River Trails were a network of ox cart routes connecting the Red River Colony (the "Selkirk Settlement") and Fort Garry in British North America with the head of navigation on the Mississippi River in the United States. These trade routes ran from the location of present-day Winnipeg in the Canadian province of Manitoba across the Canada–United States border, and thence by a variety of routes through what is now the eastern part of North Dakota and western and central Minnesota to Mendota and Saint Paul, Minnesota on the Mississippi.
Travellers began to use the trails by the 1820s, with the heaviest use from the 1840s to the early 1870s, when they were superseded by railways. Until then, these cartways provided the most efficient means of transportation between the isolated Red River Colony and the outside world. They gave the Selkirk colonists and their neighbours, the Métis people, an outlet for their furs and a source of supplies other than the Hudson's Bay Company, which was unable to enforce its monopoly in the face of the competition that used the trails.
Free traders, independent of the Hudson's Bay Company and outside its jurisdiction, developed extensive commerce with the United States, making Saint Paul the principal entrepôt and link to the outside world for the Selkirk Settlement. The trade, developed by and along the trails connecting Fort Garry with Saint Paul, stimulated commerce, contributed to the settlement of Minnesota and North Dakota in the United States, and accelerated the settlement of Canada to the west of the rugged barrier known as the Canadian Shield. For a time, this cross-border trade even threatened Canada's control of its western territories. The threat diminished after completion of transcontinental trade routes both north and south of the border, and the transportation corridor through which the trails once ran declined in importance. That corridor has now seen a resurgence of traffic, carried by more modern means of transport than the crude ox carts that once travelled the Red River Trails.
## Origins
In 1812, Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, started a colony of settlers in British North America where the Assiniboine River joins the Red River at the site of modern Winnipeg. Although fur posts were scattered throughout the Canadian northwest, and settlements of Métis fur traders and bison hunters were located in the vicinity of Selkirk's establishment, this colony was the only agricultural settlement between Upper Canada and the Pacific Ocean. Isolated by geology behind the rugged Canadian Shield and many hundreds of miles of wilderness, settlers and their Métis neighbours had access to outside markets and sources of supply only by two laborious water routes.
The first, maintained by the Hudson's Bay Company (in which Lord Selkirk was a principal investor), was a sea route from Great Britain to York Factory on Hudson Bay, then up a chain of rivers and lakes to the colony, 780 miles (1250 km) from salt water to the Assiniboine. The alternative was the historic route of the rival North West Company's voyageurs from Montreal through Lake Huron to Fort William on Lake Superior. Above Superior, this route followed rivers and lakes to Lac la Croix and west along the international border through Lake of the Woods to Rat Portage, and then down the Winnipeg River to the Red. The distance from the Selkirk settlement to Lake Superior at Fort William was about 500 miles (800 km), but Lake Superior was only the start of a lengthy journey to Montreal where furs and supplies would be transshipped to and from Europe.
Neither of these routes was suitable for heavy freight. Lighter cargoes were carried in York boats to Hudson Bay or in canoes on the border route. Both routes required navigation of large and hazardous lakes, shallow and rapid-strewn rivers, and swampy creeks and bogs, connected by numerous portages where both cargo and watercraft had to be carried on men's backs.
But geology also provided an alternate route, albeit across foreign territory. The valleys of the Red and Minnesota Rivers lay in the beds of Glacial Lake Agassiz and its prehistoric outlet Glacial River Warren; the lands exposed when these bodies of water receded were flat plains between low uplands covered by prairie grasslands. At the Traverse Gap, only a mile (1.6 km) of land separated the Bois des Sioux River, a source stream of the Red (which flowed north to Hudson Bay) and the Little Minnesota River, a source stream of the Minnesota River (tributary to the Mississippi, which flowed south to the Gulf of Mexico). The valley floors and uplands of the watercourses along this gently graded route provided a natural thoroughfare to the south. The eyes of the colonists therefore turned to the new United States, both as a source of supplies and an (illegal) outlet for their furs.
## Development of the routes
The rich fur areas along the upper Mississippi, Minnesota, Des Moines, and Missouri Rivers, occupied by Indigenous peoples, were exploited by independent fur traders operating from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin in the late eighteenth century. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, these traders established fur posts in the Minnesota River valley at Lake Traverse, Big Stone Lake, Lac qui Parle, and Traverse des Sioux. The large fur companies also built posts, including the North West Company's stations at Pembina and St. Joseph in the valley of the Red River. The paths between these posts became parts of the first of the Red River Trails.
In 1815, 1822, and 1823, cattle were herded to the Red River Colony from Missouri by a route up the Des Moines River Valley to the Minnesota River, across the divide, then down the Red River to the Selkirk settlement. In 1819, following a devastating plague of locusts which left the colonists with insufficient seed to plant a crop, an expedition was sent by snowshoe to purchase seed at Prairie du Chien. It returned by flatboat up the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers and down the Red River, arriving back at the settlement in the summer of 1820. In 1821, five dissatisfied settler families left the colony for Fort Snelling, the forerunners of later tides of migration up and down the valley between the two nations. Two years later in 1823, Major Stephen Harriman Long was the first official U.S. representative to reach Pembina; his expedition came by way of the Minnesota and Red Rivers. These early expeditions on the watersheds of these two streams were among the earliest known through trips on the route of the first Red River Trail.
### West Plains Trail
The West Plains Trail had originated with Native Americans, and before the ox cart traffic it connected the fur-trading posts of the Columbia Fur Company. In fact, that company introduced the Red River ox cart to haul its furs and goods. It also developed the trails, and by the early 1830s, an expedition from the Selkirk settlement driving a flock of sheep from Kentucky to the Assiniboine found the trail to be well-marked.
From the Red River Settlement, the trail went south upstream along the Red River's west bank to Pembina, just across the international border. Pembina had been a fur-trading post since the last decade of the eighteenth century. From there, some traffic continued south along the river, but most cart trains went west along the Pembina River to St. Joseph near the border and then south, or else cut the corner to the southwest in order to intercept the southbound trail from St. Joseph. This north-south trail paralleled the Red River about thirty miles (50 km) to the west. By staying on the uplands west of the Red River, this route avoided crossing the tributaries of that river near their confluences with the Red, and also kept out of the swampy, flood-prone, and mosquito-ridden bottomlands in the lakebed of Glacial Lake Agassiz which the river drained.[^1]
In what is now southeastern North Dakota, the trail veered to the south-southeast to close with the Red River at Georgetown, Fort Abercrombie, and Breckenridge, Minnesota, all of which came into existence in consequence of the passing cart traffic. From Breckenridge, the trail continued upstream along the east bank of the Red and Bois des Sioux Rivers to the continental divide at Lake Traverse. Some traffic went along the lakeshore through the Traverse Gap on the continental divide, then down either side of Big Stone Lake, source of the Minnesota River, while other carters took a short cut directly south from the Bois des Sioux across the open prairie through modern Graceville, Minnesota thereby avoiding the wet country in the Traverse Gap.
The trail continued on intertwined routes down both sides of the valley of the Minnesota River past fur posts at Lac qui Parle and downstream locations, and the Upper Sioux and Lower Sioux Indian Agencies and Fort Ridgely, all established in the 1850s. From Fort Ridgely, the trail struck across the open prairie to the Minnesota River at Traverse des Sioux near modern-day St. Peter, Minnesota, where the furs and goods were, at first, usually transshipped to flatboats. In later years, most cart trains crossed to the east bank and proceeded northeast along the wooded river bottoms and uplands to Fort Snelling or Mendota, where the Minnesota River joined the Mississippi. From there furs were shipped down the Mississippi River to Saint Louis and other markets.
Sporadic at first, trade between Fort Garry and the Mississippi became more regular in 1835, when a caravan of traders from the Red River came to Mendota. The efforts of the Hudson's Bay Company to enforce its monopoly only induced the fur traders to avoid the company's jurisdiction by moving across the border to the United States. These included Norman Kittson whose enormous fur-trading and shipping enterprise along the West Plains Trail started with one six-cart train in 1844. In later years, trains consisting of hundreds of ox carts were sent from Kittson's post at Pembina, just inside U.S. territory and safely outside the reach of the Hudson's Bay Company.
Inferior in terrain to other routes, the Woods Trail was superior in safety, as it was well within the lands of the Ojibwa. It was less well used during times of relative calm.
## Commerce
The trails were first used to obtain seed and supplies for the Selkirk colony. They soon became trade routes for local fur traders, and in the 1830s began to be heavily used by American fur traders operating just south of the international border. The Americans acquired furs from Métis fur traders in British North America who were evading the Hudson's Bay Company monopoly on trade within its chartered domain.
The settlement at Fort Garry was isolated and at the end of a 700-mile (1,100 km) water and land route from York Factory, which was served by only one or two ships each year. Orders from Britain had to be placed a year in advance. But from Saint Paul, the settlers could obtain staples and other goods in the span of a single summer. In the face of these relative inconveniences and the economy of shipping over the trails, the Hudson's Bay Company was unable to compel all trade to go by way of York Factory on Hudson Bay, and by 1850 the company's monopoly was broken. In fact, the company itself all but abandoned the York Factory route for heavy trade in 1857, and instead shipped its own traffic in bond through the United States and over the Red River Trails.
The principal export from the Red River settlements was fur, but as the colony passed from a subsistence economy to one producing more than could be consumed locally the agricultural surplus was also sent south by ox cart. The imports were more varied; originally they were seed, spices, and other staples, liquor, tools, implements, and hardware. In midcentury the buffalo herds declined, and traffic in furs began to be replaced by the produce and needs of settlers. As settlement developed the trails became a "common carrier" for all manner of goods that could be carried by ox cart, including lamps and coal oil to burn in them, fine cloth, books, general merchandise, champagne, sheet-metal stoves, disassembled farm machinery and at least one piano, and a printing press and other accoutrements for the first newspaper in the Fort Garry region.
## Life on the trail
The typical carters were Métis descended from French voyageurs of the fur trade and their Ojibway spouses. Their conveyance was the Red River ox cart, a simple vehicle derived either from the two-wheeled charrettes used in French Canada, or from Scottish carts. From 1801 on, this cart was modified so that it was made solely from local materials. It contained no iron at all. Instead it was constructed entirely of wood and animal hide. Two twelve-foot-long parallel oak shafts or "trams" bracketed the draft animal in front and formed the frame of the cart to the rear. Cross-pieces held the floorboards, while front, side and rear boards or rails enclosed the box. These wooden pieces were joined by mortices and tenons. The axle was also made of seasoned oak. It was lashed to the cart by strips of wet bison hide known by its Cree name of shaganappi, which shrank and tightened as they dried. The axles connected two spoked wheels, five or six feet in diameter, which were "dished" or in the form of a shallow cone, the apex of which was at the hubs, which were inboard of the rims. The carts were originally drawn by small horses obtained from the First Nations. After cattle were brought to the colony in the 1820s, oxen were used to haul the carts. They were preferred because of their strength, endurance, and cloven hooves which spread their weight in swampy areas.
The cart, constructed of native materials, could easily be repaired. A supply of shaganappi and wood was carried as a cart could break a half-dozen axles in a one-way trip. The axles were unlubricated, as grease would capture dust which would act as sandpaper and immobilize the cart. The resultant squeal sounded like an untuned violin, giving it the sobriquet of "the North West fiddle". One visitor wrote that "a den of wild beasts cannot be compared with its hideousness". The noise was audible for miles. The carts were completely unsprung, and only their flexible construction cushioned the shocks transmitted from the humps and hollows of the trail.
Southbound, the carts were loaded with fur, packed into the 90-pound (40 kg) bundles known in the fur trade as pièces. A cart could handle up to 800–1,000 pounds (360–450 kg). On their return the traders carried staples, trade goods, and manufactured goods unavailable at Fort Garry. In both directions, the cargo was covered with hide or canvas. The carts were lashed together in brigades of ten carts, with three drivers and an overseer. These brigades could join in trains up to two miles (three km) in length. Carts numbering in the low hundreds annually used the trails in the 1840s, many hundreds in the 1850s, and thousands in the late 1860s. These cart trains travelled about two miles (three km) an hour, and about twenty miles (thirty km) in a day.
After breaking camp in the morning, the carters set out across the prairie; transits of the unprotected open prairie between places of refuge were known as traverses''. Streams often had to be forded; where the water was too deep, the carts were unloaded, the wheels were taken off and lashed together or affixed under the cart, the assemblage was covered with hide to form a hull, and the makeshift craft was reloaded and floated across. The traders endeavoured to ford a stream at the end of the day rather than start the next day with the crossing, to allow time to dry out overnight.
Streamside camps offered wood, water, and some protection from the hazards of open land. The prairie could be dangerous in time of native unrest, and trade ceased entirely for a time during the Dakota War of 1862. Prairie fires, driven by winds, were a risk in dry spells. Wet weather turned rivers into torrents, approaches to streams into bogs, and worn paths into morasses. Blizzards could strand traders and threaten them with starvation. Insects harassed both the traders and their draft animals, depriving them of sleep and weakening them.
There were compensations. Game was plentiful and the traders rarely lacked fresh meat. Some saw in the seemingly boundless prairies a colourful ocean of grass, and summer storms could be awe-inspiring, although dangerous. While the prairie had its own grandeur, after weeks of travel over treeless steppe the rivers, lakes, and woods of central Minnesota were a welcome relief.
After six or so weeks on the trail, the brigades reached Saint Paul. There the carters camped on the bluff above the town growing on the riverfront. Not all was harmonious. To the locals, the swarthy-complected carters up on the hill had a "devil-may-care" aspect, with their "curious commingling of civilized garments and barbaric adornments". One trader from the north called his host city "a wretched little village" where "drinking whisky seems to occupy at least half the time of the worth[y] citizens", while the rest were "employed in cheating each other or imposing upon strangers. The economic benefits of trade, and the separation of the carters' camp from the village below, may have helped keep relations civil. After about three weeks of trading, the "wild" carters from the north, now laden with goods, took their leave of the "den of blackguards" that was Saint Paul, returning to what they felt was a more civilized world. Their erstwhile hosts, on the other hand, thought their visitors were returning to an uncivilized and frozen wilderness.
## End of the trails
At times, some ox cart trains did not go all the way through, but were supplemented by river craft. First flatboats and then shallow-draft steamboats ascended the Minnesota River to Traverse des Sioux and upstream points, where they were met by cart brigades travelling the West Plains Trail. In 1851, weekly steamboat service on the Mississippi began between Saint Anthony Falls and Sauk Rapids on the Middle and Woods trails. In 1859, steamboat machinery was carried overland to the Red River where a boat was built, but service was intermittent. The Dakota War of 1862 and the American Civil War delayed further improvements.
After the Civil War, the age of steam came to the region. After Ojibwe title to the Red River Valley had been extinguished on the United States side of the Canada–United States border by the Treaty of Old Crossing in 1863, steamboat service was revived on the Red River, and railways were built west from Saint Paul and Duluth, Minnesota on Lake Superior. A branch of the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad reached St. Cloud in 1866. Its mainline reached Willmar in 1869 and Benson, Minnesota the following year. Each end-of-track town in its turn became the terminus for many of the cart trains. In 1871, the railway reached the Red River at Breckenridge, where revived steamboat service carried the traffic the rest of way to Fort Garry. The long trains of carts drawn by oxen were replaced by railway trains powered by steam, and the trails reverted to nature.
A few traces of the vanished trails still exist. Some local roads follow their routes; depressions in the landscape show where thousands of carts once passed, and even after a century and a half of winters and springs freezing and thawing the land, there are still places where soils remain compacted and resistant to the plow. Some of these subtle artifacts are marked or are visible to those with discerning eyes, but in most places the trails have been obliterated. Their locations are noted at parks and wayside signs, and trail locations near Baxter, St. Hilaire, and West Union, Minnesota are recognised on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
## Significance
The Red River Trails are less well known today than many other pioneer trails and trade routes in North America, and do not occupy as large a place in folklore as the great western trails in the United States and the fur-trading canoe routes of Canada. They were neither fought over nor the locus of battles (with the exception of the Dakota War of 1862), and although hazardous at times, other trails presented greater dangers. It may be that this relative lack of attention is due to the fact they did not lead to annexation of any territory to either of the nations in which the trails were located.
The trails nevertheless were instrumental in the development of central North America. Traffic over the West Plains Trail sustained the Selkirk Settlement in its early years. The trails also gave settlers of that colony and their Métis neighbours a route for migration as well as a highway for trade that was not dependent on the Hudson's Bay Company. As usage grew, old fur trading posts became settlements and new communities were established along the cart routes. The trails pioneered by the fur brigades accelerated development of Minnesota and North Dakota, and facilitated settlement of the Canadian northwest.
The trails had profound political effects during a time of Anglo-American tension. Both Britain and the U.S. were concerned about each other's cross-border influences. Born out of commercial needs and located by the dictates of geography, the trails helped create and contribute to these international influences and the tensions which resulted. The United States sent military expeditions along the route of the trails to assert national interests in the face of the continued British presence in the northwestern fur posts on soil which the U.S. claimed. The Americans were also concerned about the establishment of Lord Selkirk's colony as well as British claims to the Red River Valley. Finally the U.S. wanted to curtail Britain's attempts to get access to the Mississippi, access implicit in the Treaty of Paris ending the American War of Independence, and which Britain sought into the nineteenth century. The United States' assertion of dominion over its new territories parried and reversed the British domination of the fur trade in the upper Mississippi valley, which had continued for decades after the Revolutionary War settlement which had assigned those territories to the new nation.
Later, the economic dependence of the Selkirk Settlement and the Canadian northwest on the Red River trade routes to U.S. markets came to pose a threat to British and Canadian control of their territory. At a time when a sense of Canadian nationality was tenuous in the northwest, that region relied on the Red River Trails and its successor steamboat and rail lines as an outlet for its products and a source of supplies. An active Manifest Destiny faction in Minnesota sought to exploit these commercial ties as a means of acquiring northwestern Canada for the United States. This pressure prompted Canada to take over the Hudson's Bay Company territory in return for monetary and land compensation. It contributed to Canadian Confederation and the establishment of Manitoba. It also led to the decision that there should be an all-Canada route for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Not until completion of that line in 1885 did Manitoba and the northwest finally have reliable and efficient access to eastern Canada by a route located entirely on Canadian soil.
Today, the international border is firmly established and peaceful; there is a greater sense of Canadian nationality, and fears of U.S. Manifest Destiny have all but disappeared. Canada and the U.S. have formalized their trading partnership with the North American Free Trade Agreement, leading to increased trade between the two nations. This trade now coursing up and down the valleys of the Red and Mississippi rivers more than fulfils Lord Selkirk's predictions made nearly two centuries ago; while he first sought access over U.S. territory for the succour of his nascent colony, now commerce in manufactures and commodities goes in both directions. The trade corridor once occupied by the long-gone Red River Trails continues to be employed for its historic purposes.
## See also
- Pembina Trail on the Canadian portion of the trails
- Carlton Trail
- History of Winnipeg
- Territorial era of Minnesota
[^1]: Hess, '' (1989), p. E–3; Gilman, Red River Trails (1979), p. 38.
|
30,972 |
Jupiter trojan
| 1,170,322,327 |
Asteroid sharing the orbit of Jupiter
|
[
"Jupiter trojans",
"Trojan minor planets"
] |
The Jupiter trojans, commonly called trojan asteroids or simply trojans, are a large group of asteroids that share the planet Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each trojan librates around one of Jupiter's stable Lagrange points: either ', existing 60° ahead of the planet in its orbit, or ', 60° behind. Jupiter trojans are distributed in two elongated, curved regions around these Lagrangian points with an average semi-major axis of about 5.2 AU.
The first Jupiter trojan discovered, 588 Achilles, was spotted in 1906 by German astronomer Max Wolf. More than 9,800 Jupiter trojans have been found as of May 2021. By convention, they are each named from Greek mythology after a figure of the Trojan War, hence the name "trojan". The total number of Jupiter trojans larger than 1 km in diameter is believed to be about 1 million, approximately equal to the number of asteroids larger than 1 km in the asteroid belt. Like main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans form families.
As of 2004, many Jupiter trojans showed to observational instruments as dark bodies with reddish, featureless spectra. No firm evidence of the presence of water, or any other specific compound on their surface has been obtained, but it is thought that they are coated in tholins, organic polymers formed by the Sun's radiation. The Jupiter trojans' densities (as measured by studying binaries or rotational lightcurves) vary from 0.8 to 2.5 g·cm<sup>−3</sup>. Jupiter trojans are thought to have been captured into their orbits during the early stages of the Solar System's formation or slightly later, during the migration of giant planets.
The term "Trojan Asteroid" specifically refers to the asteroids co-orbital with Jupiter, but the general term "trojan" is sometimes more generally applied to other small Solar System bodies with similar relationships to larger bodies: Mars trojans, Neptune trojans, Uranus trojans and Earth trojans are known to exist. The term "Trojan asteroid" is normally understood to specifically mean the Jupiter trojans because the first Trojans were discovered near Jupiter's orbit and Jupiter currently has by far the most known Trojans.
## Observational history
In 1772, Italian-born mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange, in studying the restricted three-body problem, predicted that a small body sharing an orbit with a planet but lying 60° ahead or behind it will be trapped near these points. The trapped body will librate slowly around the point of equilibrium in a tadpole or horseshoe orbit. These leading and trailing points are called the and Lagrange points. The first asteroids trapped in Lagrange points were observed more than a century after Lagrange's hypothesis. Those associated with Jupiter were the first to be discovered.
E. E. Barnard made the first recorded observation of a trojan, (identified as A904 RD at the time), in 1904, but neither he nor others appreciated its significance at the time. Barnard believed he had seen the recently discovered Saturnian satellite Phoebe, which was only two arc-minutes away in the sky at the time, or possibly an asteroid. The object's identity was not understood until its orbit was calculated in 1999.
The first accepted discovery of a trojan occurred in February 1906, when astronomer Max Wolf of Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory discovered an asteroid at the Lagrangian point of the Sun–Jupiter system, later named 588 Achilles. In 1906–1907 two more Jupiter trojans were found by fellow German astronomer August Kopff (624 Hektor and 617 Patroclus). Hektor, like Achilles, belonged to the swarm ("ahead" of the planet in its orbit), whereas Patroclus was the first asteroid known to reside at the Lagrangian point ("behind" the planet). By 1938, 11 Jupiter trojans had been detected. This number increased to 14 only in 1961. As instruments improved, the rate of discovery grew rapidly: by January 2000, a total of 257 had been discovered; by May 2003, the number had grown to 1,600. As of October 2018 there are 4,601 known Jupiter trojans at and 2,439 at .
## Nomenclature
The custom of naming all asteroids in Jupiter's and points after famous heroes of the Trojan War was suggested by Johann Palisa of Vienna, who was the first to accurately calculate their orbits.
Asteroids in the leading () orbit are named after Greek heroes (the "Greek node or camp" or "Achilles group"), and those at the trailing () orbit are named after the heroes of Troy (the "Trojan node or camp"). The asteroids 617 Patroclus and 624 Hektor were named before the Greece/Troy rule was devised, resulting in a "Greek spy", Patroclus, in the Trojan node and a "Trojan spy", Hector, in the Greek node.
## Numbers and mass
Estimates of the total number of Jupiter trojans are based on deep surveys of limited areas of the sky. The swarm is believed to hold between 160,000 and 240,000 asteroids with diameters larger than 2 km and about 600,000 with diameters larger than 1 km. If the swarm contains a comparable number of objects, there are more than 1 million Jupiter trojans 1 km in size or larger. For the objects brighter than absolute magnitude 9.0 the population is probably complete. These numbers are similar to that of comparable asteroids in the asteroid belt. The total mass of the Jupiter trojans is estimated at 0.0001 of the mass of Earth or one-fifth of the mass of the asteroid belt.
Two more recent studies indicate that the above numbers may overestimate the number of Jupiter trojans by several-fold. This overestimate is caused by (1) the assumption that all Jupiter trojans have a low albedo of about 0.04, whereas small bodies may have an average albedo as high as 0.12; (2) an incorrect assumption about the distribution of Jupiter trojans in the sky. According to the new estimates, the total number of Jupiter trojans with a diameter larger than 2 km is 6,300 ± 1,000 and 3,400 ± 500 in the L4 and L5 swarms, respectively. These numbers would be reduced by a factor of 2 if small Jupiter trojans are more reflective than large ones.
The number of Jupiter trojans observed in the swarm is slightly larger than that observed in . Because the brightest Jupiter trojans show little variation in numbers between the two populations, this disparity is probably due to observational bias. Some models indicate that the swarm may be slightly more stable than the swarm.
The largest Jupiter trojan is 624 Hektor, which has a mean diameter of 203 ± 3.6 km. There are few large Jupiter trojans in comparison to the overall population. With decreasing size, the number of Jupiter trojans grows very quickly down to 84 km, much more so than in the asteroid belt. A diameter of 84 km corresponds to an absolute magnitude of 9.5, assuming an albedo of 0.04. Within the 4.4–40 km range the Jupiter trojans' size distribution resembles that of the main-belt asteroids. Nothing is known about the masses of the smaller Jupiter trojans. The size distribution suggests that the smaller Trojans may be the products of collisions by larger Jupiter trojans.
## Orbits
Jupiter trojans have orbits with radii between 5.05 and 5.35 AU (the mean semi-major axis is 5.2 ± 0.15 AU), and are distributed throughout elongated, curved regions around the two Lagrangian points; each swarm stretches for about 26° along the orbit of Jupiter, amounting to a total distance of about 2.5 AU. The width of the swarms approximately equals two Hill's radii, which in the case of Jupiter amounts to about 0.6 AU. Many of Jupiter trojans have large orbital inclinations relative to Jupiter's orbital plane—up to 40°.
Jupiter trojans do not maintain a fixed separation from Jupiter. They slowly librate around their respective equilibrium points, periodically moving closer to Jupiter or farther from it. Jupiter trojans generally follow paths called tadpole orbits around the Lagrangian points; the average period of their libration is about 150 years. The amplitude of the libration (along the Jovian orbit) varies from 0.6° to 88°, with the average being about 33°. Simulations show that Jupiter trojans can follow even more complicated trajectories when moving from one Lagrangian point to another—these are called horseshoe orbits (currently no Jupiter Trojan with such an orbit is known, though one is known for Neptune).
### Dynamical families and binaries
Discerning dynamical families within the Jupiter trojan population is more difficult than it is in the asteroid belt, because the Jupiter trojans are locked within a far narrower range of possible positions. This means that clusters tend to overlap and merge with the overall swarm. By 2003 roughly a dozen dynamical families were identified. Jupiter-trojan families are much smaller in size than families in the asteroid belt; the largest identified family, the Menelaus group, consists of only eight members.
In 2001, 617 Patroclus was the first Jupiter trojan to be identified as a binary asteroid. The binary's orbit is extremely close, at 650 km, compared to 35,000 km for the primary's Hill sphere. The largest Jupiter trojan—624 Hektor— is probably a contact binary with a moonlet.
## Physical properties
Jupiter trojans are dark bodies of irregular shape. Their geometric albedos generally vary between 3 and 10%. The average value is 0.056 ± 0.003 for the objects larger than 57 km, and 0.121 ± 0.003 (R-band) for those smaller than 25 km. The asteroid 4709 Ennomos has the highest albedo (0.18) of all known Jupiter trojans. Little is known about the masses, chemical composition, rotation or other physical properties of the Jupiter trojans.
### Rotation
The rotational properties of Jupiter trojans are not well known. Analysis of the rotational light curves of 72 Jupiter trojans gave an average rotational period of about 11.2 hours, whereas the average period of the control sample of asteroids in the asteroid belt was 10.6 hours. The distribution of the rotational periods of Jupiter trojans appeared to be well approximated by a Maxwellian function, whereas the distribution for main-belt asteroids was found to be non-Maxwellian, with a deficit of periods in the range 8–10 hours. The Maxwellian distribution of the rotational periods of Jupiter trojans may indicate that they have undergone a stronger collisional evolution compared to the asteroid belt.
In 2008 a team from Calvin College examined the light curves of a debiased sample of ten Jupiter trojans, and found a median spin period of 18.9 hours. This value was significantly higher than that for main-belt asteroids of similar size (11.5 hours). The difference could mean that the Jupiter trojans possess a lower average density, which may imply that they formed in the Kuiper belt (see below).
### Composition
Spectroscopically, the Jupiter trojans mostly are D-type asteroids, which predominate in the outer regions of the asteroid belt. A small number are classified as P or C-type asteroids. Their spectra are red (meaning that they reflect more light at longer wavelengths) or neutral and featureless. No firm evidence of water, organics or other chemical compounds has been obtained as of 2007. 4709 Ennomos has an albedo slightly higher than the Jupiter-trojan average, which may indicate the presence of water ice. Some other Jupiter Trojans, such as 911 Agamemnon and 617 Patroclus, have shown very weak absorptions at 1.7 and 2.3 μm, which might indicate the presence of organics. The Jupiter trojans' spectra are similar to those of the irregular moons of Jupiter and, to a certain extent, comet nuclei, though Jupiter trojans are spectrally very different from the redder Kuiper belt objects. A Jupiter trojan's spectrum can be matched to a mixture of water ice, a large amount of carbon-rich material (charcoal), and possibly magnesium-rich silicates. The composition of the Jupiter trojan population appears to be markedly uniform, with little or no differentiation between the two swarms.
A team from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii announced in 2006 that it had measured the density of the binary Jupiter trojan 617 Patroclus as being less than that of water ice (0.8 g/cm<sup>3</sup>), suggesting that the pair, and possibly many other Trojan objects, more closely resemble comets or Kuiper belt objects in composition—water ice with a layer of dust—than they do the main-belt asteroids. Countering this argument, the density of Hektor as determined from its rotational lightcurve (2.480 g/cm<sup>3</sup>) is significantly higher than that of 617 Patroclus. Such a difference in densities suggests that density may not be a good indicator of asteroid origin.
## Origin and evolution
Two main theories have emerged to explain the formation and evolution of the Jupiter trojans. The first suggests that the Jupiter trojans formed in the same part of the Solar System as Jupiter and entered their orbits while it was forming. The last stage of Jupiter's formation involved runaway growth of its mass through the accretion of large amounts of hydrogen and helium from the protoplanetary disk; during this growth, which lasted for only about 10,000 years, the mass of Jupiter increased by a factor of ten. The planetesimals that had approximately the same orbits as Jupiter were caught by the increased gravity of the planet. The capture mechanism was very efficient—about 50% of all remaining planetesimals were trapped. This hypothesis has two major problems: the number of trapped bodies exceeds the observed population of Jupiter trojans by four orders of magnitude, and the present Jupiter trojan asteroids have larger orbital inclinations than are predicted by the capture model. Simulations of this scenario show that such a mode of formation also would inhibit the creation of similar trojans for Saturn, and this has been borne out by observation: to date no trojans have been found near Saturn. In a variation of this theory Jupiter captures trojans during its initial growth then migrates as it continues to grow. During Jupiter's migration the orbits of objects in horseshoe orbits are distorted causing the L4 side of these orbits to be over occupied. As a result, an excess of trojans is trapped on the L4 side when the horseshoe orbits shift to tadpole orbits as Jupiter grows. This model also leaves the Jupiter trojan population 3–4 orders of magnitude too large.
The second theory proposes that the Jupiter trojans were captured during the migration of the giant planets described in the Nice model. In the Nice model the orbits of the giant planets became unstable 500–600 million years after the Solar System's formation when Jupiter and Saturn crossed their 1:2 mean-motion resonance. Encounters between planets resulted in Uranus and Neptune being scattered outward into the primordial Kuiper belt, disrupting it and throwing millions of objects inward. When Jupiter and Saturn were near their 1:2 resonance the orbits of pre-existing Jupiter trojans became unstable during a secondary resonance with Jupiter and Saturn. This occurred when the period of the trojans' libration about their Lagrangian point had a 3:1 ratio to the period at which the position where Jupiter passes Saturn circulated relative to its perihelion. This process was also reversible allowing a fraction of the numerous objects scattered inward by Uranus and Neptune to enter this region and be captured as Jupiter's and Saturn's orbits separated. These new trojans had a wide range of inclinations, the result of multiple encounters with the giant planets before being captured. This process can also occur later when Jupiter and Saturn cross weaker resonances.
In a revised version of the Nice model Jupiter trojans are captured when Jupiter encounters an ice giant during the instability. In this version of the Nice model one of the ice giants (Uranus, Neptune, or a lost fifth planet) is scattered inward onto a Jupiter-crossing orbit and is scattered outward by Jupiter causing the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn to quickly separate. When Jupiter's semi-major axis jumps during these encounters existing Jupiter trojans can escape and new objects with semi-major axes similar to Jupiter's new semi-major axis are captured. Following its last encounter the ice giant can pass through one of the libration points and perturb their orbits leaving this libration point depleted relative to the other. After the encounters end some of these Jupiter trojans are lost and others captured when Jupiter and Saturn are near weak mean motion resonances such as the 3:7 resonance via the mechanism of the original Nice model.
The long-term future of the Jupiter trojans is open to question, because multiple weak resonances with Jupiter and Saturn cause them to behave chaotically over time. Collisional shattering slowly depletes the Jupiter trojan population as fragments are ejected. Ejected Jupiter trojans could become temporary satellites of Jupiter or Jupiter-family comets. Simulations show that the orbits of up to 17% of Jupiter trojans are unstable over the age of the Solar System. Levison et al. believe that roughly 200 ejected Jupiter trojans greater than 1 km in diameter might be travelling the Solar System, with a few possibly on Earth-crossing orbits. Some of the escaped Jupiter trojans may become Jupiter-family comets as they approach the Sun and their surface ice begins evaporating.
## Exploration
On 4 January 2017 NASA announced that Lucy was selected as one of their next two Discovery Program missions. Lucy is set to explore seven Jupiter trojans. It launched on October 16, 2021, and will arrive at the Trojan cloud in 2027 after two Earth gravity assists and a fly-by of a main-belt asteroid. It will then return to the vicinity of Earth for another gravity assist to take it to Jupiter's Trojan cloud where it will visit 617 Patroclus.
## See also
- Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9
- List of Jupiter trojans (Greek camp)
- List of Jupiter trojans (Trojan camp)
- List of Jupiter-crossing minor planets
- List of objects at Lagrangian points
|
669,691 |
Pather Panchali
| 1,162,946,495 |
1955 film by Satyajit Ray
|
[
"1950s Bengali-language films",
"1950s coming-of-age drama films",
"1955 directorial debut films",
"1955 drama films",
"1955 films",
"Bengali-language Indian films",
"Best Bengali Feature Film National Film Award winners",
"Best Feature Film National Film Award winners",
"Films about poverty in India",
"Films based on Indian novels",
"Films based on works by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay",
"Films directed by Satyajit Ray",
"Films scored by Ravi Shankar",
"Films set in India",
"Films with screenplays by Satyajit Ray",
"Indian black-and-white films",
"Indian coming-of-age drama films",
"Indian epic films"
] |
Pather Panchali ( transl. Song of the Little Road) is a 1955 Indian Bengali-language drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray and produced by the Government of West Bengal. It is an adaptation of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's 1929 Bengali novel of the same name, and marked Ray's directorial debut. Featuring Subir Banerjee, Kanu Banerjee, Karuna Banerjee, Uma Dasgupta, Pinaki Sengupta, Chunibala Devi and being the first film in The Apu Trilogy, Pather Panchali depicts the childhood travails of the protagonist Apu and his elder sister Durga amidst the harsh village life of their poor family.
Production was interrupted because of funding problems and it took nearly three years for the film to be completed. The film was shot mainly on location, had a limited budget, featured mostly amateur actors, and was made by an inexperienced crew. The sitar player Ravi Shankar composed the film's soundtrack and score using classical Indian ragas. Subrata Mitra was in charge of the cinematography while editing was handled by Dulal Dutta. Following its premiere on 3 May 1955 during an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art, Pather Panchali was released in Calcutta later the same year to an enthusiastic reception. It was a hit at the box-office, yet up until early 1980 had earned a profit of only ₹24 lakh. A special screening was attended by the Chief Minister of West Bengal and the Prime Minister of India. Critics have praised its realism, humanity, and soul-stirring qualities, while others have called its slow pace a drawback, and some have condemned it for romanticising poverty. Scholars have commented on the film's lyrical quality and realism (influenced by Italian neorealism), its portrayal of the poverty and small delights of daily life, and the use of what the author Darius Cooper has termed the "epiphany of wonder", among other themes.
The tale of Apu's life is continued in the two subsequent installments of Ray's trilogy: Aparajito (The Unvanquished, 1956) and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959). Pather Panchali is described as a turning point in Indian cinema, as it was among the films that pioneered the Parallel cinema movement, which espoused authenticity and social realism. The first film from independent India to attract major international critical attention, it won India's National Film Award for Best Feature Film in 1955, the Best Human Document award at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival, and several other awards, establishing Ray as one of the country's most distinguished filmmakers. It is often featured in lists of the greatest films ever made.
## Plot
In 1910s Nischindipur, rural Bengal, Harihar Roy earns a meagre living as a pujari (priest) but dreams of a better career as a poet and playwright. His wife Sarbajaya cares for their children, Durga and Apu, and Harihar's elderly cousin, Indir Thakrun. Because of their limited resources, Sarbajaya resents having to share her home with the old Indir, who often steals food from their already bare kitchen. Durga is fond of Indir and often gives her fruit stolen from a wealthy neighbour's orchard. One day, the neighbour's wife accuses Durga of stealing a bead necklace (which Durga denies) and blames Sarbajaya for encouraging her tendency to steal.
As the elder sibling, Durga cares for Apu with motherly affection but spares no opportunity to tease him. Together, they share life's simple joys: sitting quietly under a tree, viewing pictures in a travelling vendor's bioscope, running after the candy man who passes through, and watching a jatra (folk theatre) performed by an acting troupe. Every evening, they are delighted by the sound of a distant train's whistle.
Sarbajaya's grows increasingly resentful of Indir and becomes more openly hostile, which causes Indir to take temporary refuge in the home of another relative. One day, while Durga and Apu run to catch a glimpse of the train, Indir—who is feeling unwell—goes back home, and the children find she has passed away upon their return.
With prospects drying up in the village, Harihar travels to the city to seek a better job. He promises that he will return with money to repair their dilapidated house, but is gone longer than expected. During his absence, the family sinks deeper into poverty, and Sarbajaya grows increasingly desperate and anxious. One day during the monsoon season, Durga plays in the downpour, catches a cold and develops a high fever. Her condition worsens as a thunderstorm batters the crumbling house with rain and wind, and she dies the next morning.
Harihar returns home and starts to show Sarbajaya the merchandise he has brought from the city. A silent Sarbajaya breaks down at her husband's feet, and Harihar cries out in grief as he discovers that Durga has died. The family decide to leave their ancestral home for Benaras. As they pack, Apu finds the necklace Durga had earlier denied stealing; he throws it into a pond. Apu and his parents leave the village on an ox-cart, while a snake is seen slithering into their, now barren, house.
## Cast
## Production
### Novel and title
Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay's novel Pather Panchali is a classic bildungsroman (a type of coming-of-age story) in the canon of Bengali literature. It first appeared as a serial in a Calcutta periodical in 1928, and was published as a book the next year. The novel depicts a poor family's struggle to survive in their rural ancestral home and the growing up of Apu, the son of the family. The later part of the novel, where Apu and his parents leave their village and settle in Benaras, formed the basis of Aparajito (The Unvanquished, 1956), the second film of the Apu trilogy.
Satyajit Ray (2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992), working as a graphic designer for Signet Press, created the illustrations for an abridged edition of the book in 1944. At that time, Ray read the unabridged novel; Signet's owner D. K. Gupta told Ray that the abridged version would make a great film. The idea appealed to Ray, and around 1946–47, when he considered making a film, he turned to Pather Panchali because of certain qualities that "made it a great book: its humanism, its lyricism, and its ring of truth". The author's widow permitted Ray to make a film based on the novel; the agreement was in principle only, and no financial arrangement was made.
The Bengali word path literally means path, and pather means "of the path". Panchali is a type of narrative folk song that used to be performed in Bengal and was the forerunner of another type of folk performance, the jatra. English translations of the Bengali title include Song of the Little Road, The Lament of the Path, Song of the Road, and Song of the Open Road.
### Script
Pather Panchali did not have a script; it was made from Ray's drawings and notes. Ray completed the first draft of the notes during his sea voyage to and from London in 1950. Before principal photography began, he created a storyboard dealing with details and continuity. Years later, he donated those drawings and notes to Cinémathèque Française.
In Apur Panchali (the Bengali translation of My Years with Apu: A Memoir, 1994), Ray wrote that he had omitted many of the novel's characters and that he had rearranged some of its sequences to make the narrative better as cinema. Changes include Indir's death, which occurs early in the novel at a village shrine in the presence of adults, while in the film Apu and Durga find her corpse in the open. The scene of Apu and Durga running to catch a glimpse of the train is not in the novel, in which neither child sees the train, although they try. Durga's fatal fever is attributed to a monsoon downpour in the film, but is unexplained in the novel. The ending of the film—the family's departure from the village—is not the end of the novel.
Ray tried to extract a simple theme from the random sequences of significant and trivial episodes of the Pather Panchali novel, while preserving what W. Andrew Robinson describes as the "loitering impression" it creates. According to Ray, "the script had to retain some of the rambling quality of the novel because that in itself contained a clue to the feel of authenticity: life in a poor Bengali village does ramble". For Robinson, Ray's adaptation focuses mainly on Apu and his family, while Bandopadhyay's original featured greater detail about village life in general.
### Casting
Kanu Banerjee (who plays Harihar) was an established Bengali film actor. Karuna Banerjee (Sarbajaya) was an amateur actress from the Indian People's Theatre Association, and the wife of Ray's friend. Uma Dasgupta, who successfully auditioned for the part of Durga, also had prior theatre experience.
For the role of Apu, Ray advertised in newspapers for boys of ages five to seven. None of the candidates who auditioned fulfilled Ray's expectations, but his wife spotted a boy in their neighbourhood, and this boy, Subir Banerjee, was cast as Apu. The surname of three of the main actors and two supporting actors happened to be Banerjee, but they were not related to each other. The hardest role to fill was the wizened old Indir. Ray eventually found Chunibala Devi, a retired stage actress living in one of Calcutta's red-light districts, as the ideal candidate. Several minor roles were played by the villagers of Boral, where Pather Panchali was filmed.
### Filming
Shooting started on 27 October 1952. Boral, a village near Calcutta, was selected in early 1953 as the main location for principal photography, and night scenes were shot in-studio. The technical team included several first-timers, including Ray himself and cinematographer Subrata Mitra, who had never operated a film camera. Art director Bansi Chandragupta had professional experience, having worked with Jean Renoir on The River (1951). Both Mitra and Chandragupta went on to establish themselves as respected professionals.
Mitra had met Ray on the set of The River, where Mitra was allowed to observe the production, take photographs and make notes about lighting for personal reference. Having become friends, Mitra kept Ray informed about the production and showed his photographs. Ray was impressed enough by them to promise him an assistant's position on Pather Panchali, and when production neared, invited him to shoot the film. As the 21-year-old Mitra had no prior filmmaking experience, the choice was met with scepticism by those who knew of the production. Mitra himself later speculated that Ray was nervous about working with an established crew.
Funding was a problem from the outset. No producer was willing to finance the film, as it lacked stars, songs and action scenes. On learning of Ray's plan, one producer, Mr Bhattacharya of Kalpana Movies, contacted author Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's widow to request the filming rights and get the film made by Debaki Bose, a well-established director. The widow declined as she had already permitted Ray to make the film. The estimated budget for the production was ₹70,000 (about US\$14,613 in 1955). One producer, Rana Dutta, gave money to continue shooting, but had to stop after some of his films flopped.
Ray thus had to borrow money to shoot enough footage to persuade prospective producers to finance the whole film. To raise funds, he continued to work as a graphic designer, pawned his life insurance policy and sold his collection of gramophone records. Production manager Anil Chowdhury convinced Ray's wife, Bijoya, to pawn her jewels. Ray still ran out of money partway through filming, which had to be suspended for nearly a year. Thereafter shooting was done only in intermittent bursts. Ray later admitted that the delays had made him tense and that three miracles saved the film: "One, Apu's voice did not break. Two, Durga did not grow up. Three, Indir Thakrun did not die".
Bidhan Chandra Roy, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, was requested by an influential friend of Ray's mother to help the production. The Chief Minister obliged, and government officials saw the footage. The Home Publicity Department of the West Bengal government assessed the cost of backing the film and sanctioned a loan, given in installments, allowing Ray to finish production. The government misunderstood the nature of the film, believing it to be a documentary for rural uplift, and recorded the loan as being for "roads improvement", a reference to the film's title.
Monroe Wheeler, head of the department of exhibitions and publications at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), who was in Calcutta in 1954, heard about the project and met Ray. He considered the incomplete footage to be of very high quality and encouraged Ray to finish the film so that it could be shown at a MoMA exhibition the following year. Six months later, American director John Huston visited India for some early location scouting for The Man Who Would Be King (eventually made in 1975). Wheeler had asked Huston to check the progress of Ray's project. Huston saw excerpts of the unfinished film and recognised "the work of a great film-maker". Because of Huston's positive feedback, MoMA helped Ray with additional money.
Including the delays and hiatuses in production, it took three years to complete the shooting of Pather Panchali.
## Influences
The realist narrative style of Pather Panchali was influenced by Italian neorealism and the works of French director Jean Renoir. In 1949 Renoir came to Calcutta to shoot his film The River (1951). Ray, a founding member of the Calcutta Film Society (established in 1947), helped him scout for locations in the countryside. When Ray told him about his longstanding wish to film Pather Panchali, Renoir encouraged him to proceed. In 1950 Ray was sent to London by his employer, the advertising agency D.J. Keymer, to work at their headquarters. During his six months in London, he watched about 100 films. Among these, Vittorio De Sica's neorealist film Bicycle Thieves (1948) had a profound impact on him. In a 1982 lecture, Ray said that he had come out of the theatre determined to become a filmmaker. The film made him believe that it was possible to make realistic cinema that was shot on location with an amateur cast.
The international success of Akira Kurosawa's Japanese film Rashomon (1950) and Bimal Roy's 1953 Hindi film Do Bigha Zamin (which was shot partly on location and was about a peasant family) led Ray to believe that Pather Panchali would find an international audience. Ray also had more indigenous influences, such as Bengali literature and the native Indian theatrical tradition, particularly the rasa theory of classical Sanskrit drama. Darius Cooper describes the complicated doctrine of rasa as "center[ed] predominantly on feelings experienced not only by the characters but also conveyed in a certain artistic way to the spectator".
## Soundtrack
The soundtrack of the film was composed by the sitar player Ravi Shankar, who was at an early stage of his career, having debuted in 1939. The background scores feature pieces based on several ragas of Indian classical music, played mostly on the sitar. The soundtrack, described in a 1995 issue of The Village Voice as "at once plaintive and exhilarating", is featured in The Guardian's 2007 list of 50 greatest film soundtracks. It has also been cited as an influence on The Beatles, specifically George Harrison.
Shankar saw about half the film in a roughly edited version before composing the background score, but he was already familiar with the story. According to Robinson, when Ray met Shankar the latter hummed a tune that was folk-based but had "a certain sophistication". This tune, usually played on a bamboo flute, became the main theme for the film. The majority of the score was composed within the duration of a single night, in a session that lasted for about eleven hours. Shankar also composed two solo sitar pieces—one based on the raga Desh (traditionally associated with rain), and one sombre piece based on the raga Todi. He created a piece based on the raga Patdeep, played on the tar shehnai, by Dakshina Mohan Tagore to accompany the scene in which Harihar learns of Durga's death. The film's cinematographer, Subrata Mitra, performed on the sitar for parts of the soundtrack.
## Release and reception
Ray and his crew worked long hours on post-production, managing to submit it just in time for Museum of Modern Art's Textiles and Ornamental Arts of India exhibition of May 1955. The film, billed as The Story of Apu and Durga, lacked subtitles. It was one of a series of six evening performances at MoMA, including the US debut of sarod player Ali Akbar Khan and the classical dancer Shanta Rao. Pather Panchali's MoMA opening on 3 May was well received. A film still of Apu having his hair brushed by his sister Durga and mother Sarbojaya was featured in The Family of Man, a 1955 MoMA exhibition.
Pather Panchali had its domestic premiere at the annual meeting of the Advertising Club of Calcutta; the response there was not positive, and Ray felt "extremely discouraged". Before its theatrical release in Calcutta, Ray designed large posters, including a neon sign showing Apu and Durga running, which was strategically placed in a busy location in the city. Pather Panchali was released in Basusree, a Calcutta cinema on 26 August 1955 and received a poor initial response. The screenings started filling up within a week or two, buoyed by word of mouth. It opened again at another cinema, where it ran for seven weeks. A delay in subtitling led to the postponement of the UK release until December 1957. It went on to achieve great success in the US in 1958, running for eight months at the Fifth Avenue Playhouse in New York. It was a record run for the Fifth Avenue cinema. The Bengali government earned a profit of \$50,000 from its initial US release, and decades later the film grossed \$402,723 from its 2015 limited release. The film reportedly grossed an estimated total of ₹100 million (\$million) at the worldwide box office, as of 2017.
In India the film's reception was enthusiastic. The Times of India wrote: "It is absurd to compare it with any other Indian cinema... Pather Panchali is pure cinema". Chief Minister Roy arranged a special screening in Calcutta for Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who came out of the theatre impressed. Despite opposition from some within the governments of West Bengal and India because of its depiction of poverty, Pather Panchali was sent to the 1956 Cannes Film Festival with Nehru's personal approval. It was screened towards the end of the festival, coinciding with a party given by the Japanese delegation, and only a small number of critics attended. Although some were initially unenthusiastic at the prospect of yet another Indian melodrama, the film critic Arturo Lanocita found "the magic horse of poetry... invading the screen". Pather Panchali was subsequently named Best Human Document at the festival.
Lindsay Anderson commented after the Cannes screening that Pather Panchali had "the quality of ultimate unforgettable experience". In subsequent years, critics have given positive reviews. A 1958 review in Time described Pather Panchali as "perhaps the finest piece of filmed folklore since Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North". In her 1982 book 5001 Nights at the Movies, Pauline Kael wrote: "Beautiful, sometimes funny, and full of love, it brought a new vision of India to the screen". Basil Wright considered it "a new and incontrovertible work of art". James Berardinelli wrote in 1996 that the film "touches the souls and minds of viewers, transcending cultural and linguistic barriers". In 2006 Philip French of The Observer called it "one of the greatest pictures ever made". Twenty years after the release of Pather Panchali, Akira Kurosawa summarised the effect of the film as overwhelming and lauded its ability "to stir up deep passions".
The reaction was not uniformly positive. On seeing the film, François Truffaut is reported to have said: "I don't want to see a movie of peasants eating with their hands". Bosley Crowther, the most influential critic of The New York Times, wrote in 1958, "any picture as loose in structure or as listless in tempo as this one is would barely pass as a 'rough cut' with the editors in Hollywood", even though he praised its gradually emerging poignancy and poetic quality. The Harvard Crimson argued in 1959 that its fragmentary nature "contributes to the film's great weakness: its general diffuseness, its inability to command sustained attention. For Pather Panchali, remarkable as it may be, is something of a chore to sit through". Early in the 1980s, Ray was criticised by Nargis Dutt, an Indian parliamentarian and former actress, for "exporting poverty". Darius Cooper writes that while many critics celebrated the Apu trilogy "as a eulogy of third-world culture, others criticized it for what they took to be its romanticization of such a culture". Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote that "its story is simple almost to the point of banality, it is rewarding if taken as a dramatized documentary".
As of May 2021, the film has a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on an aggregate of 69 reviews with an average score of 9.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "A film that requires and rewards patience in equal measure, Pather Panchali finds director Satyajit Ray delivering a classic with his debut". In 2018 the film earned the 15th spot when BBC released the top 100 foreign language films ever, and filmmaker Christopher Nolan called it "one of the best films ever made".
### 1990s restoration
In the 1990s, Merchant Ivory Productions, with assistance from the Academy Film Archive and Sony Pictures Classics, undertook a project to restore the prints. The restored prints, along with several other Ray films, were released in select US theatres. Pather Panchali is available in DVD in Region 2 (DVD region code) PAL and Region 1 NTSC formats. Artificial Eye Entertainment is the distributor of Region 2 while Columbia Tri-Star is the distributor of Region 1 format.
### 2015 restoration
In 2013, the video distribution company The Criterion Collection, in collaboration with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Film Archive, began the restoration of the original negatives of the Apu trilogy, including Pather Panchali. These negatives had been severely damaged by a fire in London in 1993, and all film cans and fragments belonging to the Ray films were sent to the Motion Picture Academy for storage, where they lay unseen for two decades. It was discovered upon reexamination that, although many parts of the films were indeed destroyed by fire or the effects of age, other parts were salvageable. The materials were shipped to a restoration laboratory in Bologna, Italy: L'Immagine Ritrovata. Over a thousand hours of labor by hand were expended in restoring and scanning the negatives and, in the end, about 40 percent of the Pather Panchali negative was restored. For those parts of the negative that were missing or unusable, duplicate negatives and fine-grain masters from various commercial or archival sources were used. The Criterion Collection's own lab then spent six months creating the digital version of all three films, at times choosing to preserve the distinctive look of the films even at the cost of retaining some imperfections.
On 4 May 2015, the restored Pather Panchali premiered at the Museum of Modern Art, a little more than 60 years to the day after the film's world premiere at the same venue. Several days later, all three films opened at New York's Film Forum, where they were originally scheduled to run for three weeks. Because of overwhelming public demand – with one writer commenting that "audiences can't seem to get enough" – the films were held over at that theater until 30 June. The trilogy was then sent to be exhibited in many other cities throughout the U.S. and Canada. The restoration work was widely acclaimed, with commentators calling the look of the restored films "gorgeous", "pristine" and "incredible".
## Themes
Author Andrew Robinson, in the book The Apu Trilogy: Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic (2010), notes that it is challenging to narrate the plot of Pather Panchali and the "essence of the film lies in the ebb and flow of its human relationships and in its everyday details and cannot be reduced to a tale of events". In his 1958 New York Times review, Crowther writes that Pather Panchali delicately illustrates how "poverty does not always nullify love" and how even very poor people can enjoy the little pleasures of their world. Marie Seton describes how the film intersperses the depiction of poverty and the delights and pleasures of youth. She represents the bond between Durga and Indir, and their fate, as signifying a philosophical core: that both the young and the old die. Seton writes of the film's "lyrical" qualities, noting especially the imagery immediately before the onset of monsoon. Robinson writes about a peculiar quality of "lyrical happiness" in the film, and states that Pather Panchali is "about unsophisticated people shot through with great sophistication, and without a trace of condescension or inflated sentiment".
Darius Cooper discusses the use of different rasa in the film, observing Apu's repeated "epiphany of wonder", brought about not only by what the boy sees around him, but also when he uses his imagination to create another world. For Cooper, the immersive experience of the film corresponds to this epiphany of wonder. Stephen Teo uses the scene in which Apu and Durga discover railway tracks as an example of the gradual build-up of epiphany and the resulting immersive experience.
Sharmishtha Gooptu discusses the idea that the idyllic village life portrayed in Pather Panchali represents authentic Bengali village life, which disappeared during the upheavals of Partition in 1947. She suggests that the film seeks to connect an idealised, pre-partition past with the actual present of partitioned Bengal, and that it uses prototypes of rural Bengal to construct an image of the ideal village. In contrast to this idealism, Mitali Pati and Suranjan Ganguly point out how Ray used eye-level shots, natural lighting, long takes and other techniques to achieve realism. Mainak Biswas has written that Pather Panchali comes very close to the concept of Italian neorealism, as it has several passages with no dramatic development, even though the usual realities of life, such as the changing of seasons or the passing of a day, are concretely filmed.
## Accolades
Pather Panchali has won many national and international awards. At India's 3rd National Film Awards in 1955, it was named Best Feature Film and Best Bengali Feature Film. The next year, it competed for the Palme d'Or at Cannes, where it won Best Human Document and an OCIC Award – Special Mention. More awards from film festivals across the world followed: the Vatican Award (Rome), the Golden Carabao (Manila), and the Diploma of Merit (Edinburgh) in 1956; the Selznick Golden Laurel for Best Film (Berlin), the Golden Gate for Best Director and Best Picture (San Francisco) in 1957; Best Film (Vancouver), and the Critics' Award for Best Film (Stratford) in 1958. It also won several awards for best foreign-language film: at the National Board of Review Awards 1958; at the Afro Arts Theater, New York, 1959; the Kinema Jumpo Award in Japan, 1966; and the Bodil Award in Denmark, 1969. In 1958 it had been nominated for Best Film at the 11th British Academy Film Awards.
Sight & Sound, the British Film Institute's (BFI) magazine, has included Pather Panchali several times in its Critics' Polls of the greatest-ever films. In 1962, it ranked 11th; in 1992, 6th; and in 2002, 22nd. It also topped the British Film Institute's user poll of "Top 10 Indian Films" of all time in 2002. The magazine ranked the film 42nd in its 2012 critics' poll of "Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time" and 48th in its 2012 directors' poll. In the most recent 2022 edition of BFI's Greatest films of all time list the film ranked 35th in the critics poll and 22nd in the director's poll. In 1998, in a similar critics' poll from Asian film magazine Cinemaya, Pather Panchali was ranked the second-greatest film of all time. The Village Voice ranked the film at number 12 (tied with The Godfather) in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics. In 2010, The Guardian ranked the film 12th in its list of 25 greatest arthouse films.
Pather Panchali was included in various other all-time lists, including Time Out's "Centenary Top One Hundred Films" in 1995, the San Francisco Chronicle "Hot 100 Films From the Past" in 1997, the Rolling Stone "100 Maverick Movies of the Last 100 Years" in 1999, "The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made" in 2002, the BFI Top Fifty "Must See" Children's Films in 2005, and BFI's "Top 10 Indian Films" of all time. It was included in NDTV's list of "India's 20 greatest films", and in 2013 in CNN-IBN's list of "100 greatest Indian films of all time". Akira Kurosawa ranked Pather Panchali at No. 37 on his Top 100 favourite films of all time list. The Apu trilogy as a whole was included in film critic Roger Ebert's list of "100 Great Movies" in 2001 and in Time's All-Time 100 best movies list in 2005.
## Legacy
Pather Panchali was followed by two films that continued the tale of Apu's life—Aparajito (The Unvanquished) in 1956 and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) in 1959. Together, the three films constitute the Apu trilogy. Aparajito portrays the adolescent Apu, his education in a rural school and a Calcutta college. Its central theme is the poignant relationship between a doting mother and her ambitious young son. Apur Sansar depicts Apu's adult life, his reaction to his wife's premature death, and his final bonding with his son whom he abandoned as an infant. The sequels also won many national and international awards. Ray did not initially plan to make a trilogy: he decided to make the third film only after being asked about the possibility of a trilogy at the 1957 Venice Film Festival, where Aparajito won the Golden Lion. Apur Panchali (2014) is a Bengali film directed by Kaushik Ganguly, which depicts the real-life story of Subir Bannerjee, the actor who portrayed Apu in Pather Panchali. Aparajito, a 2022 Bengali film directed by Anik Dutta, tells the story of the making of Pather Panchali.
Pather Panchali was the first film made in independent India to receive major critical attention internationally, placing India on the world cinema map. It was one of the first examples of Parallel Cinema, a new tradition of Indian film-making in which authenticity and social realism were key themes, breaking the rule of the Indian film establishment. Although Pather Panchali was described as a turning point in Indian cinema, some commentators preferred the view that it refined a "realist textual principle" that was already there. In 1963 Time noted that thanks to Pather Panchali, Satyajit Ray was one of the "hardy little band of inspired pioneers" of a new cinematic movement that was enjoying a good number of imitators worldwide. The film has since been considered as a "global landmark" and "among the essential moviegoing experiences". On 2 May 2013, commemorating Ray's birthday, the Indian version of the search engine Google displayed a doodle featuring the train sequence.
After Pather Panchali, Ray went on to make 36 more films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. He worked on scripting, casting, scoring, cinematography, art direction and editing, as well as designing his own credit titles and publicity material. He developed a distinctive style of film-making based, as was the case with Pather Panchali, on visual lyricism and strongly humanistic themes. Thus, Ray established himself as an internationally recognized auteur of cinema.
|
11,028,525 |
The Simpsons Game
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2007 video game
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"2007 video games",
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The Simpsons Game is a 2007 platform game based on the animated television series The Simpsons made for the Nintendo DS, Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable. The game was published, and distributed by Electronic Arts. It was released in North America in October 2007 and worldwide in November 2007. It features an original storyline written by Simpsons writers Tim Long and Matt Warburton. In the self-referential plot, the family discovers that they are forced to participate in another The Simpsons video game. Similar to the show, the game pokes fun at popular culture, other video games, and Electronic Arts, its publisher.
The game follows the five Simpson family members—Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie—who learn they are part of a video game and are given superpowers to resolve several situations. Eventually, they must save their 8-bit predecessors from Will Wright, and the creator of their video game character selves, Matt Groening. The Simpson family travels to four scenarios in parodies of other games to collect key cards used to infiltrate their creator's mansion and ultimately to save their predecessors from destruction to reverse their generations old ban on video games.
The game was met with mixed reception from video game critics. They praised its visuals and writing, which included many parodies of other video games, while they criticized its short length and poor camera system, which did not always function properly. The Simpsons Game received the Best Game Based on a Movie or TV Show award at the 2007 Spike Video Game Awards and was nominated for Best Video Game Writing at the 2007 Writers Guild of America Awards. As of January 31, 2008, four million copies of the game have been sold worldwide.
## Gameplay
Players of The Simpsons Game are able to control the Simpson family each with their own unique abilities. Two different family members are playable in each level, aside from the tutorial level, "The Land of Chocolate", in which only Homer is playable, in all of the levels in which Marge appears, in which Maggie is also playable, and the final level, "Game Over", where all members of the family are playable. The game contains sixteen levels, called episodes, and each requires specific powers to complete. For example, in the fourth episode, "Lisa the Tree Hugger", the player is required to use Lisa's "Hand of Buddha" power to move large objects, and Bart's slingshot to shut down machines. Enemies unique to each episode are featured, with the exception of the final level, in which enemies that have already been defeated are "recycled" with different colors.
Several challenges are made available after all episodes are completed. These include finding all the collectibles for each character, finding all the video game clichés, and in the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo DS versions, completing a certain task related to each episode's plot in a time trial.
The Simpsons Game's head-up display features health meters for both characters in each level, and an attack meter and special power meter for the character currently controlled by the player. The game features a two player co-op mode, which has a split screen and allows each player to control one of the two characters featured on that level.
The DS version of the game was developed separately from its console counterparts and is a side scrolling adventure. It also offers several features that are not available in the other versions. Several minigames are available to unlock and play, most which are updated versions of arcade games such as Frogger and Space Invaders, the latter which references the aliens Kang and Kodos from the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episodes. A virtual pet is also accessible, called "Pet Homer", which allows players to feed, entertain, and save Homer from threats such as choking and heart attacks.
### Playable characters
The Game has 5 playable Characters: Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge and Maggie. In the game manual, Maggie and Marge are counted as a single character, but they have different gameplay and controls.
Homer is the first playable character available to the player in "The Land of Chocolate" level. His abilities involve turning into the "Homer ball" by eating food power-ups to let him roll and slam objects; turn into a Gummi Homer by eating small gummi Venus de Milos to shoot gummi grenades; eat hot chili peppers to become Insanity Pepper Homer to use lava and fire bombs; and inhale helium to become a balloon to float in the air. Homer's special power is a giant burp, which can stun enemies.
Bart first appears in the second level of the game "Bartman Begins". He can turn into Bartman, allowing him to use zip-lines, climb certain walls, glide over long distances, and do other acrobatic feats. Bart's special power is releasing a flood of bats towards enemies. He can use his slingshot to defeat enemies and hit targets from afar.
Lisa is introduced in the fourth level "Lisa the Tree Hugger". Her main attack style is kicking, and her power is the "Hand of Buddha". She can use it to flick, smash, freeze, or send lightning bolts to enemies, as well as lift certain items. Lisa's special power is playing her saxophone to attack and stun enemies. As the levels progress, Lisa can use her saxophone to turn enemies against each other.
Marge is the least-playable character. Introduced in the fifth level, "Mob Rules", Marge learns her power is to make large crowds obey her. She can use her mob to break down obstacles, build objects, attack enemies, and repair objects. When using the "Cop Marge" Power Up, her strength is increased for a short period of time - but this feature is only available in the Xbox 360 and Playstation3 Versions.
Maggie is, in effect, an extension of Marge, briefly playable in air ducts and other small spaces. Her hability is to enter areas that other characters cannot access, and she only has one attack (Using her Pacifier). Maggie can only be used in specific areas of the game, and turns into a friendly NPC connected to Marge out of those areas.
## Plot
The game begins with Homer having a candy-induced fantasy about a world of chocolate where he tries to catch and eat a white chocolate rabbit; upon waking up he is upset to find that it was all a dream.
Meanwhile, Bart goes to the video game store and bribes the clerk to let him buy the new and violent Grand Theft Scratchy game, only to have it confiscated by Marge. While Bart mopes, a video game manual falls down from the sky in front of him. Reading through the manual, Bart discovers that he and the rest of his family have special powers. Bart uses his Bartman powers to stop the school bullies Jimbo, Kearney, and Dolph from robbing the Natural History Museum on the orders of Principal Skinner to use the museum exhibits for the science class, Homer uses his ability to win an eating contest, Lisa uses her powers to stop a deforestation project, and Marge uses her powers to influence crowds to stop the release of Grand Theft Scratchy in Springfield, although Lisa points out it is hypocritical that she used violence to stop a violent game.
During dinner, the family is euphoric with their new powers. However, it leads to an argument about what they should be doing with them. Aliens Kang and Kodos decide to strike Earth, and an alien invasion unfolds. Realizing none of their powers are strong enough to defeat the aliens, Bart and Lisa visit Professor Frink. They break into his house after noticing that he is not home. Inside they discover a portal that sends them to a place called the game engine where all video games are made. After saving him from a giant gorilla, Frink gives them The Simpsons Game's player's guide to teach them how to better use their powers as well as gain new ones, and the Simpson family sets out to stop the alien invasion. First, Bart and Lisa assist Captain McCallister in fighting back mind-controlled dolphins that are attacking the city aquarium. Then, Bart and Homer defeat the Lard Lad statue which has come to life. Finally, they save the Springfield Mall and Cletus from an alien force led by Sideshow Bob.
In order to find out the truth, the family turns to the Internet to discover more about the powers they have in the game, but are sent to the game engine when Homer accidentally spills beer over the keyboard. There, they discover Will Wright, who is destroying copies of an old 8-bit The Simpsons game and its characters. The family manages to save their 8-bit predecessors before they are destroyed by Wright, and discover that they will also become obsolete when the next The Simpsons game is released. The only way to prevent this is to talk to the creator of the games and convince him not to destroy them. In order to access his mansion, the family needs to acquire four key cards from four upcoming Simpsons games. First, Homer and Marge defeat a two-headed dragon whose heads are those of Patty and Selma in the Neverquest game. Next, Homer and Bart travel to France during World War II to thwart Mr. Burns' plan to steal priceless French paintings, in the Medal of Homer game. Lisa and Homer then travel to ancient Japan to defeat the evil Mr. Dirt as Milhouse and his "Sparklemon" in the Big Super Happy Fun Fun Game. Marge and Lisa then travel to Grand Theft Scratchy, eliminating all offensive material and replacing it with more family-friendly material.
Once they have all four key cards, Bart and Homer infiltrate the creator's mansion. They are greeted by Matt Groening, who sends Futurama characters Bender and Dr. Zoidberg after them. The family manages to defeat them, however Matt Groening admits that he is only creating new games for the money, and destroys the game engine. The Simpsons, along with several other characters from the games, escape to Springfield, where the aliens are still attacking. Lisa uses her power to create a stairway to heaven in order for the family to ask God for help. Along the way they have to defeat deceased historical figures William Shakespeare and Benjamin Franklin, and several other "recycled" enemies that the family had killed during previous levels of the game. After God is defeated in a game of Dance Dance Revolution, He reveals that the video game that they are in is a mini-game in another video game about Earth. He dropped the video game manual by accident, thus endowing the family with superpowers. Realizing His mistake, He promises to restore Springfield, let them keep their powers, and to improve the working conditions of all video game characters. He also gives Homer three wishes. Lisa asks if God ever wonders if he himself is a character in a video game. As God nervously scoffs at this theory, it turns out that Ralph Wiggum is playing the entire game before he looks at the screen, wondering who is looking at him.
## Development
The game's storyline was written by Tim Long, Matt Selman, and Matt Warburton, who are all regular writers on The Simpsons. They wanted to create something that appealed to the fans of the show, and was, in its own right, "a great new game". Matt Groening and the writers had continuous feedback on the game's content, from its "look and feel" to its puzzles and gameplay. The game's executive producer, Scot Amos, said it was an amazing partnership between the writers and the developers. Selman, the head writer, says the reason they decided to call it The Simpsons Game and not add a subtitle was because they felt it was a restart of "the 'Simpsons' gaming franchise [...] a big, new, fresh game that takes on video games and hilarious things of all time".
The Simpsons Game was published by Electronic Arts and developed by its subsidiary, EA Redwood Shores; the company had signed a contract for the video game rights to The Simpsons in 2005. The game's lead designer, Greg Rizzer, said that when he asked his bosses if they could parody some Electronic Arts games including Medal of Honor, they were enthusiastic about it. The Simpsons Game, which parodies video games from 30 years prior to 2007, was forced to have some of its content removed after several video game companies complained about it. Rizzer, however, was still pleased with the amount of parody in the game and considered The Simpsons the "perfect vehicle to poke fun at the games industry". At the 2007 Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, a poster for "Grand Theft Scratchy", one of the levels in The Simpsons Game and a parody of Grand Theft Auto, was asked to be taken down by an employee of Rockstar Games, the company that develops the Grand Theft Auto series of video games. Several companies, however, embraced the game's parody of their video games, including developers from Harmonix, who were pleased with the game's "Sitar Hero", a parody of Harmonix's Guitar Hero video game. In addition to game parodies, The Simpsons Game also features several cameos with satirical spins, including Matt Groening as himself and Will Wright as an antagonist.
The graphics for the game's characters are cel-shaded, and an implemented technique helps flatten the character models from any angle that the camera views them from, in order to recreate the 2D, hand-drawn look seen in the show. The development team found it particularly difficult to render Lisa's spiky hair as 2D in the game's 3D environment. There is a different cover for the game on each console.
## Reception
The game received mixed reception, receiving an aggregated score of 71% on Metacritic for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 version of the game. Praise focused on the game's visuals and writing, which lampooned the gaming industry and the show itself. The Simpsons Game won the award for Best Game Based on a Movie or TV Show at the Spike Video Game Awards 2007, and was nominated for the first-ever award for Best Video Game Writing at the Writers Guild of America Awards 2007. As of January 31, 2008, four million copies of the game have been sold overall. Its PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS releases each received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies per version in the United Kingdom. ELSPA presented the game's Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation Portable versions with "Silver" certifications, for sales of 100,000 units or more each in the region. Peter Nowak of CBC News named it the third-best game of 2007 and described it as "easily the best game starring the wacky residents of Springfield".
The game's use of The Simpsons-style humor received a mostly positive reception. Both GameSpot and GameTrailers said that the game delivered more than enough laughs to make it worth playing through at least once. It was considered enjoyable for both hardcore and casual The Simpsons fans by IGN and GameDaily, who also called it a particularly appealing game for diehard fans. Despite the few problems that the game had, GameSpy said that it was worth it to see the humorous parodies. Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell, however, believed that the game's humor could only carry it so far, and suggested that those interested in The Simpsons humor should purchase a box set of one of the television series' seasons instead. Joe Juba of Game Informer called the game an average experience. He elaborated that the game would appeal primarily to fans of the television series, but would not be worth playing for people unfamiliar with it.
Eurogamer praised the involvement of people from The Simpsons television series with the game's development and GameZone enjoyed the two-character mechanics of the game and had fun collecting unlockable items. GameTrailers thought the graphics and animations looked great and appreciated the hand-drawn appearances, even though they found it obvious that the characters were "never really meant to jump into the third dimension" because of their second-dimension roots.
Criticism of the game focused on its short, uninspiring gameplay and troublesome camera system. GameSpot considered the gameplay "nothing special" while GameZone called it a "pretty shallow" game that depended too much on repetitive jumping puzzles and a weak combat system. The game disappointed IGN because it did not include an online feature and it was deemed too short. The camera system was found to be problematic by both GameZone and GameSpy, who called it "a pain" and a "busted" feature; GameDaily also found it bothersome because it often got stuck.
The DS version of the game, which was significantly different from the other versions, received praise for its unique gameplay, but criticism for its short length. IGN lauded the DS version's unique gameplay experience and GameSpot proclaimed that it was satisfying from start to finish. GameSpot and GameZone, however, were both disappointed that the game was extremely brief. 1UP found that even though The Simpsons Game parodied numerous 2D platform game conventions, it used them anyway, making it a pointless endeavor.
## Cancelled sequel
Electronic Arts planned to develop a sequel to the game, entitled The Simpsons Game 2, but was cancelled in 2011 because the studio decided to make room for other projects.
|
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The Bartered Bride
| 1,169,764,625 |
Comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana
|
[
"1866 operas",
"1870 operas",
"Czech-language operas",
"Operas",
"Operas adapted into films",
"Operas by Bedřich Smetana",
"Operas set in Bohemia"
] |
The Bartered Bride (Czech: Prodaná nevěsta, The Sold Bride) is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. The work is generally regarded as a major contribution towards the development of Czech music. It was composed during the period 1863 to 1866, and first performed at the Provisional Theatre, Prague, on 30 May 1866 in a two-act format with spoken dialogue. Set in a country village and with realistic characters, it tells the story of how, after a late surprise revelation, true love prevails over the combined efforts of ambitious parents and a scheming marriage broker.
The opera was not immediately successful, and was revised and extended in the following four years. In its final version, premiered in 1870, it rapidly gained popularity and eventually became a worldwide success. Until this time, the Czech national opera had only been represented by minor, rarely performed works. This opera, Smetana's second, was part of his quest to create a truly Czech operatic genre. Smetana's musical treatment made considerable use of traditional Bohemian dance forms, such as the polka and furiant, and, although he largely avoided the direct quotation of folksong, he nevertheless created music considered by Czechs to be quintessentially Czech in spirit. The overture, often played as a concert piece independently from the opera, was, unusually, composed before almost any of the other music had been written.
After a performance at the Vienna Music and Theatre Exhibition of 1892, the opera achieved international recognition. It was performed in Chicago in 1893, London in 1895 and reached New York in 1909, subsequently becoming the first, and for many years the only, Czech opera in the general repertory. Many of these early international performances were in German, under the title Die verkaufte Braut, and the German-language version continues to be played and recorded. A German film of the opera was made in 1932 by Max Ophüls.
## Context
Until the middle 1850s Bedřich Smetana was known in Prague principally as a teacher, pianist and composer of salon pieces. His failure to achieve wider recognition in the Bohemian capital led him to depart in 1856 for Sweden, where he spent the next five years. During this period he extended his compositional range to large-scale orchestral works in the descriptive style championed by Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. Liszt was Smetana's long-time mentor; he had accepted a dedication of the latter's Opus 1: Six Characteristic Pieces for Piano in 1848, and had encouraged the younger composer's career since then. In September 1857 Smetana visited Liszt in Weimar, where he met Peter Cornelius, a follower of Liszt's who was working on a comic opera, Der Barbier von Bagdad. Their discussions centred on the need to create a modern style of comic opera, as a counterbalance to Wagner's new form of music drama. A comment was made by the Viennese conductor Johann von Herbeck to the effect that Czechs were incapable of making music of their own, a remark which Smetana took to heart: "I swore there and then that no other than I should beget a native Czech music."
Smetana did not act immediately on this aspiration. The announcement that a Provisional Theatre was to be opened in Prague, as a home for Czech opera and drama pending the building of a permanent National Theatre, influenced his decision to return permanently to his homeland in 1861. He was then spurred to creative action by the announcement of a prize competition, sponsored by the Czech patriot Jan von Harrach, to provide suitable operas for the Provisional Theatre. By 1863 he had written The Brandenburgers in Bohemia to a libretto by the Czech nationalist poet Karel Sabina, whom Smetana had met briefly in 1848. The Brandenburgers, which was awarded the opera prize, was a serious historical drama, but even before its completion Smetana was noting down themes for use in a future comic opera. By this time he had heard the music of Cornelius's Der Barbier, and was ready to try his own hand at the comic genre.
## Composition history
### Libretto
For his libretto, Smetana again approached Sabina, who by 5 July 1863 had produced an untitled one-act sketch in German. Over the following months Sabina was encouraged to develop this into a full-length text, and to provide a Czech translation. According to Smetana's biographer Brian Large, this process was prolonged and untidy; the manuscript shows amendments and additions in Smetana's own hand, and some pages apparently written by Smetana's wife Bettina (who may have been receiving dictation). By the end of 1863 a two-act version, with around 20 musical numbers separated by spoken dialogue, had been assembled. Smetana's diary indicates that he, rather than Sabina, chose the work's title because "the poet did not know what to call it." The translation "Sold Bride" is strictly accurate, but the more euphonious "Bartered Bride" has been adopted throughout the English-speaking world. Sabina evidently did not fully appreciate Smetana's intention to write a full-length opera, later commenting: "If I had suspected what Smetana would make of my operetta, I should have taken more pains and written him a better and more solid libretto."
The Czech music specialist John Tyrrell has observed that, despite the casual way in which The Bartered Bride's libretto was put together, it has an intrinsic "Czechness", being one of the few in Czech written in trochees (a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one), matching the natural first-syllable emphasis in Czech.
### Composition
By October 1862, well before the arrival of any libretto or plot sketch, Smetana had noted down 16 bars which later became the theme of The Bartered Bride's opening chorus. In May 1863 he sketched eight bars which he eventually used in the love duet "Faithful love can't be marred", and later that summer, while still awaiting Sabina's revised libretto, he wrote the theme of the comic number "We'll make a pretty little thing". He also produced a piano version of the entire overture, which was performed in a public concert on 18 November. In this, he departed from his normal practice of leaving the overture until last.
The opera continued to be composed in a piecemeal fashion, as Sabina's libretto gradually took shape. Progress was slow, and was interrupted by other work. Smetana had become Chorus Master of the Hlahol Choral Society in 1862, and spent much time rehearsing and performing with the Society. He was deeply involved in the 1864 Shakespeare Festival in Prague, conducting Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette and composing a festival march. That same year he became music correspondent of the Czech-language newspaper Národní listy. Smetana's diary for December 1864 records that he was continuing to work on The Bartered Bride; the piano score was completed by October 1865. It was then put aside so that the composer could concentrate on his third opera Dalibor. Smetana evidently did not begin the orchestral scoring of The Bartered Bride until, following the successful performance of The Brandenburgers in January 1866, the management of the Provisional Theatre decided to stage the new opera during the following summer. The scoring was completed rapidly, between 20 February and 16 March.
## Roles
## Synopsis
### Act 1
A crowd of villagers is celebrating at the church fair ("Let's rejoice and be merry"). Among them are Mařenka and Jeník. Mařenka is unhappy because her parents want her to marry someone she has never met. They will try to force her into this, she says. Her desires are for Jeník even though, as she explains in her aria "If I should ever learn", she knows nothing of his background. The couple then declare their feelings for each other in a passionate love duet ("Faithful love can't be marred").
As the pair leave separately, Mařenka's parents, Ludmila and Krušina, enter with the marriage broker Kecal. After some discussion, Kecal announces that he has found a groom for Mařenka – Vašek, younger son of Tobiáš Mícha, a wealthy landowner; the older son, he explains, is a worthless good-for-nothing. Kecal extols the virtues of Vašek ("He's a nice boy, well brought up"), as Mařenka re-enters. In the subsequent quartet she responds by saying that she already has a chosen lover. Send him packing, orders Kecal. The four argue, but little is resolved. Kecal decides he must convince Jeník to give up Mařenka, as the villagers return, singing and dancing a festive polka.
### Act 2
The men of the village join in a rousing drinking song ("To beer!"), while Jeník and Kecal argue the merits, respectively, of love and money over beer. The women enter, and the whole group joins in dancing a furiant. Away from the jollity the nervous Vašek muses over his forthcoming marriage in a stuttering song ("My-my-my mother said to me"). Mařenka appears, and guesses immediately who he is, but does not reveal her own identity. Pretending to be someone else, she paints a picture of "Mařenka" as a treacherous deceiver. Vašek is easily fooled, and when Mařenka, in her false guise, pretends to woo him ("I know of a maiden fair"), he falls for her charms and swears to give Mařenka up.
Meanwhile, Kecal is attempting to buy Jeník off, and after some verbal fencing makes a straight cash offer: a hundred florins if Jeník will renounce Mařenka. Not enough, is the reply. When Kecal increases the offer to 300 florins, Jeník pretends to accept, but imposes a condition – no one but Mícha's son will be allowed to wed Mařenka. Kecal agrees, and rushes off to prepare the contract. Alone, Jeník ponders the deal he has apparently made to barter his beloved ("When you discover whom you've bought"), wondering how anyone could believe that he would really do this, and finally expressing his love for Mařenka.
Kecal summons the villagers to witness the contract he has made ("Come inside and listen to me"). He reads the terms: Mařenka is to marry no one but Mícha's son. Krušina and the crowd marvel at Jeník's apparent self-denial, but the mood changes when they learn that he has been paid off. The act ends with Jenik being denounced by Krušina and the rest of the assembly as a rascal.
### Act 3
Vašek expresses his confusions in a short, sad song ("I can't get it out of my head"), but is interrupted by the arrival of a travelling circus. The Ringmaster introduces the star attractions: Esmeralda, the Spanish dancer, a "real Indian" sword swallower, and a dancing bear. A rapid folk-dance, the skočná, follows. Vašek is entranced by Esmeralda, but his timid advances are interrupted when the "Indian" rushes in, announcing that the "bear" has collapsed in a drunken stupor. A replacement is required. Vašek is soon persuaded to take the job, egged on by Esmeralda's flattering words ("We'll make a pretty thing out of you").
The circus folk leave. Vasek's parents – Mícha and Háta – arrive, with Kecal. Vašek tells them that he no longer wants to marry Mařenka, having learned her true nature from a beautiful, strange girl. They are horrified ("He does not want her – what has happened?"). Vašek runs off, and moments later Mařenka arrives with her parents. She has just learned of Jeník's deal with Kecal, and a lively ensemble ("No, no, I don't believe it") ensues. Matters are further complicated when Vašek returns, recognises Mařenka as his "strange girl", and says that he will happily marry her. In the sextet which follows ("Make your mind up, Mařenka"), Mařenka is urged to think things over. They all depart, leaving her alone.
In her aria ("Oh what grief"), Mařenka sings of her betrayal. When Jeník appears, she rebuffs him angrily, and declares that she will marry Vašek. Kecal arrives, and is amused by Jeník's attempts to pacify Mařenka, who orders her former lover to go. The villagers then enter, with both sets of parents, wanting to know Mařenka's decision ("What have you decided, Mařenka?"). As she confirms that she will marry Vašek, Jeník returns, and to great consternation addresses Mícha as "father". In a surprise identity revelation it emerges that Jeník is Mícha's elder son, by a former marriage – the "worthless good-for-nothing" earlier dismissed by Kecal – who had in fact been driven away by his jealous stepmother, Háta. As Mícha's son he is, by the terms of the contract, entitled to marry Mařenka; when this becomes clear, Mařenka understands his actions and embraces him. Offstage shouting interrupts the proceedings; it seems that a bear has escaped from the circus and is heading for the village. This creature appears, but is soon revealed to be Vašek in the bear's costume ("Don't be afraid!"). His antics convince his parents that he is unready for marriage, and he is marched away. Mícha then blesses the marriage between Mařenka and Jeník, and all ends in a celebratory chorus.
## Reception and performance history
### Premiere
The premiere of The Bartered Bride took place at the Provisional Theatre on 30 May 1866. Smetana conducted; the stage designs were by Josef Macourek and Josef Jiři Kolár produced the opera. The role of Mařenka was sung by the theatre's principal soprano, Eleonora von Ehrenberg – who had refused to appear in The Brandenburgers because she thought her proffered role was beneath her. The parts of Krušina, Jeník and Kecal were all taken by leading members of the Brandenburgers cast. A celebrated actor, Jindřich Mošna, was engaged to play the Ringmaster, a role which involves little singing skill.
The choice of date proved unfortunate for several reasons. It clashed with a public holiday, and many people had left the city for the country. It was an intensely hot day, which further reduced the number of people prepared to suffer the discomfort of a stuffy theatre. Worse, the threat of an imminent war between Prussia and Austria caused unrest and anxiety in Prague, which dampened public enthusiasm for light romantic comedy. Thus on its opening night the opera, in its two-act version with spoken dialogue, was poorly attended and indifferently received. Receipts failed to cover costs, and the theatre director was forced to pay Smetana's fee from his own pocket.
Smetana's friend Josef Srb-Debrnov, who was unable to attend the performance himself, canvassed opinion from members of the audience as they emerged. "One praised it, another shook his head, and one well-known musician ... said to me: 'That's no comic opera; it won't do. The opening chorus is fine but I don't care for the rest.'" Josef Krejčí, a member of the panel that had judged Harrach's opera competition, called the work a failure "that would never hold its own." Press comment was less critical; nevertheless, after one more performance the opera was withdrawn. Shortly afterwards the Provisional Theatre temporarily closed its doors, as the threat of war drew closer to Prague.
### Restructure
Smetana began revising The Bartered Bride as soon as its first performances were complete. For its first revival, in October 1866, the only significant musical alteration was the addition of a gypsy dance near the start of act 2. For this, Smetana used the music of a dance from The Brandenburgers of Bohemia. When The Bartered Bride returned to the Provisional Theatre in January 1869, this dance was removed, and replaced with a polka. A new scene, with a drinking song for the chorus, was added to act 1, and Mařenka's act 2 aria "Oh what grief!" was extended.
So far, changes to the original had been of a minor nature, but when the opera reappeared in June 1869 it had been entirely restructured. Although the musical numbers were still linked by dialogue, the first act had been divided in two, to create a three-act opera. Various numbers, including the drinking song and the new polka, were repositioned, and the polka was now followed by a furiant. A "March of the Comedians" was added, to introduce the strolling players in what was now act 3. A short duet for Esmeralda and the Principal Comedian was dropped. In September 1870 The Bartered Bride reached its final form, when all the dialogue was replaced by recitative. Smetana's own opinion of the finished work, given much later, was largely dismissive: he described it as "a toy ... composing it was mere child's play". It was written, he said "to spite those who accused me of being Wagnerian and incapable of doing anything in a lighter vein."
### Later performances
In February 1869 Smetana had the text translated into French, and sent the libretto and score to the Paris Opera with a business proposal for dividing the profits. The management of the Paris Opera did not respond. The opera was first performed outside its native land on 11 January 1871, when Eduard Nápravník, conductor of the Russian Imperial Opera, gave a performance at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. The work attracted mediocre notices from the critics, one of whom compared the work unfavourably to the Offenbach genre. Smetana was hurt by this remark, which he felt downgraded his opera to operetta status, and was convinced that press hostility had been generated by a former adversary, the Russian composer Mily Balakirev. The pair had clashed some years earlier, over the Provisional Theatre's stagings of Glinka's A Life for the Tsar and Ruslan and Lyudmila. Smetana believed that Balakirev had used the Russian premiere of The Bartered Bride as a means of exacting revenge.
The Bartered Bride was not performed abroad again until after Smetana's death in 1884. It was staged by the Prague National Theatre company in Vienna, as part of the Vienna Music and Theatre Exhibition of 1892, where its favourable reception was the beginning of its worldwide popularity among opera audiences. Since Czech was not widely spoken, international performances tended to be in German. The United States premiere took place at the Haymarket Theatre, Chicago, on 20 August 1893. The opera was introduced to the Hamburg State Opera in 1894 by Gustav Mahler, then serving as its director; in 1895 the Coburg Company brought its production to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. In 1897, after his appointment as director of the Vienna State Opera, Mahler brought The Bartered Bride into the Vienna repertory, and conducted regular performances of the work between 1899 and 1907. Mahler's enthusiasm for the work was such that he had incorporated a quote from the overture into the final movement of his First Symphony (1888). When he became Director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1907 he added the opera to its repertory. The New York premiere, again in German, took place on 19 February 1909, and was warmly received. The New York Times commented on the excellence of the staging and musical characterisations, and paid particular tribute to "Mr. Mahler", whose master hand was in evidence throughout. Mahler chose to play the overture between acts 1 and 2, so that latecomers might hear it.
### Modern revivals
The opera was performed more than one hundred times during Smetana's lifetime (the first Czech opera to reach this landmark), subsequently becoming a permanent feature of the National Theatre's repertory. On 9 May 1945 a special performance in memory of the victims of World War II was given at the theatre, four days after the last significant fighting in Europe.
In the years since its American premiere The Bartered Bride has entered the repertory of all major opera companies, and is regularly revived worldwide. After several unsuccessful attempts to stage it in France, it was premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1928, sung in French as La Fiancée vendue. In 2008 the opera was added to the repertoire of the Paris Opera, in a new production staged at the Palais Garnier.
In the English-speaking world, recent productions of The Bartered Bride in London have included the Royal Opera House (ROH) presentation in 1998, staged at Sadler's Wells during the restoration of the ROH's headquarters at Covent Garden. This production in English was directed by Francesca Zambello and conducted by Bernard Haitink; it was criticised both for its stark settings and for ruining the act 2 entrance of Vašek. It was nevertheless twice revived by the ROH – in 2001 and 2006, under Charles Mackerras.
A New York Metropolitan staging was in 1996 under James Levine, a revival of John Dexter's 1978 production with stage designs by Josef Svoboda. In 2005 The Bartered Bride returned to New York, at the Juilliard School theatre, in a new production by Eve Shapiro, conducted by Mark Stringer. In its May 2009 production at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, Opera Boston transplanted the action to 1934, in the small Iowan town of Spillville, once the home of a large Czech settlement.
## Music
Although much of the music of The Bartered Bride is folk-like, the only significant use of authentic folk material is in the act 2 furiant, with a few other occasional glimpses of basic Czech folk melodies. The "Czechness" of the music is further illustrated by the closeness to Czech dance rhythms of many individual numbers. Smetana's diary indicates that he was trying to give the music "a popular character, because the plot [...] is taken from village life and demands a national treatment." According to his biographer John Clapham, Smetana "certainly felt the pulse of the peasantry and knew how to express this in music, yet inevitably he added something of himself." Historian Harold Schonberg argues that "the exoticisms of the Bohemian musical language were not in the Western musical consciousness until Smetana appeared." Smetana's musical language is, on the whole, one of happiness, expressing joy, dancing and festivals.
The mood of the entire opera is set by the overture, a concert piece in its own right, which Tyrrell describes as "a tour de force of the genre, wonderfully spirited & wonderfully crafted." Tyrrell draws attention to several of its striking features – its extended string fugato, climactic tutti and prominent syncopations. The overture does not contain many of the opera's later themes: biographer Brian Large compares it to Mozart's overtures to The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute, in establishing a general mood. It is followed immediately by an extended orchestral prelude, for which Smetana adapted part of his 1849 piano work Wedding Scenes, adding special effects such as bagpipe imitations.
Schonberg has suggested that Bohemian composers express melancholy in a delicate, elegiac manner "without the crushing world-weariness and pessimism of the Russians." Thus, Mařenka's unhappiness is illustrated in the opening chorus by a brief switch to the minor key; likewise, the inherent pathos of Vašek's character is demonstrated by the dark minor key music of his act 3 solo. Smetana also uses the technique of musical reminiscence, where particular themes are used as reminders of other parts of the action; the lilting clarinet theme of "faithful love" is an example, though it and other instances fall short of being full-blown Wagnerian leading themes or Leitmotifs.
Large has commented that despite the colour and vigour of the music, there is little by way of characterisation, except in the cases of Kecal and, to a lesser extent, the loving pair and the unfortunate Vašek. The two sets of parents and the various circus folk are all conventional and "penny-plain" figures. In contrast, Kecal's character – that of a self-important, pig-headed, loquacious bungler – is instantly established by his rapid-patter music. Large suggests that the character may have been modelled on that of the boastful Baron in Cimarosa's opera Il matrimonio segreto. Mařenka's temperament is shown in vocal flourishes which include coloratura passages and sustained high notes, while Jeník's good nature is reflected in the warmth of his music, generally in the G minor key. For Vašek's dual image, comic and pathetic, Smetana uses the major key to depict comedy, the minor for sorrow. Large suggests that Vašek's musical stammer, portrayed especially in his opening act 2 song, was taken from Mozart's character Don Curzio in The Marriage of Figaro.
## Film and other adaptations
A silent film of The Bartered Bride was made in 1913 by the Czech film production studio Kinofa. It was produced by Max Urban and starred his wife Andula Sedláčková. A German-language version of the opera, Die verkaufte Braut, was filmed in 1932 by Max Ophüls, the celebrated German director then at the beginning of his film-making career. The screenplay was drawn from Sabina's libretto by Curt Alexander, and Smetana's music was adapted by the German composer of film music, Theo Mackeben. The film starred the leading Czech opera singer Jarmila Novotná in the role of Mařenka ("Marie" in the film), and the German baritone Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender as Jeník ("Hans").
Ophuls constructed an entire Czech village in the studio to provide an authentic background. Following the film's US release in 1934, The New York Times commented that it "carr[ied] most of the comedy of the original" but was "rather weak on the musical side", despite the presence of stars such as Novotná. Opera-lovers, the review suggested, should not expect too much, but the work nevertheless gave an attractive portrait of Bohemian village life in the mid-19th century. The reviewer found most of the acting first-rate, but commented that "the photography and sound reproduction are none too clear at times." Other film adaptations of the opera were made in 1922 directed by Oldrich Kminek (Atropos), in 1933, directed by Jaroslav Kvapil, Svatopluk Innemann and Emil Pollert (Espofilm), and in 1976, directed by Václav Kašlík (Barrandov). A version was produced for Australian television in 1960.
## List of musical numbers
The list relates to the final (1870) version of the opera.
## Recordings
See The Bartered Bride discography.
|
23,534,015 |
Premiership of John Edward Brownlee
| 1,140,251,252 |
1925–1934 premiership of Alberta, Canada
|
[
"1920s in Alberta",
"1925 establishments in Alberta",
"1930s in Alberta",
"1934 disestablishments in Canada",
"John Edward Brownlee",
"Premierships"
] |
John Edward Brownlee was Premier of Alberta, Canada, from 1925 to 1934 as leader of the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) caucus in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. After a number of early successes, his popularity and his government's suffered from the hardships of the Great Depression. In 1934, he was embroiled in a sex scandal when a family friend sued him for seduction. Though Brownlee denied the events she alleged, when the jury found in her favour he announced his resignation as premier.
Brownlee became premier on November 23, 1925, when, at the request of the UFA caucus, he took over from the indecisive Herbert Greenfield, in whose cabinet he had served as attorney-general. After winning the 1926 election for the UFA, Brownlee achieved a number of successes. In 1929 he signed an agreement with the federal government that transferred control of Alberta's natural resources to its provincial government, which had been a priority of his three immediate predecessors as premier. In 1928 he divested the government of the money-losing railways it had acquired after the syndicates that founded them went out of business, by selling them to Canadian Pacific and Canadian National. This was part of his program to balance the provincial budget, at which he was successful beginning in 1925. His government also introduced a controversial sexual sterilization program to prevent the mentally disabled from procreating.
His government's fortunes entered a decline following the 1930 election. Agricultural prices collapsed, throwing many of Alberta's farmers into abject poverty. Urban unemployment shot up, and the government had no choice but to return to deficit spending. Brownlee tried to broker deals between farmers and banks, but found neither side eager to compromise. Political radicalism increased, as communism, the new Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, and William Aberhart's social credit movement gained new adherents. The UFA itself elected as its president radical socialist Robert Gardiner. In 1933, Prime Minister R. B. Bennett named Brownlee to the Royal Commission on Banking and Currency as a representative of western interests and unorthodox viewpoints. In this capacity, Brownlee travelled the country questioning witnesses, especially bankers and farmers. While he concurred with the commission's ultimate recommendation for the creation of a central bank, he also made a series of recommendations of his own, including that the central bank be controlled entirely by the government.
In 1934 Brownlee was sued for the seduction of Vivian MacMillan, a family friend and a secretary in his government's attorney-general's office. MacMillan claimed that she and Brownlee had carried on an affair for three years. Though Brownlee denied MacMillan's story completely, and though his lawyer exposed inconsistencies in cross-examination, the jury sided with MacMillan. In deference to public outrage over the charges, John Brownlee resigned as premier July 10, 1934, and was succeeded by Richard Gavin Reid.
## Road to prosperity (1925–29)
### 1926 election
Brownlee became Premier on November 23, 1925, when Lieutenant Governor of Alberta William Egbert, at the behest of much of the UFA caucus, asked him to form a government. Previously, Brownlee had been Attorney-General in the government of Herbert Greenfield. Greenfield was a weak and indecisive premier, and UFA Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) began increasingly to look to Brownlee to leadership. Though Brownlee resisted early calls to assume the premiership out of loyalty to Greenfield, he was eventually persuaded by the advice of UFA President Henry Wise Wood and Greenfield's assurances that he would happily step aside in Brownlee's favour.
When Brownlee became premier it had already been more than four years since the last election. The law required an election at least every five years, and Brownlee called one for June 28, 1926. The Liberals were the official opposition and the UFA's major opponent in the election; in 1924, with Greenfield still premier, Liberal leader John R. Boyle had predicted a Liberal victory. Boyle had since been appointed to the bench, and the party was now led by Joseph Tweed Shaw. Shaw had served as the Labour Member of Parliament for Calgary West from 1921 until 1925; in this capacity he had been endorsed by and enjoyed warm relations with the UFA. Now, running against the UFA government, this previous relationship and his recorded sentiments about it were handicaps.
The Conservatives were led by A. A. McGillivray, an outstanding courtroom lawyer and friend of Brownlee's who the latter had, as attorney-general, hired to prosecute Emilio Picariello. McGillivray had released his party's entire platform shortly after becoming leader in 1925, and so had little new to say during the campaign. While Brownlee admired his intellect, he considered that he was out of touch with voters' views, likening him to federal Conservative leader Arthur Meighen.
During the campaign, Brownlee travelled the province speaking to public meetings. He emphasized his record and the UFA's, pointing to the province's improving financial position and to its involvement in the establishment of the Alberta Wheat Pool. He touted the period since the last election as "five years of progress". In keeping with the UFA's view of good government as being the non-partisan administration of business rather than any clash of ideologies, he concluded his speeches by asking "Are we going to return in this Province to Government based on the two-party system, or are we going to continue to work for a better [way]?"
The UFA contested 46 of Alberta's 60 seats, including lawyer John Lymburn's candidacy in Edmonton (the first time the rural UFA had run a candidate in either of the province's two major cities). Of these 46 candidates, 43—including Lymburn and Brownlee, who was acclaimed in his Ponoka riding—were elected. This was an increase from the 38 who were elected in 1921. Seven Liberals and four Conservatives were elected. The remaining six seats went to Labour candidates who were generally friendly with the UFA, though Labour MLA Alex Ross, who had served in Brownlee's cabinet, was defeated in Calgary.
### Relationship with King government
At the time that Brownlee became premier, provincial governments were still the junior partners in the Canadian federation. Amendments to the Constitution of Canada expanding provincial powers were still years in the future, as was the advent of the welfare state, which expanded the importance of such provincial responsibilities as health care and education. Brownlee was reliant on cooperation from the federal government for virtually all of his major objectives. Liberal William Lyon Mackenzie King was Prime Minister of Canada for almost all of the first five years of Brownlee's premiership.
During this period King led a minority government that relied for its survival in the House of Commons of Canada on a block of Progressive and allied members of Parliament (MPs). Eleven of this group sat as members of the UFA, and Brownlee met with several of them shortly after taking office to coordinate strategy on Alberta's objectives. These MPs were doubly influential with King because of his desire to absorb them into the Liberal Party; he viewed Progressives as "Liberals in a hurry". In Saskatchewan, Liberal Premier Charles Avery Dunning remained in office with the support of the progressive farmers' movement, but in Alberta Brownlee and the UFA were strong enough to govern without the support of the provincial Liberals, who remained bitter opponents of his government.
The relationship between Brownlee and King was helped by the former's preference for the Liberals over the Conservatives. After King lost his seat in the 1925 federal election, he sought and received Brownlee's advice on running in a by-election in any of the four Liberal-controlled Alberta constituencies. Brownlee's preferences were not shared by all in the UFA: his Railways Minister, Vernor Smith, was accused of actively lobbying UFA MPs to vote with Arthur Meighen's Conservatives during the King–Byng Crisis. Moreover, not all of King's ministers shared his desire to cooperate with Progressives: his cabinet's Alberta representative, Charles Stewart, was implacably opposed to Brownlee and the UFA, which had defeated him in the 1921 provincial election when he was the Liberal Premier of Alberta.
King held Brownlee in high regard: he considered recruiting him to his cabinet as a replacement for Stewart in 1925. He put this plan on hold when Brownlee became premier, but did not abandon it. When he made another attempt in 1929, Brownlee expressed interest, reasserting his support for the federal Liberals, but indicated that he was not politically ambitious and that he would expect the right to resign if he disagreed with government policy. King found this response discouraging, and decided to await the results of the 1930 election before pressing the issue. King's defeat in the 1930 federal election rendered the question moot.
### Natural resources
On no issue was Brownlee's relationship with the King government more critical than it was for the control of natural resources. The terms under which Alberta, like Saskatchewan and Manitoba, entered Canada left control of its natural resources with the federal government; the British North America Act gave control of the older provinces' natural resources to their provincial governments. While Alberta did receive compensation in the form of an annual grant, Brownlee, like his three immediate predecessors, felt that it was insufficient. The federal government had been committed since 1920 to the principle of transferring resource control to the province; only the specific terms of the transfer remained to be established. Alberta, though willing to give up the grant, felt that it was owed compensation for land grants and mineral leases that were made by the federal government, but which Alberta would be expected to honour after the resources were transferred.
After years of wrangling between the federal government and Herbert Greenfield's Alberta government—wrangling in which Brownlee, as Greenfield's attorney-general, played a major role—it initially appeared that the transfer was agreed upon: Brownlee met with King in Ottawa in January 1926 and signed the agreement (subject to ratification by the federal Parliament and the Legislative Assembly of Alberta). However, the next month federal lawyer O. M. Biggar came to Edmonton to discuss minor changes to the agreement. One of these changes was a requirement that Alberta administer school lands and the school lands fund "for the support of schools organized and carried on therein, in accordance with the provisions of Section 17 of the Alberta Act". Understanding this to mean only that the province would be required to use the school lands fund to support schools—a proposition to which Brownlee had no objection—he agreed. It soon emerged that what was actually intended was that Alberta continue to support separate Roman Catholic schools. Brownlee took exception to this, less from any objection to funding Catholic schools than on the principle that education was a matter of provincial jurisdiction, but King would not allow him to rescind his agreement. In fact, the change had been made at the instigation of Ernest Lapointe, King's Quebec lieutenant, who wanted to placate Quebec nationalist leader Henri Bourassa, and in Tim Byrne's opinion "was obviously a political move that had little to do with the agreement". Brownlee countered by putting a modified version of the agreement to his legislature, one that replaced the offending language with "organized in accordance with the laws of the Province". It passed unanimously.
This remained a point of contention until 1929, when Brownlee and King agreed on a new wording: "organized in accordance with the laws of the Province, but in keeping with the letter and the spirit of the constitution." The federal government had already agreed to continue the resource subsidy in perpetuity, but Brownlee objected to its plans to base the amount on Alberta's 1929 population, which would see it receive less than Saskatchewan in perpetuity despite having a much faster-growing population. When the federal Turgeon Commission recommended that Manitoba, in addition to a perpetual subsidy, receive a one-time payment of more than \$4 million, Brownlee demanded the same for Alberta. King countered that the purpose of that one time payment was to compensate Manitoba for years during which it, unlike Alberta and Saskatchewan, did not receive a subsidy; Brownlee responded that the federal government had given away more than three times as much of Alberta's land as Manitoba's to the railways. King left the meeting in protest against this new demand, but he was determined to settle with Manitoba and Alberta in order to isolate Saskatchewan Premier James Thomas Milton Anderson and his more extravagant demands. He eventually accepted Brownlee's terms, and an agreement was signed December 14, 1929. The agreement provided for an annual subsidy of \$562,000 until Alberta's population reached 800,000 and \$750,000 until it reached 1,200,000, after which it would be \$1,125,000.
Brownlee was hailed as a hero in Alberta; he had succeeded where every previous premier had failed. Despite sub-zero temperatures, 3,000 people greeted him at the railway station on his return to Edmonton, where he was feted by a band, a bonfire, and fireworks. As Lakeland College historian and Brownlee biographer Franklin Foster wrote, Brownlee was "at the peak of his political career". In Byrne's view, "this was the greatest achievement of Brownlee's career as premier" and would, had he retired at the time, allowed him to "[enter] history as one of Alberta's great premiers".
### Railways
In 1925, the Alberta government owned four small railways whose founding syndicates, on whose behalf the government had made guarantees to financiers, had collapsed. The Greenfield government's attempts to sell these lines to one or both of Canadian Pacific (CP) or Canadian National (CN) had failed. By 1925, the money-losing lines represented an annual drain of \$1.5 million on the provincial budget. Brownlee reprised old attempts in January 1926, making direct offers to CN President Henry Thornton and CP President Edward Wentworth Beatty, but neither was interested, owing to the Alberta lines' debts and operating losses. Faced with no buyers, potential leasers willing to operate the lines only on terms unfavourable to the province, and in Vernor Smith a Minister of Railways who vigorously supported public ownership, Brownlee's government opted to take over direct operation of the lines in 1927. It also moved its contract for the transcontinental transport of the lines' freight from CP to CN, in the hopes that doing so would ensure that both companies would have firsthand knowledge of the lines' freight levels and be interested in acquiring them in better economic times.
Late in 1927, Brownlee began to advocate for joint acquisition of the lines by CN and CP. When, in early 1928, the lines began to show a profit thanks to the management of Deputy Minister of Railways John Callaghan, he began to pursue the idea with more vigour. One of the lines, the Lacombe and North Western, was sold to CP for \$1.5 million, and CP and CN made a joint offer of \$15 million for the Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia, the largest of the lines. Brownlee recommended against acceptance of the latter offer, believing that the price was too low, the terms of payment too unfavourable (none would be made until 1930, and the interest rate applied was only one and a half percent—less than Brownlee believed that the province could earn in operating profits by keeping the railway), and the result of Alberta being left with a department of railways responsible for a single railway too undesirable.
This caution paid off later in the year when the province received and accepted a \$25 million offer from CP (with CN holding an option to acquire 50% ownership) to purchase the remaining lines. Brownlee's negotiating skill was widely praised in the aftermath of the deal.
### Budget and fiscal policy
As attorney-general in the Greenfield government, Brownlee had been critical of its large deficits, and putting a stop to them was one of his priorities on taking office. He accomplished this objective sooner than he might have expected: though the government had projected a deficit for 1925, on February 11, 1926, he announced to the legislature that the year's accounts had actually recorded a surplus of \$188,019. A second small surplus was recorded in 1926. Securing control of natural resources and disposing of the railways were two elements of Brownlee's strategy for ensuring that these surpluses continued, but he also took other measures. For example, on a trip to the United Kingdom in the summer of 1927, he met with international financiers in an effort to increase their confidence in the creditworthiness of his government.
Brownlee advocated austerity despite surpluses. In November 1927, at a First Ministers' conference, he complained of increased public demand for spending in areas of provincial jurisdiction, such as education, health, and welfare. In the meantime, the federal government's relatively reduced role in public spending allowed it the political credit that comes with running surpluses, reducing its debt, and cutting taxes. The following year he recommended that Alberta not opt into the new federal-provincial old age pension program because he felt that Alberta's share was too onerous. The legislature accepted his recommendation for one year, to give him time to persuade the federal government to take on a greater share of the cost, but opted into the program after that even though no greater commitment from the federal government was forthcoming.
In 1928, the Alberta government ran a surplus of \$1,578,823, the largest in its history and the second largest in the country. Despite this, Brownlee held firm to his desire to limit spending, warning of serious problems if the economy should go into recession. His resulting "Scrooge-like" reputation began to take a toll on his popularity.
### Agricultural policy
At Brownlee's instigation, the Greenfield government had implemented a Debt Adjustment Act, which allowed farmers in Alberta's drought-stricken southeast to access credit counselling services and provided a way to settle creditors' claims without ruining farmers or resorting to litigation. At the time, Brownlee had wanted to extend it province-wide, but had been dissuaded by the opposition of moneylenders. In 1928, as premier, Brownlee tried again. Lending institutions again objected, and threatened to withdraw from the province if the act was extended. Brownlee felt that these threats were disingenuous, noting that similar measures already existed to protect merchants. However, it was a prosperous time for farmers, and so mobilized support for the legislation was in shorter supply than it might have been during a time of economic hardship; Brownlee, newly disillusioned with bankers, withdrew the bill.
In autumn 1928, an early frost reduced farm incomes by between ten and 25 percent. Farmers began to demand the extension of the Debt Adjustment Act over the entire province, along with more radical measures. Citing the example of R. W. Barritt, a farmer near Mirror who had lost his farm at the end of 1928 to Canada Permanent Mortgage Corporation despite diligent efforts to pay off his debt, they demanded legislation that would spread the burden of failed crops between debtor and creditor, rather than leaving it all on farmers. Brownlee rejected such calls: "Unless we are to say that individuals or companies who lend money in this Province in good faith must wait indefinitely for repayment, whatever may be the contract or agreement at the time, there comes a limit to the extent to which the Government is justified in interfering".
As attorney-general, Brownlee had played a major role in the creation of the Alberta Wheat Pool. As premier, he continued his support of it. In May 1927 he attended the Second International Cooperative Wheat Pool Conference in Kansas City, where he spoke on the importance of wheat pools in ensuring that farmers received "not occasionally, but with reasonable regularity, the cost of production plus an adequate and substantial return for [their] labor and investment". On his return to Alberta, he participated in a rally to encourage farmers to sign on with the pool; the effort enticed several new farmers, including the manager of the Prince of Wales' ranch, to join. On a July 1927 trip to Europe, he investigated the possibility of marketing Alberta wheat directly to European millers, rather than passing it through multiple grain buyers, exporters, shippers, and importers, but found that European millers feared that buying directly from foreign sources would alienate domestic producers.
### Educational policy
In 1927, Perren Baker, Brownlee's Minister of Education, had announced as his priorities improving the quality of teaching and ensuring that sufficient schools existed for the growing number of students wishing to earn a high school diploma. In pursuit of these objectives, he released a new School Act in 1929, whose major initiative was to consolidate Alberta's thousands of autonomous school districts, each with control over its own finances, into a smaller number of school divisions. The act also moved responsibility for teacher salaries and employment conditions from the school districts to the provincial government and standardized educational mill rates across the province. Educational reformers supported the legislation as a vehicle for coherent reform of the sort that was impossible under the decentralized status quo, but a large majority of rural residents, the staple of the UFA's support base, opposed it for fear that it would lead to the closure of local schools and greater travel distances for rural students. While Brownlee strongly supported the bill, he ordered it withdrawn in deference to public opinion.
In 1928, Brownlee's government had to select a replacement for Henry Marshall Tory, the first President of the University of Alberta, who was leaving to become the first head of the National Research Council. After narrowing the candidates to Premier of Manitoba John Bracken and University of Manitoba geologist Robert Charles Wallace, Brownlee privately consulted friend and former Progressive leader Thomas Crerar, who knew both men. Crerar reported that in his opinion and those of his close friends Bracken was the better choice, owing to his superior administrative experience. Brownlee eventually opted for Wallace, both because of concern for Bracken's health and for fear that he would be seen as a political appointment.
### Sexual sterilization
The 1920s Progressive movement of which the Brownlee government was a part advocated eugenics, including the sexual sterilization of so-called "mental defectives" to improve the genetic quality of the human race. First-wave feminists such as Nellie McClung made public appeals to "save" mentally retarded girls from pregnancy. The medical profession suggested that many inmates of insane asylums could be safely released but for the concern that they would procreate. In 1928, the Brownlee government introduced the Sexual Sterilization Act, allowing a Board of Examination—jointly nominated by the University of Alberta Senate and the College of Physicians—to mandate the sterilization of any psychiatric patient if it was "unanimously of the opinion that the patient might be safely discharged if the danger of procreation with its attendant risk of multiplication of the evil by transmission of the disability to progeny were eliminated". Permission of the patient was nominally required, but permission of the nearest relative could be substituted in cases where the board considered the patient not mentally competent.
The Liberals and Conservatives opposed the bill, as did two of the five Labour members. Nor were the UFA members unanimous in the legislation's support: Maurice Conner abstained, and thirteen others—including Archibald Matheson, who had made early attempts to have the bill die on the order paper—were absent for the final vote. Even so, the bill passed by a vote of 31 to 11. The next day, posters appeared along Jasper Avenue advocating the sterilization of George Hoadley, Brownlee's Minister of Health and the bill's sponsor.
### Relationship with the UFA
During the first part of Brownlee's premiership, the presidency of the UFA was still held by his old friend and ally Henry Wise Wood. Wood's considerable influence helped hold in check the organization's more radical elements, who were generally antagonistic to the cautious and conservative Brownlee. Even so, Foster and Byrne suggest that towards the beginning of Brownlee's term, he started to replace Wood as the "centre" of the UFA in a way that Greenfield had not. Despite this, his relationship with the UFA grassroots was sometimes stormy. The 1929 UFA convention saw vocal criticisms of Brownlee's failure to adopt the old age pension and his decision to withdraw the Debt Adjustment Act in the face of opposition from banks. He also rejected the notion, dear to many UFA members, that a UFA government should be bound by the resolutions of the UFA membership. He felt that the heated atmosphere of UFA conventions did not lend itself to the development of prudent policy, and that the government of Alberta ought to be accountable not only to UFA members but to the population at large.
Not helping matters, the UFA, once a populist mass movement, was beginning to lose touch with its grassroots. In advance of the 1926 election, several constituencies had trouble generating the interest necessary for a nomination meeting. While the UFA membership strongly endorsed Baker's proposed educational reforms, it soon emerged that a large majority of farmers opposed them. Such incidents only reinforced Brownlee's disinclination to accept marching orders from UFA convention resolutions.
## Depression and scandal (1930–34)
### 1930 election
Brownlee wanted to call an election in 1929 after his government won control of Alberta's natural resources, but could not convince his cabinet or his caucus. Taking advantage of a period of increased popularity to call an early election was considered immoral by many in the UFA, the sort of thing that the old-style parties might try but which the UFA had been elected to hold itself above. As such, an election was not held until June 19, 1930, four years less nine days after the previous one.
Brownlee was the campaign's dominant figure, and gave 67 speeches around the province. He stressed the UFA government's experience and contrasted it with the Liberals' and Conservatives' lack thereof. Having signed the resource agreement, he asked for a mandate to administer its implementation. In response to claims that a strong opposition was needed to exercise a check on his certain-to-be-re-elected government, he restated his view of government as "the administration of business" by saying "an opposition is a thing that is no more needed in the public business of this Province ... than in the management of the affairs of any of our large corporations." Byrne suggests that Brownlee arrived at this belief rationally but, once he had done so, "adhered to [it] with an almost religious conviction".
The election gave the UFA a slightly reduced majority, with 39 of the legislature's 63 seats. Labour candidates, on behalf of many of whom Brownlee campaigned, won a further four. The Liberals remained the official opposition with eleven members, while the Conservatives returned six. The remaining three seats were won by independent candidates.
### Collapse of agricultural prices
In the 1920s and 1930s, Alberta's economy was heavily reliant on wheat, and in 1930 the price of wheat began to fall drastically. From its peak of \$1.78 per bushel in summer 1929, by February 1930 it had fallen to \$1.07 because of world oversupply and dumping by the Soviet Union and Argentina. By March it had reached \$1.00, a level at which most Alberta wheat farmers could not profit. By the fall, it had fallen below \$0.60 and by the end of the year to \$0.45. Other agricultural products, especially cattle, poultry, and eggs, saw similar or greater price decreases.
In February 1930 Brownlee advocated a federally guaranteed minimum price to farmers of \$0.70 per bushel of wheat. In November he asked new Prime Minister R. B. Bennett, with whom he had practiced law in Calgary nearly twenty years previous, to stabilize wheat "at some reasonable price". Bennett replied that price decreases were inevitable in the face of a global oversupply of 400 million bushels. Brownlee also sought assistance from Bennett in dealing with banks' increasing reluctance to lend money to farmers, many of whom would not be able to purchase seed for the 1931 crop without loans. Brownlee himself offered such farmers limited assistance, but only quietly and only in the last resort; he was concerned that a well-publicized and widespread program of loan guarantees would induce banks to lend money under predatory terms, knowing that if the farmers could not make the repayments the province would. When he reluctantly agreed to guarantee banks' loans to farmers for binder twine, he insisted that these guarantees be kept secret to discourage farmers from shifting loans that they could pay off themselves to the provincial government. To address the problem of farmers being forced to pledge one third of their crop as security on loans, he threatened to implement legislation capping such crop share guarantees at one quarter. As he had hoped, this threat enhanced lenders' willingness to negotiate with his government for less radical solutions; these eventually included caps that applied only in low yield areas of the province and an agreement to give three to four weeks notice before initiating foreclosures and to initiate them only where farmers' payments did not even cover interest. Despite these minor successes, Brownlee's strategy of negotiation and relying on the reasonableness of all parties rather than imposing strong legislation left his popularity among farmers diminished. It was not enhanced when he supported unpopular federal legislation requiring farmers to plant less wheat, part of an international agreement aimed at addressing worldwide oversupply.
A second consequence of collapsing wheat prices was the threat they posed to the Alberta Wheat Pool (AWP). Falling prices and the attendant tightened credit conditions led the Pool, along with its counterparts in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, to seek help from its provincial government in 1930. Brownlee guaranteed loans to the Pool, but told the legislature that he did not expect this guarantee to prove necessary, since the large portions of the 1929 crop already sold at higher prices would provide sufficient cushioning unless wheat prices fell "to a level never reached on Canadian markets". In October 1930, with the Pool receiving a price for its wheat well below the \$1.00 per bushel that it guaranteed its farmers, the banks refused to lend more money unless the Pool appointed to its Central Selling Agency (CSA) a general manager acceptable to the banks. Brownlee and Premiers John Bracken of Manitoba and James Thomas Milton Anderson of Saskatchewan met in Ottawa with acting Prime Minister Sir George Perley, seeking direct federal aid to the Pools. The premiers' pleas rejected, CSA President Alexander James McPhail offered the banks the names of two possible general managers. The first was John McFarland, former president of the Alberta Pacific Grain Company. The second was Brownlee. The banks chose McFarland. Brownlee too imposed conditions on the AWP as a condition of provincial assistance: he wanted the provincial government to be consulted on all AWP managerial decisions and given the right to veto capital expenditures, and he required it to increase its sales commission from three quarters of a cent per bushel to one cent. While these conditions met with resistance from farmer leaders who believed that they would transform the AWP from a farmers' organization to a grain company like any other, Brownlee was supported by UFA President Henry Wise Wood, the AWP was reliant on provincial support, and the conditions were accepted.
### Urban unemployment
The effects of the Great Depression were not felt only on Alberta's farms. By the winter of 1930–1931, unemployment in Edmonton and Calgary was at record levels, which were only exacerbated by a migration of farmers' offspring, hoping to find work, to the cities. Brownlee, who had long advocated curtailed immigration to the western provinces, urged the federal government to prevent new migrants from swelling the ranks of Alberta's unemployed. He also asked that it shoulder a greater share of ever-rising relief payments; by 1932, it started to do so.
Unemployment bred labour militancy. In December 1930, Brownlee asked John Lymburn, his attorney-general, to prepare a list of known communist leaders so he could arrange for their deportation where possible. He staunchly opposed the activities of organizations that he viewed as communist, including the Ukrainian Labour Farmer Temple Association and the Farmers' Unity League. In December 1932, labour organizers staged a "Hunger March", at which 1,000 unemployed met in Edmonton's Market Square and marched to the legislature building. Brownlee refused to grant permission for the march and requested and received police assistance in breaking it up. While he pronounced himself willing to meet with a delegation of the march's leaders, he believed that the atmosphere at the march would be dangerously volatile and refused to address it. One participant said "A lot of us understood that [Brownlee] couldn't do too much, but we figured since it's a farmers' government, least he can do is come out and explain. But they wouldn't let us near the Parliament Building."
### Deteriorating provincial finances
The shrinking provincial economy and increasing relief payments brought about the return of public deficits to Alberta. Brownlee, a fiscal conservative in good times, became still more aggressive in cutting spending. In 1931 the government closed all but two of the province's agricultural colleges, the creation of which by the Liberal government of Arthur Sifton had been a major UFA victory. The civil service shrank from 2,566 at the beginning of 1930 to 1,600 at the end of 1931. Government spending on advertising fell from \$36,000 in 1929 to less than \$8,000 in 1932. In 1932 the government disbanded the Alberta Provincial Police and asked the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to take over policing in the province. The same year, government employees earning more than \$100 per month took 10% pay cuts; in Brownlee's case, this translated into an annual reduction of nearly \$1,500.
Brownlee's government also took action to increase government revenues: the 1932 budget increased corporate taxes and imposed a new personal income tax on individuals earning more than \$750 per year and couples earning more than \$1,500; fewer than 100 farmers in the province earned enough to pay it. In 1933 he joined Bracken and Anderson in protesting to Bennett that nothing more could be done: in Brownlee's view, the province's impoverished people could not pay more taxes, and yet expectations of provincial governments were constantly growing. Left to their own devices, the premiers said, they would have to either drastically cut relief payments or default on debt payments. They asked that the federal government increase its share of unemployment relief from one third to one half and that it lend the provinces the money they needed to pay their share. Bennett replied by chastising the premiers for not doing enough to "work into a position of self-reliance" and decreed that federal support would be cut off unless budget deficits were limited to \$1 million. In a separate letter to Brownlee, he praised him for doing "better than any one of the Western Provinces" but said that, in the interests of equality, he was imposing the same conditions on Alberta as on the others.
Despite Brownlee's efforts, Alberta's budgetary position worsened. In 1931 the government ran a deficit of \$2.5 million, the first of Brownlee's premiership; 1932's deficit surpassed \$4 million. Also in 1932, the Alberta government came within hours of defaulting on a \$3 million bond, and was saved only by a loan from the federal government. Over the longer-term, it funded its operations by a \$15 million issue at record interest rates; even this was taken up only because of guarantees from the federal government.
### Political radicalism
Henry Wise Wood declined to seek re-election as UFA President at its 1931 convention, and was replaced by Robert Gardiner. In contrast to Wood, Gardiner was firmly entrenched on the progressive movement's left-wing. He denounced Brownlee's approach to economic policy, saying that his austerity only exacerbated the problem of underconsumption. Under Gardiner, the UFA moved increasingly to the left, well out of step with the Brownlee government, and passed resolutions calling for the nationalization of land, radio broadcasting, and hydroelectricity, along with the cancellation of interest payments as long as the price of agricultural commodities was less than the cost of their production. In 1932, prominent UFA members—including MP William Irvine—attended the founding convention of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in Calgary. This new federal party advocated socialism and considered itself a partnership between farmers and labourers; Brownlee wanted no part of its policies.
At around the same time, Calgary radio evangelist William Aberhart began to preach a new economic theory called social credit. Though the theory required control of monetary policy, a federal responsibility, it became increasingly popular among former UFA supporters who, following Aberhart's instructions, began to form local social credit "study groups". Brownlee argued against social credit on the basis that its application by a provincial government would be unconstitutional and that it would do nothing to create markets for Alberta's unsold wheat, which he viewed as the source of Alberta's woes. The legislature held a series of hearings to investigate the theory, and both Aberhart and C. H. Douglas, the theory's originator, testified at them. Brownlee questioned both on how the introduction of "credit certificates" issued by the Alberta government could help people so heavily dependent on interprovincial and international trade; neither answered the question to his satisfaction.
In defending his conservatism, Brownlee emphasized that "history has yet to record a single instance of the revolutionary method that has not resulted in a welter of discord and misery" and mused that "if the results were not so tragical, [sic] I would like to see Canada put under the most extreme form of socialistic or communistic Government in order that our people could have the actual experience of what would happen and learn for themselves the lesson that in our present day world situation, one nation cannot fashion for itself any level of prosperity regardless of the position of the rest of the world". Even as he rejected the radical solutions posed by others, Brownlee had no solutions of his own to offer but government thrift and moderate debt adjustment.
### Royal commission
While Brownlee was viewed as an orthodox conservative in his approach to economic matters within Alberta, elsewhere in Canada he was still regarded as a leader of the country's radical farmer movement. Accordingly, when Bennett struck a royal commission to examine the government's role in economic and monetary management, he asked Brownlee to serve on it as a representative of Western and unorthodox views. Though he was concerned that the commission's other two Canadian members, Beaudry Leman and William Thomas White, were involved in the banking industry, Brownlee agreed to the appointment. He was formally appointed with the rest of the members July 31, 1933, and the commission began its work in Ottawa on August 8.
The royal commission conducted hearings across the country. In Victoria, Brownlee questioned witnesses on how poverty among prairie farmers was hurting British Columbia's lumber and salmon packing industries. In Calgary he drew testimony from farmers that farming conditions were excellent—in contrast with the wide belief in eastern Canada that western farmers' troubles were caused by drought and land unsuited for agriculture—and that the problem was "not due to Acts of God but to Acts of Man".
The UFA's submission, presented in Calgary by Gardiner, emphasized these points and accused the banks of charging predatory interest rates. It called on the commission to recommend a government-owned central bank and controls on interest, and concluded that "the monetary system has failed". Brownlee himself wrote the Alberta government's submission, though it was presented at the commission's Edmonton hearings by Acting Premier George Hoadley. It echoed the UFA's points about interest rates and the importance of a government-owned central bank, and accused the banks of treating the west unequally to the east. The commission concluded its hearings in Ottawa in September, where representatives of the banks testified. Brownlee criticized them for "discounting", a practice whereby banks charged higher de facto interest rates than the legal maximum by requiring loan recipients to consent to having a portion of their loan withheld.
The commission's report, issued September 29, recommended the establishment of a central bank and an inquiry on the availability of credit to farmers. Brownlee supported both recommendations, and attached a minority report calling for banks to end their disparate treatment of eastern and western debtors, urging that a statutory maximum interest rate be maintained and possibly lowered, and recommending that the proposed central bank be entirely government owned and controlled. This last recommendation came to pass in 1938, when the Bank of Canada, originally controlled by a mix of public and private interests, was reorganized as a federal Crown corporation.
### Political intrigue
Provincially, Brownlee had always enjoyed better relations with the Conservatives than the Liberals. A. A. McGillivray, Conservative leader from 1925 until 1929, was a friend of his, as was his successor David Duggan. The Liberals despised Brownlee and the UFA, and in 1932 selected William R. Howson, one of their most militant MLAs, as leader. Howson was aggressive in trying to uncover evidence of scandal and malfeasance, including the sensational divorce of Oran McPherson. He was aided in these attacks by the unabashedly Liberal Edmonton Bulletin, which distributed free copies of issues containing coverage of the divorce in McPherson's southern Little Bow riding. As the depression and, later, Brownlee's sex scandal took their toll on Brownlee's government, Howson was certain that he would imminently become premier.
Brownlee's relations with the federal parties were somewhat more harmonious. While he personally preferred the Liberals, his history with Bennett led to a cordial working relationship. Both parties made overtures towards Brownlee: King had invited him to join his cabinet while he was still attorney-general, and in 1932 sent an emissary to encourage union of all political parties opposed to the Conservatives. Brownlee reiterated his policy to deal "equally with Liberals and Conservatives in Ottawa", and declined King's overtures. So too did Alberta Liberals, led by Howson and Charles Stewart, who sought to replace Brownlee rather than join with him. In 1934, the Conservatives sent H. R. Milner to raise the possibility of the UFA and the Conservatives joining together against the Liberals and Co-operative Commonwealth Federation; Brownlee expressed interest, but made no move to enact such a coalition. A frustrated Bennett dismissed him as "a time server whose one object, apparently, is to retain office."
### Sex scandal
On September 22, 1933, Liberal lawyer Neil MacLean filed a statement of claim on behalf of Vivian MacMillan and her father Allan MacMillan, suing Brownlee for the seduction of Vivian. It alleged that Brownlee had lured her to Edmonton from her home in Edson in 1930 with the promise of a job in the provincial attorney-general's office. Upon her arrival, she had become a close friend of the family's. One night Brownlee had told her that because of his wife Florence's ill health, they were unable to have a sexual relationship, and that MacMillan must yield to him to prevent him from resuming a sexual relationship with Florence that would likely kill her. MacMillan had eventually yielded, and the ensuing affair lasted until July 1933. Brownlee denied MacMillan's story completely and counter-sued MacMillan and her fiance, John Caldwell, for conspiracy.
A sensational trial ensued in June 1934, which was reported in lurid detail by the Bulletin. Despite Brownlee's exposure of contradictions in MacMillan's story, the jury found in favour of the plaintiffs and awarded Vivian \$10,000 and her father \$5,000. Trial judge William Carlos Ives disagreed with the jury's finding and ruled that even if Vivian MacMillan's story had been true, as a matter of law there could be no successful suit for seduction without damages being proved. He overturned the jury's finding and ruled in Brownlee's favour. The case was eventually appealed to the Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council, at the time Canada's highest court of appeal, which found in favour of the plaintiffs.
The legal processes and arguments were irrelevant to John Brownlee's political career: as soon as the jury found that he had seduced Vivian MacMillan, he announced that he would resign as premier as soon as a successor could be found. On July 10, 1934, he was succeeded as Premier of Alberta by Richard Gavin Reid.
## See also
- Great Depression in Canada
|
732,460 |
Albert Ketèlbey
| 1,167,005,154 |
English composer and pianist (1875–1959)
|
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"1875 births",
"1959 deaths",
"19th-century British composers",
"19th-century English musicians",
"19th-century classical composers",
"19th-century classical pianists",
"19th-century conductors (music)",
"20th-century British conductors (music)",
"20th-century British male musicians",
"20th-century English composers",
"20th-century classical composers",
"20th-century classical pianists",
"Alumni of Birmingham Conservatoire",
"Alumni of Trinity College of Music",
"British male conductors (music)",
"English classical composers",
"English classical pianists",
"English conductors (music)",
"English male classical composers",
"Golders Green Crematorium",
"Light music composers",
"Male classical pianists",
"Musicians from Birmingham, West Midlands"
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Albert William Ketèlbey (/kəˈtɛlbi/; born Ketelbey; 9 August 1875 – 26 November 1959) was an English composer, conductor and pianist, best known for his short pieces of light orchestral music. He was born in Birmingham and moved to London in 1889 to study at Trinity College of Music. After a brilliant studentship he did not pursue the classical career predicted for him, becoming musical director of the Vaudeville Theatre before gaining fame as a composer of light music and as a conductor of his own works.
For many years Ketèlbey worked for a series of music publishers, including Chappell & Co and the Columbia Graphophone Company, making arrangements for smaller orchestras, a period in which he learned to write fluent and popular music. He also found great success writing music for silent films until the advent of talking films in the late 1920s.
The composer's early works in conventional classical style were well received, but it was for his light orchestral pieces that he became best known. One of his earliest works in the genre, In a Monastery Garden (1915), sold over a million copies and brought him to widespread notice; his later musical depictions of exotic scenes caught the public imagination and established his fortune. Such works as In a Persian Market (1920), In a Chinese Temple Garden (1923), and In the Mystic Land of Egypt (1931) became best-sellers in print and on records; by the late 1920s he was Britain's first millionaire composer. His celebrations of British scenes were equally popular: examples include Cockney Suite (1924) with its scenes of London life, and his ceremonial music for royal events. His works were frequently recorded during his heyday, and a substantial part of his output has been put on CD in more recent years.
Ketèlbey's popularity began to wane during the Second World War and his originality also declined; many of his post-war works were re-workings of older pieces and he increasingly found his music ignored by the BBC. In 1949 he moved to the Isle of Wight, where he spent his retirement, and he died at home in obscurity. His work has been reappraised since his death; in a 2003 poll by the BBC radio programme Your Hundred Best Tunes, Bells Across the Meadows was voted the 36th most popular tune of all time. On the last night of the 2009 Proms season the orchestra performed his In a Monastery Garden, marking the fiftieth anniversary of Ketèlbey's death—the first time his music had been included in the festival's finale.
## Biography
### Early life and education, 1875–95
Albert William Ketèlbey was born on 9 August 1875 at 41 Alma Street in the Aston area of Birmingham, England. He was the second of five children of George Henry, a jewellery engraver, and his wife Sarah Ann, née Aston. The grave accent was Albert's invention: the family name was spelled without it at the time of his birth and there had been several variants of the name in the previous generations. All the children were taught a musical instrument and Ketèlbey's brother, Harold, was later a violinist of note. Albert showed a natural talent for the piano and singing, and he subsequently became head chorister at St Silas' Church in nearby Lozells.
At the age of eleven Ketèlbey joined the Birmingham and Midland Institute school of music (now the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) where he was tutored by Dr Alfred Gaul in composition and Dr H. W. Wareing in harmony. At the age of thirteen Ketèlbey composed his first serious piece of music, "Sonata for Pianoforte", which, for Tom McCanna, his biographer, "shows a precocious mastery of composition". Ketèlbey competed for a scholarship to Trinity College of Music in London, and received the highest marks of all entrants; the future composer Gustav Holst came second. Ketèlbey entered the college in 1889, studying under G. E. Bambridge (piano), Dr G. Saunders (harmony) and Frederick Corder (composition).
In 1892 Ketèlbey again won the annual scholarship competition and was appointed as the organist at St John's Church, Wimbledon, London. He held the post for the next five years, during which time he wrote several anthems and hymns, the latter of which included "Every Good Gift", "Behold! Upon the Mountains" and "Be Strong! All ye People". It was around this time he added the accent to his surname, with the aim of moving the stress onto the second syllable, rather than the first. In that year he appeared in a series of concerts in London and provincial cities. In March 1892 at the capital's Queen's Hall he played Frédéric Chopin's Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor; the reviewer for The Illustrated London News thought the "brilliant" Ketèlbey played "most beautifully". He won several prizes at the college before being awarded his certificate in 1895. During this period, The British Musician reports, some critics found likenesses between Ketèlbey's music and that of Edward German.
Towards the end of his time at the college Ketèlbey wrote lighter, mostly mandolin-based, compositions. As he still aspired to be a serious composer, he adapted the pseudonym Raoul Clifford in an effort to distance himself from the genre. On leaving the college he became one of its examiners in harmony. He wrote piano pieces as part of his role, and used the pseudonym Anton Vodorinski for the work; he subsequently used the name for more serious works, which he published with French titles.
### Early career, 1896–1914
In 1896 Ketèlbey took up the post of conductor for a travelling light opera company; his father, who wanted his son to be a composer of serious music, disapproved of what he saw as a lightweight role. After a two-year tour Ketèlbey was appointed as musical director of the Opera Comique Theatre—at age 22, the youngest theatrical conductor in London at the time. He moved into a house in Bruton Street, in London's Mayfair, where he wrote the song "Blow! Blow! Thou Winter Wind", to words from Shakespeare's As You Like It. The Opera Comique staged a successful revival of the musical Alice in Wonderland between December 1898 and March 1899, and according to his biographer John Sant, it is possible that Ketèlbey wrote some of the music. This was followed by the comic opera A Good Time from April, for which Ketèlbey wrote the music and songs. Following poor reviews, the short run of the piece ended in May and the Opera Comique closed because of the losses brought about by the production. There, Ketèlbey began a relationship with the actress and singer Charlotte "Lottie" Siegenberg. The couple married in 1906 but the relationship was childless.
Ketèlbey wrote music in the style of the Gilbert and Sullivan works for a comic opera The Wonder Worker, which was staged at the Grand Theatre, Fulham in 1900. The reviewer for the London Evening Standard thought Ketèlbey's score was "attractive though conventional ... No originality is shown in conception or treatment, but the conception is appropriate, and the treatment effective." The same year Ketèlbey began undertaking transcription work at the music publisher A. Hammond & Co, making arrangements of music for smaller orchestras. In 1904 he also began to work for a second music publisher, Chappell & Co, a third in 1907, the Columbia Graphophone Company, and a fourth in 1910, when he worked for Elkin & Co. McCanna considers that "this hack-work may have been tedious, but the experience was invaluable in moulding the composer's fluent writing for both piano and orchestra". Throughout the time working for the companies he continued to compose and publish his own work, comprising organ music, songs, duets, piano pieces and anthems. He worked for Columbia for over twenty years and rose to the position of Musical Director and Adviser, working with leading musicians across a range of musical styles; Columbia released more than 600 recordings with Ketèlbey conducting.
In 1912 the composer and cellist Auguste van Biene offered a prize for a new work to complement his popular piece The Broken Melody. Ketèlbey was the winner of the competition with a new composition, The Phantom Melody, which became his first major success. In the following year he won two prizes totalling £200 in a competition held by The Evening News: second place with a song for female voices, and first place with his entry for male voices. The latter song, "My Heart Still Clings to You", is described by Sant as "a typical tragical-love ballad of this time, and its almost Victorian sentimentality comes through in its words". In the early to mid-1910s Ketèlbey began to write music for silent films—a new growth industry in Britain from 1910 onwards—and he had great success in the medium until the advent of talking films in the late 1920s.
### Rising reputation and success, 1914–46
In 1914 Ketèlbey wrote the orchestral work In a Monastery Garden, which was published in the following year both as a piano piece and in full orchestral form. It was his first major success, his most famous piece, and became known all over the world; by 1920 over a million copies of the sheet music had been sold. There are two competing stories detailing the inspiration behind the piece: although Ketèlbey later said that he wrote the work for an old friend, he also stated that he composed it after visiting a monastery. The musicologist Peter Dempsey considers that "this piece ... remains to this day a world-renowned staple of the light-music repertoire, while McCanna opines that from the first bar, listeners "... might sooner expect such a device in the impassioned world of a [Gustav] Mahler symphony than in a genteel English salon piece". The success of The Phantom Melody and In a Monastery Garden led to Ketèlbey's engagement by André Charlot as the musical director for the 1916 revue Samples! at the Vaudeville Theatre. The appointment led to similar positions at other London theatres, including the Adelphi, Garrick, Shaftesbury and Drury Lane theatres.
Because of the rise in Ketèlbey's popularity, and in sales of his sheet music, in 1918 he became a member of the Performing Rights Society. Except for a brief interval in 1926 when he resigned over a dispute about the allocation of funds to its members, he remained a lifelong member. In 1919 he composed the romantic work In the Moonlight, which his publisher considered to be "a work of striking beauty". In the following year he wrote Wedgwood Blue—a gavotte—and In a Persian Market; the latter became one of his more popular works. The musicologist Jonathan Bellman, calling In a Persian Market "immortal", describes it as "an 'intermezzo scene' for band or small orchestra; reprehensibly demeaning or delightfully tacky". The work was not without its critics; the composer and conductor Nicolas Slonimsky quotes the view of a Russian journal that "the suite ... had its 'immaculate conception' in imperialistic colonial England. The composer's intention is to convince the listener that all's well in the colonies where beautiful women and exotic fruits mature together, where beggars and rulers are friends, where there are no imperialists, no restive proletarians." In The Musical Times, the pseudonymous reviewer "Ariel" described the work as "naive and inexpensive pseudo-orientalism", which led to heated correspondence in the journal over the following months between the composer and the critic.
In 1921 Ketèlbey moved from his home in St John's Wood, where he had been living for the previous seven years, to Frognal, an area of Hampstead, north west London. He installed a billiards table in the basement, which became his favoured form of relaxation. He produced a series of orchestral pieces in the first half of the 1920s, including Bells Across the Meadows released in 1921, and Suite Romantique (1922), which the music critic Tim McDonald considers "impressive". In the following year Ketèlbey wrote In a Chinese Temple Garden, followed in 1924 by Sanctuary of the Heart and Cockney Suite. The last of these contained the finale "'Appy 'Ampstead", which the writers Lewis and Susan Foreman describe as "... a kaleidoscope of passing images, mouth organs, a cornet playing, ... a band, ... shouts of a showman ... with his rattle and a steam engine and roundabout".
In 1923 the composer Frederic Austin wrote the opera Polly, closely based on the 1729 work of the same name by John Gay and Johann Christoph Pepusch; recordings of Austin's work were published by Columbia's main rival, the Gramophone Company. At Columbia's request Ketèlbey produced his own version of Gay's original. Austin considered that it copied elements of his, and sued for copyright infringement. Acting as a court expert witness, the composer Sir Frederick Bridge thought that the case "... is an awful bore. ... These two good men are good musicians, and they have no business to be fighting over the game. It is not worth the trouble. ... It is rubbish. I am sick of 'Polly'." After three weeks the case ended with the judge finding against Columbia.
Such was Ketèlbey's popularity that by 1924 his works could be heard several times a day in restaurants and cinemas, and in that year the Lyons tea shops spent £150,000 on playing his music in their outlets. He continued to build on his success in 1925 with In a Lovers' Garden and In the Camp of the Ancient Britons—inspired by a trip he took to Worlebury Camp, near Weston-super-Mare. He undertook annual tours of Britain, conducting his music with municipal orchestras, and also worked with the BBC Wireless Orchestra. He was invited to conduct several international orchestras, and spent time in Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland and particularly in the Netherlands, where he built a strong relationship with the Concertgebouw and Kursaal Grand Symphony orchestras. His music was popular on the continent and his obituarist in The Times later reported that one Viennese critic considered that Ketèlbey's music was behind only that of Johann Strauss and Franz Lehár. Continental audiences often called him "The English Strauss".
Ketèlbey was financially successful enough to leave Columbia Records in 1926 to spend more time composing, although he continued to conduct for them on an occasional basis, particularly between 1928 and 1930 when he conducted sixteen of his own works with the company, published as Ketèlbey Conducting his Concert Orchestra. He spent his time undertaking annual conducting tours and composing, and in 1927 he published By the Blue Hawaiian Waters and the suite In a Fairy Realm, while in the following year he wrote another suite, Three Fanciful Etchings. His works continued to sell well, and in the October 1929 issue of the Performing Right Gazette his publisher described him as "Britain's greatest living composer"; when the advertisement was mentioned in The Musical Times, the anonymous writer wrote "we sympathise with Mr Ketèlbey in being thus raised to a pinnacle which he himself, we are sure, would be very far from claiming." Sant writes that Ketèlbey subsequently became Britain's first millionaire composer. In February 1930 he began what became an annual series of concerts at the Kingsway Hall, conducting a new work, The Clock and the Dresden Figures. In a review of the 1933 concert, the critic S.R. Nelson wrote that "as a descriptive writer Ketèlbey really does take some beating. He has the happy knack of combining infinitely melodious themes and the cleverly diluted likeness of the authentic atmosphere."
The introduction of talking films in 1927 with The Jazz Singer and the subsequent growth of the medium had a serious impact on composers and music publishers involved in the film industry as it heralded a decline in the sales of sheet music. Although Ketèlbey's income from this source declined, the period was also marked by a rise in the popularity of the radio and gramophones and his new compositions were successful with audiences at home. By the early 1930s over 1,500 broadcasts of his work were made on BBC Radio in a year, and more than 700 on continental radio stations, including a weekly Sunday programme of his music, sponsored by Decca Records on Radio Luxembourg. For this programme he wrote the theme music, "Sunday Afternoon Reverie", with the melody based on the musical notes D E C C A.
Ketèlbey wrote an intermezzo—A Birthday Greeting—in 1932, on the sixth birthday of Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II). His connection to royalty continued in 1934, when his march A State Procession was played to accompany the arrival of King George V at a Royal Command Performance; the king requested that the march should be played again during the interval, and he and the queen stayed in the royal box to listen to the piece. In the following year Ketèlbey wrote the march With Honour Crowned for the King's silver jubilee; the work was played for the royal family at Windsor Castle before Ketèlbey conducted its first public performance at Kingsway Hall. The work was played at that year's Trooping the Colour and at the Jubilee Thanksgiving Service at St Paul's Cathedral.
Ketèlbey continued to conduct on his annual tours during the Second World War, but these were on a smaller scale because of travel restrictions. He also continued with his annual concerts at Kingsway Hall, and introduced a new march, Fighting for Freedom, which he had written in a supportive response to Winston Churchill's "We shall fight on the beaches" speech. Apart from composing and conducting, he also acted as a Special Constable during the war.
### Post-war; retirement and death, 1946–59
The winter of 1946–47 was harsh, and in February the sub-zero temperatures burst the water main outside Ketèlbey's Hampstead home. With his house partially flooded, he lost most of his correspondence, manuscripts and papers, and he and his wife both contracted pneumonia. The couple were taken to the Regent's Park Nursing Home, where Lottie died two days later. He sold his house and moved temporarily to the Hendon Hall Hotel, where he had a nervous breakdown. He spent the remainder of the year staying in hotels in southern England; in Bournemouth he began a relationship with Mabel Maud Pritchett, a hotel manageress, and the couple married in October in the following year.
In 1949 Ketèlbey and his new wife moved to the Isle of Wight, and purchased Rookstone, Egypt Hill, in Cowes, where he partly retired, although he composed occasionally. Tastes in popular music had changed during and after the Second World War and his music declined in popularity; his income in 1940 had been £3,493, which dropped to £2,906 in 1950—a particularly steep drop when wartime inflation is considered. McCanna writes that apart from a commission for the National Brass Band competition in 1945, Ketèlbey produced nothing memorable after the war, and his biographer Keith Anderson considers that in the postwar period Ketèlbey's work "... lacked novelty. Of the handful of works published ... most were reworkings of old material, although the composer attempted to disguise the origins". The BBC also began to ignore his work. In their 1949 Festival of Light Music, none of his compositions were played, which he found distressing. In his letter to the Director-General of the BBC, Sir William Haley, Ketèlbey said the exclusion was "a public insult". His music still found an audience: in 1952 and 1953 With Honour Crowned was again played as a slow march at the Trooping the Colour ceremony.
Ketèlbey died in his Cowes home of heart and renal failure on 26 November 1959. By the time of his death he had slipped into obscurity. Only a handful of mourners attended his funeral, which was held at Golders Green Crematorium in London.
## Music
Under his own name and at least six pseudonyms, Ketèlbey composed several hundred works, about 150 of them for the orchestra. In the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Phillip Scowcroft writes, "His gifts for melody and sensitive, colourful scoring ensured continuing popularity with light orchestras and bands until after 1945. The most popular of his hundreds of pieces emphasize emotionalism and sometimes exaggerated effects at the expense of structure and harmonic subtlety."
### Early works and serious music
Ketèlbey's early compositions are classical and orthodox in form, reflecting the training at Trinity College. The first substantial work was a piano sonata (1888); it was followed by a Caprice for piano and orchestra (1892), a Concertstück for piano and orchestra (circa 1893) and a piano concerto in G minor (1895). Ketèlbey's piano writing was notable for its brilliance, and the composer's own performance of the solo part of the Concertstück brought out that quality. As a student, Ketèlbey composed a cadenza for the first movement of Beethoven's First Piano Concerto, judged "clever and effective" in performance in 1890.
For the chamber repertoire, Ketèlbey composed a string quartet (c. 1896) and a quintet for piano and wind (1896) which won the Costa Prize and the College Gold Medal. His 1894 Romance for violin and piano was praised as "a charming, musicianly work". His other early works include choral pieces, including the anthems "Every good Gift"; "Behold upon the mountains", and "Be strong, all ye people" (all 1896). After these works he moved professionally into conducting light opera, and serious music became the exception rather than the rule in his compositions.
Ketèlbey's concert music was less well known in England than in continental Europe, where he conducted many programmes of his own works for the Concertgebouw Orchestra and others. The composer's more avowedly serious music was less widely esteemed by his compatriots. In a 1928 profile the magazine The British Musician commented, "There is no need to explain here why his serious music, whether written thirty years ago or as recently as 1927 ... has not won the popularity of, say, Edward German's dances: it is pleasant music, delightfully scored; but it is not so fascinating as that from which it derives—the music of the Viennese writers of dance music, of Delibes and Gounod and the like." The reviewer added, "Albert Ketèlbey's works of the Monastery Garden type are by far the best that anyone in this country has written, and they represent the end to which he was born."
### Light orchestral
Ketèlbey, a capable player of the cello, clarinet, oboe, and horn, was a skilled orchestrator. He generally followed the normal style for light music of his day: picturesque and romantic, with colourful orchestral effects. Reviewing a collection of Ketèlbey's music, the authors of The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music commented in 2008, "when vulgarity is called for it is not shirked—only it's a stylish kind of vulgarity!" Many of Ketèlbey's pieces are programmatic, typically lasting between four and six minutes. His penchant for arranging his works for various combinations of instruments makes them harder to categorise than the works of many other composers. His first two pieces to make a mark with a wide public were The Phantom Melody (1911) and In a Monastery Garden (1915), both best known in their orchestral versions, but originally written for cello and piano and for solo piano respectively. For the familiar orchestral version of the second of these pieces the composer published a synopsis:
> The first theme represents a poet's reverie in the quietude of the monastery garden amidst beautiful surroundings—the calm serene atmosphere—the leafy trees and the singing birds. The second theme in the minor expresses the more 'personal' note of sadness, of appeal and contrition. Presently, the monks are heard chanting the "Kyrie Eleison" with the organ playing and the chapel bell ringing. The first theme is now heard in a quieter manner as if it had become more ethereal and distant; the singing of the monks is again heard—it becomes louder and more insistent, bringing the piece to a conclusion in a glow of exultation.
Ketèlbey followed the same basic formula for many of his most popular later works. For In a Persian Market his synopsis notes "the camel drivers approaching, the cries of beggars, entry of beautiful princess (represented by a languorous theme given at first to clarinet and cello and then full orchestra) ... she watches the jugglers and snake-charmers ... the Caliph passes by, interrupting the entertainment ... all depart, their themes heard faintly in the distance, and the marketplace becomes deserted." Ketèlbey establishes the eastern setting in the opening section, employing the distinctive melodic intervals, A–B–E. The orchestral players are instructed to sing at two points in the score, a descending motif representing beggars crying for baksheesh. Although one contemporary critic belittled the music as "pseudo-orientalism", McCanna comments that "The princess portrayed by the big romantic theme is a cousin of the princesses in Stravinsky's Firebird".
Ketèlbey sought to repeat the exoticism of In a Persian Market in several later pieces. Among them is In a Chinese Temple Garden (1923), described as an "oriental phantasy", with episodes depicting a priestly incantation, two lovers, a wedding procession, a street brawl and the restoration of calm by the beating of the temple gong. Another example is In the Mystic Land of Egypt (1931), which, like its Persian predecessor, opens with a vigorous march theme followed by a broad romantic melody. Again, the composer employs unconventional musical devices for colour—in this case a chromatic scale, descending at each appearance until the closing bars, where it is inverted. In 1958, the critic Ronald Ever wrote that Ketèlbey was noted for his use of "every exotic noisemaker known to man—chimes, orchestra bells, gongs (all sizes and nationalities), cymbals, woodblocks, xylophone, drums of every variety". Ever commented that Ketèlbey's exoticism had left an immovable impression of eastern music on western ears, to which "Oriental music is Ketèlbey music: the clashing cymbals; the little pinging bells; the minor modes; the amazingly graphic mincing step created by rapidly reiterated notes; the coy taps on the woodblock."
Among Ketèlbey's light orchestral works with a wholly British flavour is Bells Across the Meadows (1921), redolent, in the words of McDonald, of "rose-entwined thatched cottages standing amidst gardens full of hollyhocks with a gentle brook bubbling on its rustic way and cows grazing peacefully in the pastures beyond". Urban life was evoked in the five-movement Cockney Suite (1924), described by The Times as "character pieces complete with leering saxophone, cheeky mouth-organ, and some infernally catchy tunes". Ketèlbey depicts successively a royal procession from Buckingham Palace to the Houses of Parliament; an East End pub, with a main theme based on the Cockney ditty "'Arf a pint of mild and bitter"; a waltz at a palais de danse; a sombre glimpse of the Cenotaph in Whitehall; and in the finale, "'Appy 'Ampstead", a picture of the August Bank Holiday fair on Hampstead Heath.
Much of the music Ketèlbey wrote as accompaniment to silent films between 1915 and 1929, though lucrative at the time, has proved ephemeral, although he reused and rearranged some of it in solo pieces for amateur pianists. With the requirements of cinemas of all sizes in mind, his film music was published in the "Bosworth Loose Leaf Film Play Music Series" in versions for solo piano or for small orchestras. The titles offered included Dramatic Agitato, Amaryllis (described by the composer as "suitable for use in dainty, fickle scenes"), Mystery ("greatly in favour for uncanny and weird picturizations"), "Agitato Furioso" ("famous for its excellence in playing to riots, storms, wars, etc.") and Bacchanale de Montmartre (for "cabaret, orgy and riotous continental scenes").
### Instrumental works
In addition to arrangements for solo instruments of his popular orchestral works, Ketèlbey wrote a range of music for organ and for piano. Some of the more serious of these pieces were published under his "Vodorinski" pen name. Among the organ works are Pastorale and Rêverie dramatique, both dating from about 1911. The piano works include the early classical pieces such as the 1888 Sonata, and shorter items in a more popular style, such as Rêverie (1894) and Les pèlerins (1925), by way of A Romantic Melody (1898), Pensées joyeuses (1888), In the Woodlands (1921), A Song of Summer (1922), and Légende triste (1923). The musical influences on his piano works were on the whole conservative: for the early works McCanna mentions Haydn and Mendelssohn in this context. Much of the piano music published in the years after the First World War was aimed at a domestic audience; it requires only a modest technical proficiency to play and is simple in structure with deft harmonies. The most commercially successful of the Vodorinski works was the Prelude in C minor (1907). McCanna comments that not only the title but the material is reminiscent of Rachmaninoff: "the music turns out to copy some of the more illustrious composer's features, notably the final fortissimo statement of the melody in the bass". Ketèlbey followed Chopin's model in several waltzes in the key of A major, including La grâcieuse (1907) and two different pieces under the title Valse brillante (1905 and 1911).
### Songs
Throughout his career Ketèlbey composed songs, providing the words for most of those written after 1913. His first, unpublished, song, "Be Still, Sad Heart" dates from 1892, and during the rest of the 1890s he wrote songs for children as well as sentimental ballads like "Believe Me True" (1897) for their seniors. Many had words by Florence Hoare, whose other lyrics included English words for songs by Tchaikovsky, Gounod and Brahms. Ketèlbey's popular ballads included "The Heart's Awakening" (1907), "My Heart-a-dream" (1909), "I Loved You More Than I Knew" (1912), "My Heart Still Clings to You" (1913), "Will You Forgive?" (1924), and "A Birthday Song" (1933). He wrote patriotic songs for use in three wars: "There's Something in the English After all" (1899, during the Boer War), "The Trumpet Voice of Motherland is Calling" (1914, for the First World War) and "Fighting for Freedom" (1941, during the Second World War). His sole Shakespeare setting, "Blow! Blow! Thou Winter Wind" (1898, revised 1951), was written as incidental music for a production of As You Like It.
## Reputation and legacy
The obituarist for The Musical Times wrote that "Ketèlbey's especial fame ... consisted in his phenomenal success as a composer of light music. His remarkable gift for alluring tunes, rich in homely sentiment, was reflected in the immense popularity of [his] pieces". McCanna opines that Ketèlbey's popularity
> lay in its memorable expressive melodies combined with its ability to set the scene by enhanced use of different kinds of colour: local colour in the choice of characteristic settings, often with explicit narrative captions printed above the music; musical colour in the form of exotic scales and harmonies; orchestral colour in the novel use of singing by the players and of sound effects executed by the drummer.
During his tenure at Columbia, Ketèlbey promoted the works of several composers, including Haydn Wood, Charles Ancliffe, Ivor Novello, James W. Tate and Kenneth J. Alford, helping to increase the popularity of British light music. Ronnie Ronalde made In a Monastery Garden his signature tune from 1958, while Serge Gainsbourg used the theme of In a Persian Market for his 1977 song "My Lady Héroïne".
Dempsey, writing in 2001, considered that Ketèlbey's "late-Romantic tone miniatures ... are deserving of reappraisal". The composer's reputation has improved over time, and the cultural historian Andrew Blake identifies a "form of 'cult following'" for him. In the 21st century, Ketèlbey's music is still frequently heard on radio and in a 2003 poll by the BBC radio programme Your Hundred Best Tunes, Bells across the Meadows was voted thirty-sixth most popular tune of all time. The last night of the corporation's 2009 Proms season included In a Monastery Garden to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Ketèlbey's death; it was the first time the tune had been included in the festival's finale. Tim Page, the music critic for The Washington Post, considers that Ketèlbey's work expresses an "ornate, perfumed, genteel Orientalism [which] found expression in miniatures"; he adds that "all of Ketèlbey's music is pretty weird—deeply derivative yet unmistakably personal, tidy in form yet grandiose in execution, amiable and often touching despite its unashamed mawkishness."
## Notes, references and sources
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3,613,918 |
König-class battleship
| 1,164,010,570 |
Battleship class of the German Imperial Navy
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[
"Battleship classes",
"König-class battleships",
"World War I battleships of Germany"
] |
The König class was a group of four dreadnought battleships built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the early 1910s. The class comprised König, the lead ship, Grosser Kurfürst, Markgraf, and Kronprinz. The design for the ships was derived from the preceding Kaiser class, using the same basic hull but with a rearranged main battery of ten 30.5 cm (12 in) guns in five twin-gun turrets to improve the guns' firing arcs. Instead of the staggered wing turrets used in the Kaisers, the Königs placed their main guns all on the centerline using superfiring pairs fore and aft. Budgetary constraints and the need to begin construction quickly to compete with Britain in the Anglo-German naval arms race prevented any more radical changes. Diesel engines were planned for the ships, but they could not be readied in time, so all four vessels reverted to steam turbines for their propulsion system.
As tensions in Europe spiraled out of control during the July Crisis in 1914, work on the ships was accelerated; all four ships were completed in the early months of World War I and they were rushed into service to join III Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet. They took part in a number of operations in the North Sea as support for the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group, including the Raid on Yarmouth and the Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby in late 1914. The year 1915 passed uneventfully, as a series of sweeps into the North Sea failed to bring contact with elements of the British Royal Navy. All four ships were present at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, where they formed the front of the German line of battle. As a result, they received numerous hits, with Kronprinz the only member of the class to avoid being damaged in the action.
As the German fleet shifted priorities to the U-boat campaign after Jutland, the surface fleet declined in significance, though major fleet elements were sent to the Baltic Sea in September 1917 to wage Operation Albion to secure several islands in the Gulf of Riga from Russian forces. König and Kronprinz took part in the Battle of Moon Sound there, where they damaged the Russian pre-dreadnought Slava and forced her scuttling. The four König-class ships saw little activity thereafter and plans for a final attack on the Royal Navy in October 1918 led to the Wilhelmshaven mutiny. All four ships were interned at Scapa Flow after the war, where they were scuttled on 21 June 1919. Grosser Kurfürst was raised in 1938 and broken up, but the other three vessels remain on the sea floor, where they remain popular diving sites.
## Background
The König-class battleships were authorized in the context of the early-20th-century Anglo-German naval arms race, under the Second Amendment to the Naval Law, which had been passed in 1908 as a response to the revolution in naval technology created with the launch of the British HMS Dreadnought in 1906. Many of the world's navies began building their own dreadnought battleships, which were significantly larger—and correspondingly more expensive—than the old pre-dreadnought battleships. The Germans began their own, the Nassau class, in 1907, followed by the Helgoland class in 1908. As a result, the funds that had been appropriated for the Navy in the First Amendment, passed in 1906, were going to be used up before they were scheduled to be replenished in 1911.
In the terms of the First Amendment to the Naval Law of 1906, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz had requested but failed to secure funding for new battleships; they had now been approved by the Reichstag under the 1908 amendment. Along with appropriating funds to continue the pace of battleship construction prescribed under the Naval Law, the new amendment also increased the naval budget by an additional 1 billion marks. Tirpitz had initially planned on building four new capital ships per year, including battlecruisers, but the increased cost of the new ships forced him to reduce the number of ships laid down per year to two beginning in the 1912 fiscal year and continuing through 1917.
Another effect of the 1908 amendment was to reduce the service life of all large warships from twenty-five years to twenty; this was done in an effort to force the Reichstag to allocate more funds for additional ships, since vessels would then need to be replaced sooner than originally planned. In his effort to force the Reichstag to pass the bill, Tirpitz threatened to resign from his post as the State Secretary for the Navy. As a result of Tirpitz's ultimatum, the bill was passed in March 1908 by a large margin. The reduction in service life necessitated the replacement of the coastal defense ships of the Siegfried and Odin classes as well as the Brandenburg-class battleships. The Kaiser class followed the Helgolands and replaced the remaining coastal defense ships, leaving the Brandenburgs as the next vessels to be replaced. The four König-class ships were ordered under the provisional names "S", Ersatz Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm, Ersatz Weissenburg, and Ersatz Brandenburg, the latter three as replacements for three of the four Brandenburgs.
## Design
Conceptual work for the next class of battleship had already begun while the design for the Kaiser class was still being finalized. During a meeting on 15 January 1910, Tirpitz mandated that the new class must adhere to the price per ship he had budgeted, owing to the financial problems that had already disrupted his plans. The Konstruktionsdepartement (Construction Department, referred to as "K") was as that time occupied with work on the new battlecruiser Seydlitz, delaying the initiation of formal planning for what became the König design. Nevertheless, the Allgemeinen Marinedepartements (General Navy Department, referred to as "A") began to make preparations in early 1910. Vizeadmiral (Vice Admiral) Adolf Paschen, the chief of "A", expressed a desire to rearrange the main battery guns to the centerline to maximize broadside fire, while Tirpitz reiterated his preference for diesel engines, though trials with the prototype engine for the center shaft of the Kaiser-class ship Prinzregent Luitpold were not yet completed.
During a series of three meetings in May 1910, further details were discussed, including adopting triple gun turrets for the main battery, following their adoption by the Austro-Hungarian Navy and other navies. They also examined the possibility of increasing the caliber of the guns to 32 cm (12.6 in) in response to the British adoption of 34.3 cm (13.5 in) weapons and the United States' increase to 35.6 cm (14 in) guns since 1909. Tirpitz again argued that at least one of the new ships should use a diesel engine. Hans Bürkner, the civilian "K" chief, preferred a simple development of Prinzregent Luitpold as that would entail minimal cost increases in accordance with Tirpitz's wishes. By the third meeting, the question of increasing the caliber was set aside as cost prohibitive; while the naval command believed that the existing 30.5 cm (12 in) gun was sufficiently powerful at the expected battle ranges, they recognized that in the future, an increase in caliber would be unavoidable if Germany was to keep up with developments abroad. Owing to the pressing need to match British construction and keep costs within Tirpitz's budgetary constraints, the naval command decided to simply repeat the design for Prinzregent Luitpold with some of the improvements.
The design staff used the Kaiser hull form, but introduced several improvements, the most significant being the re-arrangement of the main battery. The two wing turrets were both moved to the centerline, one superfiring over the forward-most turret, and the other amidships between the funnels. The armor layout was also revised slightly to improve protection of the bow and stern. To offset the weight increase of these changes, a pair of 15 cm (5.9 in) secondary guns and the stern torpedo tube were to be removed. "K" considered the adoption of anti-roll tanks to help stabilize the ships, as the recently completed Nassau-class battleships initially suffered from severe rolling, though Tirpitz eventually decided against them. By December 1910, the decision was made to retain all fourteen of the 15 cm guns and instead remove two of the 8.8 cm (3.5 in) guns. Although initially intended to use diesel engines on their center shafts, delays in the completion of the prototype for Prinzregent Luitpold forced the Navy to return to the traditional all-turbine arrangement for the first member of the class. Partial oil-firing was introduced, which provided greater power for the turbines.
The first three ships—König, Grosser Kurfürst, and Markgraf—were ordered for the 1911 program. Several shipyards, including AG Vulcan, AG Weser, and Schichau-Werke, submitted tenders to the Reichsmarineamt (Imperial Naval Office) to build the vessels by 19 July 1911. Vulcan and Weser received contracts on 11 August, though the finalized orders were not issued until 12 October; final tinkering with the design continued, however, and Tirpitz's decision to abandon the anti-roll tanks came as late as 22 January 1912. The contract for the third ship—actually the first member of the class, König—went to the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Shipyard), while Schichau received the contract for the battlecruiser Derfflinger as compensation. It was still hoped that the diesels could still be installed aboard Grosser Kurfürst and Markgraf, but it was still not ready by the time work began on the vessels.
A fourth ship was authorized under the 1912 program, and the naval command again considered increasing the caliber, this time to 32.3 cm (12.7 in). The increase in weight from the larger guns would be offset by reducing the secondary battery from 15 cm to 12 cm (4.7 in) guns. The proposal was ultimately rejected in favor of building another vessel identical to the 1911 ships to create a homogeneous four-ship division to simplify tactical command. The naval command again hoped that the diesel engine would be ready in time for this vessel, so her propulsion system was redesigned with larger, more powerful turbines than her sisters received. But before work began, it became clear that the diesel would not be ready, so the center engine room—which had been left empty in Prinzregent Luitpold—was reconfigured to accept a third turbine. Only one significant change was introduced for the new ship, which became Kronprinz, was a larger tubular foremast that was capable of supporting a heavier fire direction top. This was later retrofitted to the other members of the class.
### General characteristics
The König-class ships were 174.7 m (573 ft 2 in) long at the waterline, and 175.4 m (575 ft 6 in) long overall. They had a beam of 29.5 m (96 ft 9 in), a forward draft of 9.19 m (30 ft 2 in), and a rear draft of 9 m (29 ft 6 in). As designed, the Königs displaced 25,796 t (25,389 long tons) normally, but at full load, they displaced 28,600 t (28,100 long tons). The hulls were constructed with transverse and longitudinal steel frames, over which the outer hull plates were riveted. The ships' hulls each contained eighteen watertight compartments and were equipped with a double bottom that ran for 88% of the length of the hull. A long forecastle deck ran from the stem to the aft superfiring barbette. The ships' superstructure was minimal, consisting of a set of forward and aft conning towers, though König was built as a squadron flagship and accordingly received a larger bridge to accommodate an admiral's staff. In 1917, Markgraf received an enlarged bridge similar to König's as well. The first three ships were fitted with a pair of pole masts to support their spotting tops, though Kronprinz received a heavier tubular mast.
Steering was controlled by a pair of rudders placed side by side. German naval historian Erich Gröner said the German navy considered the ships to be "very good sea-boats", and that they possessed a gentle motion. They suffered a slight loss of speed in a swell, and with the rudders hard over, the ships lost up to 66% speed and heeled over 8 degrees. The battleships had a transverse metacentric height of 2.59 m (8 ft 6 in). König, Grosser Kurfürst, Markgraf, and Kronprinz each had a standard crew of 41 officers and 1095 enlisted men; König, which became the flagship of III Battle Squadron, had an additional crew of 14 officers and another 68 sailors. While serving as a deputy command flagship, the ships carried an additional 2 officers and 24 enlisted men. The ships carried several smaller boats, including one picket boat, three barges, two launches, two yawls, and two dinghies.
### Propulsion
The ships of the class were equipped with three sets of steam turbines, each set consisting of a high and low-pressure turbine. The turbines were manufactured by Parsons for König and Kronprinz, Vulcan AG for Grosser Kurfürst, and Bergmann for Markgraf. Each engine drove a three-bladed screw propeller that was 3.8 m (12 ft) in diameter. The high and low-pressure turbines were grouped into their own engine rooms. Steam for the turbines was provided by fifteen Schulz-Thornycroft water-tube boilers, three of which burned oil and the remainder burning coal. These were divided into three boiler rooms, the first two of which were placed between the forward and center ammunition magazines for the main battery, venting into the forward funnel. The third boiler room was located aft of the center magazine, directly ahead of the engine rooms, and venting into the smaller aft funnel. Electrical power was supplied by four turbo generators and a pair of diesel generators; total electrical output was 2,040 kW (2,740 hp) at 225 volts.
The power plant was rated at 31,000 metric horsepower (30,576 shp), for a top speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph), though on trials, the ships produced between 41,400–46,200 metric horsepower (40,834–45,568 shp). Despite significantly surpassing their intended horsepower, König and Markgraf still managed only 21 knots on their speed trials, while Grosser Kurfürst and Kronprinz reached 21.2 knots (39.3 km/h; 24.4 mph) and 21.3 knots (39.4 km/h; 24.5 mph), respectively. This was a result of the fact that the tests were run after the start of World War I and thus had to be conducted in the safer, but shallower, waters of the western Baltic Sea. In service running under normal conditions, the Königs were faster than the Kaiser class, which averaged a top speed of 22.2 knots (41.1 km/h; 25.5 mph). Normal fuel storage amounted to 850 t (840 long tons) of coal and 150 t (150 long tons) of oil, though additional voids could be used to store up to 3,000 t (3,000 long tons) of coal and 600 t (590 long tons) of oil. The ships' cruising radius was 8,000 nautical miles (15,000 km; 9,200 mi) at a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph), which was halved when cruising at 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph).
### Armament
The Königs were armed with a main battery of ten 30.5 cm SK L/50 guns in five twin turrets. Two turrets were mounted forward of the main superstructure in a superfiring pair, the third was placed on the centerline between the two funnels amidships, and the fourth and fifth turrets were arranged in another superfiring pair aft of the rear conning tower. The centerline arrangement was an improvement over the preceding Kaiser class, as all ten guns could fire on a wide arc on the broadside, and four guns could fire directly ahead, as opposed to only two on the Kaisers. The guns were supplied with 90 shells per gun, and they had a rate of fire of about three shots per minute. The barrels had an expected life of two hundred full-power shots before they would need to be replaced.
The guns were mounted in DrL C/11 turrets, which were electrically controlled, though the guns were elevated hydraulically. Each turret had a working chamber beneath it that was connected to a set of revolving ammunition hoists leading down to the magazine below it. One set of hoists retrieved the shells and propellant charges from the magazines and brought them to the working chamber, and another transferred them up to the gun house through flash-tight doors; this arrangement was adopted to reduce the risk of fire in the gun house from reaching the magazines. In an effort to reduce the possibility of a fire, everything in the turret was constructed of steel. The guns had a range of elevation from -8 to 15.5 degrees, which provided a maximum range of 16,200 m (53,100 ft). Later in their careers, their mounts were modified to increase maximum elevation at the expense of depression, with the range now -5.5 to 16.5 degrees, increasing their range to 20,400 m (66,900 ft). Muzzle velocity was 855 m/s (2,810 ft/s).
Secondary armament consisted of fourteen 15 cm SK L/45 quick-firing guns, each mounted individually in casemates in the forecastle deck, seven guns per broadside. Each casemate had its own set of magazines and ammunition hoists. These guns were intended for defense against torpedo-armed destroyers, and were supplied with a total of 2,240 shells. Their rate of fire was 4 to 5 shots per minute. The guns could depress to −7 degrees and elevate to 20 degrees, for a maximum range of 13,500 m (14,800 yd). Their muzzle velocity was 835 m/s (2,740 ft/s).
The ships also carried six 8.8 cm SK L/45 quick-firing guns, mounted in casemates; previous German capital ships had carried a larger number of these guns, but by the time the König class was designed, the growth of destroyers had rendered the 8.8 cm gun of marginal use. The six guns were located on either side of the forward conning tower and were all directed forward. These guns were supplied with a total of 3,200 rounds, or 200 shells per gun, The guns could be elevated up to 25 degrees for a maximum range of 10,694 m (35,085 ft). In addition, they were slated to carry four 8.8 cm SK L/45 anti-aircraft guns, which were to be mounted on either side of the rear conning tower. Production remained behind schedule and competing demands after the start of the war caused further delivery problems. Grosser Kurfürst received her original complement in 1915 and König and Kronprinz had two guns installed that year. Kronprinz had another pair installed by 1918, by which time Markgraf received two of the guns.
As was customary for capital ships of the dreadnought era, the ships were armed with five 50 cm (19.7 in) submerged torpedo tubes, which were supplied with a total of sixteen torpedoes. One tube was mounted in the bow and the other four were placed on the broadside, two on each side of the ship. The torpedoes were the G7\*\*\* type, which carried a 195 kg (430 lb) warhead. They could be set at three speeds: 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph) for a range of 5,000 m (5,468 yd), 28.5 knots (52.8 km/h; 32.8 mph) for a range of 10,700 m (11,702 yd), or 25.5 knots (47.2 km/h; 29.3 mph) for a range of 12,510 m (13,680 yd).
### Fire control
The König-class carried a pair of 3 m (9.8 ft) stereoscopic rangefinders to direct the fire of the main guns. These were mounted atop the main and aft conning towers, and ranging data was sent to a central command post that had a Bg-Mittler C/13 rangefinder equalizer that was used to filter out erroneous data and calculate ranges to determine the correct elevation of the guns. This information was then sent to the R.W. Geber C/13, a fire-control director, to communicate firing instructions to the guns. The artillery officer used his own periscope sight, which electronically communicated an indicator to the gunners in the turrets; the gunners used their own sights to point the turrets at the target indicated by the artillery officer.
### Armor
The general layout of the armor scheme for the König class was similar to that of the Kaiser class. The steel used for the ships' protection consisted of Krupp cemented armor. Their main armor belt was 35 cm (13.8 in) in the armored citadel of the ships, where the ammunition magazines and propulsion machinery spaces were located. The main strake extended from 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in) above the waterline to 0.36 m (1 ft 2 in) below the line; an upper strake that was 20 cm (7.9 in) thick covered the side of the hull above the main belt. Forward of the central citadel, the belt thinned to 20 cm for a third of the way to the stem, and on the lower edge it tapered to 15 cm. Further forward, the main belt was reduced to 15 cm, being reduced to 12 cm on the bottom edge. Aft of the citadel, the belt stepped down similarly, to 18 cm (7.1 in) and then 15 cm at the stern (tapering to 15 cm and 13 cm (5.1 in) at the lower edge, respectively).
The main armor deck was 6 cm (2.4 in) thick over the citadel, sloping down to meet the lower edge of the belt to provide an additional layer of protection against shell fragments; the sloped section of the deck was increased to 10 cm (3.9 in). The forward deck was increased to 10 cm, while the stern received 6 to 10 cm of armor, increasing to 12 cm over the steering compartment. At upper deck level, a layer of 3 cm (1.2 in) steel covered the central portion of the ship between the end barbettes. Another layer of 3 cm armor covered the forecastle deck over the secondary battery. Behind the belt, a 4 cm (1.6 in) torpedo bulkhead ran the length of the hull, several meters behind the main belt; the bulkhead was designed to contain flooding that might result from torpedo or mine damage. It met the main armor deck where it began to slope down; above the deck, a 3 cm bulkhead extended upward as additional anti-splinter protection. The compartments created on either side of the torpedo bulkhead were used to store coal for the boilers, which reinforced the structure and helped to absorb blast effects; pumps were located amidships to drain these compartments in the event of flooding.
The main battery turrets received 30 cm (11.8 in) of armor on their faces, 25.4 cm (10 in) on the sides, and 29 cm (11.4 in) on the rears to balance them. The turret roofs were sloped at the front, where they were 11 cm (4.3 in), decreasing to 8 cm (3.1 in) on the flat portion. Their supporting barbettes were also 30 cm thick on their exposed sides, though they were reduced to 22 cm (8.7 in) on the sections where one barbette blocked direct fire on another. Behind the upper belt, the barbettes were reduced to 14 cm (5.5 in), and behind the main belt, it was thinned further to 8 cm to save weight. Above the upper belt and between the superfiring turret barbettes was an armored battery for the secondary gun casemates. The sides received 17 cm (6.7 in) of armor plate on the outer sides; the interior of each casemate had 2 cm (0.8 in) on the floor and sides and 1.5 cm (0.6 in) on the rear to contain any fragments from shells that penetrated the battery and exploded inside.
The forward conning tower was protected with heavy armor. According to Gröner and Aidan Dodson, the sides were 30 cm (11.8 in) thick and the roof was 15 cm thick, though John Campbell states it received 35.6 cm on the sides, with a small 40.6 cm (16 in) section at the base of the small gunnery control tower, which stood atop the main conning tower. Campbell also provides a thickness of 17 cm for the main tower roof. The rear conning tower was less well armored; its sides were only 20 cm thick and the roof was covered with 5 cm (2 in) of armor plate; all three sources concur on the aft tower.
### Modifications
The four Königs received relatively minor modifications in their short service lives, all made between mid-1916 and late 1918. The first three ships had their fore masts replaced with the same tubular mast that Kronprinz received as completed. After the Battle of Jutland revealed the danger that dislodged anti-torpedo nets posed to the ships' screws, they were removed. They also had most of their low-angle 8.8 cm guns removed and their firing apertures plated over. König and Grosser Kurfürst retained two of those guns and the former had her anti-aircraft guns replaced with four low-angle mounts in 1918. Markgraf only had two of her low-angle guns removed in 1917, while Kronprinz retained hers for the duration of the war. Another pair of 3-meter rangefinders were installed in the forward- and aftmost main battery turrets, and later in the war, these were replaced with 4.75 m (15 ft 7 in) rangefinders. An improved C/15 version of the Bg-Mittler system was installed, and Kronprinz and Grosser Kurfürst received an Abfeuer-Gerät C/16 gyroscopic stabilizing system for the main guns, which improved accuracy by accounting for the roll of the ships and changes in gun elevation as they moved through the water. König was to have received one as well, but it does not appear that she did, while Markgraf had an improved C/17 version installed.
## Construction
## Service history
After the start of the war in July 1914, work on the vessels was accelerated so they would be available for operations as soon as possible. König and Grosser Kurfürst were completed in the first weeks of World War I; the latter had completed sea trials in time to take part in the Raid on Yarmouth on 3 November 1914, as part of the High Seas Fleet, which provided distant cover to the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group that carried out the raid. Grosser Kurfürst participated in the raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby on 15–16 December, again providing distant support to the battlecruisers. Grosser Kurfürst, assigned to III Battle Squadron, formed the vanguard of the German line of battle. During the operation on the morning of 16 December, the High Seas Fleet, commanded by Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, briefly clashed with the destroyer screen of the British 1st Battlecruiser Squadron and the 2nd Battle Squadron, which had been sent to intercept their German counterparts (as the British were able to decipher German codes thanks to a set of code books captured from the cruiser Magdeburg in August). Ingenohl, under orders from the Kaiser not to risk the fleet and fearing he had located the scouts for the entire Grand Fleet, disengaged and returned to port.
Markgraf and Kronprinz both completed their trials in January 1915, after which they joined their sisters in III Battle Squadron. They took part in a series of sweeps into the North Sea that failed to locate British forces through 1915, by which time Ingenohl had been replaced by Admiral Hugo von Pohl. They also supported mine-laying operations in the North Sea and periodically rotated through the Baltic for periods of training. These operations continued into early 1916, when Pohl was in turn replaced by Vizeadmiral Reinhard Scheer. The ships again provided cover for I Scouting Group when it bombarded Yarmouth and Lowestoft in April. When the Grand Fleet sortied in response to the raid, Scheer took the fleet back to port to avoid a confrontation with the numerically superior British fleet.
### Battle of Jutland
The four ships took part in the fleet sortie that resulted in the battle of Jutland on 31 May–1 June 1916. The operation again sought to draw out and isolate a portion of the Grand Fleet and destroy it before the main British fleet could retaliate. König, Grosser Kurfürst, Markgraf, and Kronprinz made up V Division of III Battle Squadron, and they were the vanguard of the fleet. III Battle Squadron was the first of three battleship units; directly astern were the Kaiser-class battleships of VI Division, III Battle Squadron. Astern of the Kaiser-class ships were the Helgoland and Nassau classes of the I Battle Squadron; in the rear guard were the elderly Deutschland class pre-dreadnoughts of II Battle Squadron.
Shortly before 16:00 CET, the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group encountered the British 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, under the command of David Beatty. The opposing ships began an artillery duel that saw the destruction of Indefatigable, shortly after 17:00, and Queen Mary, less than a half an hour later. By this time, the German battlecruisers were steaming south in order to draw the British ships towards the main body of the High Seas Fleet. At 17:30, König, the leading German battleship, spotted both I Scouting Group and the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron approaching. The German battlecruisers were steaming down 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 a minute later at 17:46, the order to open fire was given.
König, Grosser Kurfürst, and Markgraf were the first to reach effective gunnery range; they engaged the battlecruisers Lion, Princess Royal, and Tiger, respectively, at a range of 21,000 yards. König's first salvos fell short of her target, and so she shifted her fire to the nearest British ship, Tiger. Simultaneously, the leading König-class battleships began firing on the destroyers Nestor and Nicator. The two destroyers closed in on the German line and, having endured a hail of gunfire, maneuvered into a good firing position. Each ship launched two torpedoes apiece at König and Grosser Kurfürst, though all four weapons missed. In return, a secondary battery shell from one of the battleships hit Nestor and wrecked her engine room. The ship, along with the destroyer Nomad, was crippled and lying directly in the path of the advancing German line. Both destroyers were sunk, but German torpedo boats stopped to pick up survivors. At around 18:00, the four Königs shifted their fire to the approaching Queen Elizabeth-class battleships of 5th Battle Squadron, though the firing lasted only a short time before the range widened too far.
Shortly after 19:00, the German cruiser Wiesbaden had become disabled by a shell from Invincible; Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Paul Behncke in König attempted to maneuver his ships in order to cover the stricken cruiser. Simultaneously, the British III and IV 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 Königs fired heavily on the British cruisers, but even sustained fire from the Germans' main guns failed to drive off the British cruisers. In the ensuing melee, the British armored cruiser Defence was struck by several heavy-caliber shells from the German dreadnoughts. One salvo penetrated the ship's ammunition magazines and, in a tremendous explosion, destroyed the cruiser. Another melee with the British cruisers developed an hour later, again over the crippled Wiesbaden; during this period, König received a hit aft that caused significant damage.
By the time the German fleet returned to the Jade estuary, the Nassau-class battleships Nassau, Westfalen, and Posen and the Helgoland-class battleships Helgoland and Thüringen took up guard duties in the outer roadstead. The Kaiser-class battleships Kaiser, Kaiserin, and Prinzregent Luitpold, took up defensive positions outside the Wilhelmshaven locks. The four König-class ships, along with other capital ships—those that were still in fighting condition—had their fuel and ammunition stocks replenished in the inner harbor. Kronprinz was the only member of the class to emerge from the action undamaged.
### Subsequent operations
König, Grosser Kurfürst, and Markgraf underwent repairs through July and then conducted training in the Baltic in August before taking part in the sortie that led to the action of 19 August 1916; during the operation, Markgraf and Grosser Kurfürst were temporarily attached to I Scouting Group as several of its battlecruisers had been badly mauled at Jutland and were still under repair. Scheer intended to bombard the British coast, but broke off after he received reports that the Grand Fleet was at sea; in the inconclusive action, German U-boats sank a pair of British light cruisers, and in return one German battleship was damaged by a mine. Further bouts of training in the Baltic, along with fruitless sweeps into the North Sea continued through the rest of 1916. During an operation to recover a pair of U-boats that had grounded off the Danish coast, a British submarine torpedoed Grosser Kurfürst and Kronprinz, though both ships returned to port for repairs. In 1917, the heavy units of the High Seas Fleet were largely restricted to guard duty in the German Bight, as the strategic priority of the German fleet had shifted to the U-boat campaign. During this period, the ships underwent refits that included the installation of the heavy tubular foremasts that Kronprinz had received when initially completed.
In September, as the Imperial German Army prepared to attack the city of Riga in Russia, it requested assistance from the Navy to clear the Gulf of Riga to secure its seaward flank. The Navy transferred significant elements of the High Seas Fleet, including the four Königs, to conduct Operation Albion. The objectives included seizing the Baltic islands of Ösel, Moon, and Dagö, and destroying the Russian naval forces in the gulf, including the pre-dreadnought battleships Slava and Tsesarevich. The attack began on 12 October, with the German battleships bombarding Russian coastal batteries on the Sworbe peninsula. Grosser Kurfürst struck a mine but was able to remain in action. The next phase, the clearing of naval forces in the gulf, began four days later as König and Kronprinz led an attempt to break through Russian defenses. In the ensuing Battle of Moon Sound, the German battleships badly damaged Slava and forced her to scuttle, but the rest of the Russian vessels withdrew. By 20 October, the Germans had completed their objectives, including the Army's successful assault on Riga, allowing the fleet to return to the North Sea, though Markgraf was mined on the return voyage.
### Fate
The High Seas Fleet saw little significant activity for the rest of 1917 and into mid-1918, apart from routine training exercises and guard duties in the German Bight. In January 1918, Kronprinz was renamed Kronprinz Wilhelm in honor of Crown Prince William. The ships, less Markgraf, which was dry-docked for maintenance, took part in an abortive attempt to intercept a British convoy to Norway in late April. The ships suffered a series of accidents in 1918, including groundings, that required dry-docking for repairs. Scheer, now the head of the Seekriegsleitung (Naval Warfare Command), and Admiral Franz von Hipper, the fleet commander, planned an operation to seek a final battle with the Grand Fleet in October 1918, by which time the war had turned decisively against Germany. When rumors of the plan began to circulate among the fleet's crews, sailors began to desert in large numbers, leading to the Wilhelmshaven mutiny, which forced Scheer and Hipper to cancel the operation.
Following the capitulation of Germany in November 1918, the majority of the High Seas Fleet, under the command of Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, was interned in the British naval base at Scapa Flow. The fleet remained in captivity during the negotiations that ultimately produced the Versailles Treaty. It became apparent to Reuter that the British intended to seize the German ships on 21 June, which was the deadline for Germany to have signed the peace treaty. Unaware that the deadline had been extended to the 23rd, Reuter ordered his ships be sunk. 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. Of the four ships, Kronprinz was the first to sink in the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow. She slipped beneath the waters of Scapa Flow at 13:15. Grosser Kurfürst followed 15 minutes later at 13:30. König sank at approximately 14:00, but Markgraf did not sink until 16:45; she was one of the last capital ships to be successfully scuttled—only the battlecruiser Hindenburg sank afterwards, at 17:00.
Grosser Kurfürst was eventually raised, on 29 April 1938. The ship was towed to Rosyth, where she was broken up for scrap metal. The other three ships remain on the sea floor, and were sold to Britain in 1962. The wrecks have been used as sources of low-background steel, which has occasionally been removed for use in scientific devices. The vessels are popular diving sites, and in 2017, marine archaeologists from the Orkney Research Center for Archaeology conducted extensive surveys of the wrecks. A diving contractor, Tommy Clark, came to own the three battleships and the light cruiser Karlsruhe in 1981, which he later placed for sale in 2019. König, Kronprinz, and Markgraf were all purchased by a Middle Eastern company.
|
195,656 |
European nightjar
| 1,161,017,863 |
Migratory bird found in Eurasia and Africa
|
[
"Birds described in 1758",
"Birds of Africa",
"Birds of Eurasia",
"Birds of Mongolia",
"Caprimulgus",
"Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus"
] |
The European nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus), common goatsucker, Eurasian nightjar or just nightjar, is a crepuscular and nocturnal bird in the nightjar family that breeds across most of Europe and the Palearctic to Mongolia and Northwestern China. The Latin generic name refers to the old myth that the nocturnal nightjar suckled from goats, causing them to cease to give milk. The six subspecies differ clinally, the birds becoming smaller and paler towards the east of the range. All populations are migratory, wintering in sub-Saharan Africa. Their densely patterned grey and brown plumage makes individuals difficult to see in the daytime when they rest on the ground or perch motionless along a branch, although the male shows white patches in the wings and tail as he flies at night.
The preferred habitat is dry, open country with some trees and small bushes, such as heaths, forest clearings or newly planted woodland. The male European nightjar occupies a territory in spring and advertises his presence with a distinctive sustained churring trill from a perch. He patrols his territory with wings held in a V and tail fanned, chasing intruders while wing-clapping and calling. Wing clapping also occurs when the male chases the female in a spiralling display flight. The European nightjar does not build a nest, and its two grey and brown blotched eggs are laid directly on the ground; they hatch after about 17–21 days and the downy chicks fledge in another 16–17 days.
The European nightjar feeds on a wide variety of flying insects, which it seizes in flight, often fly-catching from a perch. It hunts by sight, silhouetting its prey against the night sky. Its eyes are relatively large, each with a reflective layer, which improves night vision. It appears not to rely on its hearing to find insects and does not echolocate. Drinking and bathing take place during flight. Although it suffers a degree of predation and parasitism, the main threats to the species are habitat loss, disturbance and a reduction of its insect prey through pesticide use. Despite population decreases, its large numbers and huge breeding range mean that it is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being of least concern.
## Taxonomy
The nightjars, Caprimulgidae, are a large family of mostly nocturnal insect-eating birds. The largest and most widespread genus is Caprimulgus, characterised by stiff bristles around the mouth, long pointed wings, a comb-like middle claw and patterned plumage. The males, and sometimes females, often have white markings in the wing or tail. Within the genus, the European nightjar forms a superspecies with the rufous-cheeked nightjar and the sombre nightjar, African species with similar songs. It is replaced further east in Asia by the jungle nightjar which occupies similar habitat.
The European nightjar was described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae under its current scientific name. Caprimulgus is derived from the Latin capra, "nanny goat", and mulgere, "to milk", referring to an old myth that nightjars suck milk from goats, and the species name, europaeus is Latin for "European". The common name "nightjar", first recorded in 1630, refers to the nocturnal habits of the bird, the second part of the name deriving from the distinctive churring song. Old or local names refer to the song, "churn owl", habitat, "fern owl", or diet, "dor hawk" and "moth hawk".
### Subspecies
There are six recognised subspecies, although the differences are mainly clinal; birds become smaller and paler in the east of the range and the males have larger white wing spots. Birds of intermediate appearance occur where the subspecies' ranges overlap.
The fossil record is deficient, but it is likely that these poorly defined subspecies diverged as global temperature rose over the last 10,000 years or so. Only one record of the species possibly dates back to the late Eocene.
## Description
The European nightjar is 24.5–28 cm (9.6–11.0 in) long, with a 52–59 cm (20–23 in) wingspan. The male weighs 51–101 g (1.8–3.6 oz) and the female 67–95 g (2.4–3.4 oz). The adult of the nominate subspecies has greyish-brown upperparts with dark streaking, a pale buff hindneck collar and a white moustachial line. The closed wing is grey with buff spotting, and the underparts are greyish-brown, with brown barring and buff spots. The bill is blackish, the iris is dark brown and the legs and feet are brown.
The flight on long pointed wings is noiseless, due to their soft plumage, and very buoyant. Flying birds can be sexed since the male has a white wing patch across three primary feathers and white tips to the two outer tail feathers, whereas females do not show any white in flight. Chicks have downy brown and buff plumage, and the fledged young are similar in appearance to the adult female. Adults moult their body feathers from June onwards after breeding, suspend the process while migrating, and replace the tail and flight feathers on the wintering grounds. Moult is completed between January and March. Immature birds follow a similar moult strategy to the adults unless they are from late broods, in which case the entire moult may take place in Africa.
Other nightjar species occur in parts of the breeding and wintering ranges. The red-necked nightjar breeds in Iberia and northwest Africa; it is larger, greyer and longer winged than the European nightjar, and has a broad buff collar and more conspicuous white markings on the wings and tail. Wintering European nightjars in Africa may overlap with the related rufous-cheeked and sombre nightjars. Both have a more prominent buff hind-neck collar and more spotting on the wing coverts. The sombre nightjar is also much darker than its European cousin. Given their nocturnal habits, cryptic plumage and difficulty of observation, nightjar observation "is as much a matter of fortune as effort or knowledge".
### Voice
The male European nightjar's song is a sustained churring trill, given continuously for up to 10 minutes with occasional shifts of speed or pitch. It is delivered from a perch, and the male may move around its territory using different song posts. Singing is more frequent at dawn and dusk than during the night, and is reduced in poor weather. The song may end with a bubbling trill and wing-clapping, perhaps indicating the approach of a female. Migrating or wintering birds sometimes sing. Individual male nightjars can be identified by analysing the rate and length of the pulses in their songs. Even a singing male may be hard to locate; the perched bird is difficult to spot in low light conditions, and the song has a ventriloquial quality as the singer turns his head. The song is easily audible at 200 m (660 ft), and can be heard at 600 m (2,000 ft) in good conditions; it can be confused with the very similar sound of the European mole cricket.
The female does not sing, but when on the wing, both sexes give a short cuick, cuick call, also used when chasing predators. Other calls include variations on a sharp chuck when alarmed, hisses given by adults when handled or chicks when disturbed, and an assortment of wuk, wuk, wuk, muffled oak, oak and murmurs given at the nest. Large young have a threat display with the mouth opened wide while hissing loudly.
Despite the name, wing-clapping does not involve contact between the two wing tips over the bird's back as was once thought. The sound is produced in a whiplash-like way as each wing cracks down.
## Distribution and habitat
The breeding range of the European nightjar comprises Europe north to around latitude 64°N and Asia north to about 60°N and east to Lake Baikal and eastern Mongolia. The southern limits are northwestern Africa, Iraq, Iran and the northwestern Himalayas. This nightjar formerly bred in Syria and Lebanon.
All populations are migratory, and most birds winter in Africa south of the Sahara, with just a few records from Pakistan, Morocco and Israel. Migration is mainly at night, singly or in loose groups of up to twenty birds. European breeders cross the Mediterranean and North Africa, whereas eastern populations move through the Middle East and East Africa. Some Asian birds may therefore cross 100° of longitude on their travels. Most birds start their migration at the time of a full moon.
Most birds winter in eastern or southeastern Africa, although individuals of the nominate race have been recently discovered wintering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; records elsewhere in West Africa may be wintering birds of this subspecies or C. e. meridionalis. Most autumn migration takes place from August to September, and the birds return to the breeding grounds by May. Recent tracking data has revealed that European nightjars have a loop migration from Western Europe to sub-equatorial Africa where they have to cross several ecological barriers (the Mediterranean Sea, the Sahara and the Central African Tropical Rainforest). Individuals use similar stop-over sites as do other European migrants. Vagrants have occurred in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, the Seychelles, the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands.
The European nightjar is a bird of dry, open country with some trees and small bushes, such as heaths, commons, moorland, forest clearings or felled or newly planted woodland. When breeding, it avoids treeless or heavily wooded areas, cities, mountains, and farmland, but it often feeds over wetlands, cultivation or gardens. In winter it uses a wider range of open habitats including acacia steppe, sandy country and highlands. It has been recorded at altitudes of 2,800 m (9,200 ft) on the breeding grounds and 5,000 m (16,000 ft) in the wintering areas.
## Behaviour
The European nightjar is crepuscular and nocturnal. During the day it rests on the ground, often in a partly shaded location, or perches motionless lengthwise along an open branch or a similar low perch. The cryptic plumage makes it difficult to see in the daytime, and birds on the ground, if they are not already in shade, will turn occasionally to face the sun thereby minimising their shadow. If it feels threatened, the nightjar flattens itself to the ground with eyes almost closed, flying only when the intruder is 2–5 m (7–16 ft) away. It may call or wing clap as it goes, and land as far as 40 m (130 ft) from where it was flushed. In the wintering area it often roosts on the ground but also uses tree branches up to 20 m (66 ft) high. Roost sites at both the breeding and wintering grounds are used regularly if they are undisturbed, sometimes for weeks at a time.
Like other nightjars, it will sit on roads or paths during the night and hover to investigate large intruders such as deer or humans. It may be mobbed by birds while there is still light, and by bats, other nightjar species or Eurasian woodcocks during the night. Owls and other predators such as red foxes will be mobbed by both male and female European nightjars. Like other aerial birds, such as swifts and swallows, nightjars make a quick plunge into water to wash. They have a unique serrated comb-like structure on the middle claw, which is used to preen and perhaps to remove parasites.
In cold or inclement weather, several nightjar species can slow their metabolism and go into torpor, notably the common poorwill, which will maintain that state for weeks. The European nightjar has been observed in captivity to be able to maintain a state of torpor for at least eight days without harm, but the relevance of this to wild birds is unknown.
### Breeding
Breeding is normally from late May to August, but may be significantly earlier in northwest Africa or western Pakistan. Returning males arrive about two weeks before the females and establish territories which they patrol with wings held in a V-shape and tail fanned, chasing intruders while wing-clapping and calling. Fights may take place in flight or on the ground. The male's display flight involves a similar wing and tail position with frequent wing clapping as he follows the female in a rising spiral. If she lands, he continues to display with bobbing and fluttering until the female spreads her wings and tail for copulation. Mating occasionally takes place on a raised perch instead of the ground. In good habitat, there may be 20 pairs per square kilometre (50 per square mile).
The European nightjar is normally monogamous. There is no nest, and the eggs are laid on the ground among plants or tree roots, or beneath a bush or tree. The site may be bare ground, leaf litter or pine needles, and is used for a number of years. The clutch is usually one or two whitish eggs, rarely unmarked, but normally blotched with browns and greys. The eggs average 32 mm × 22 mm (1.26 in × 0.87 in) and weigh 8.4 g (0.30 oz), of which 6% is shell.
Several nightjar species are known to be more likely to lay in the two weeks before the full moon than the during the waning moon, possibly because insect food may be easier to catch as the moon waxes. A study specifically looking at the European nightjar showed that the phase of the moon is a factor for birds laying in June, but not for earlier breeders. This strategy means that a second brood in July would also have a favourable lunar aspect.
Eggs are laid 36–48 hours apart, and incubation, mainly by the female, starts with the first egg. The male may incubate for short periods, especially around dawn or dusk, but spends the day roosting, sometimes outside his territory or close to other males. If the female is disturbed while breeding, she runs or flutters along the ground feigning injury until she has drawn the intruder away. She may also move the eggs a short distance with her bill. Each egg hatches after about 17–21 days. The semi-precocial downy chicks are mobile when hatched, but are brooded to keep them warm. They fledge in 16–17 days and become independent of the adults around 32 days after hatching. A second brood may be raised by early nesting pairs, in which case the female leaves the first brood a few days before they fledge; the male then cares for the first brood and assists with the second. Both adults feed the young with balls of insects which are either regurgitated into the chick's mouth or pecked by the chick from the adult's open bill.
Broods that fail tend to do so during incubation. One English study showed that only 14.5% of eggs survived to hatching, but once that stage was reached the chances of fledging successfully were high. European nightjars breed when aged one year, and typically live four years. The adult annual survival rate is 70%, but that for juveniles is unknown. The maximum known age in the wild is just over 12 years.
### Feeding
The European nightjar feeds on a wide variety of flying insects, including moths, beetles, mantises, dragonflies, cockroaches and flies. It will pick glowworms off vegetation. It consumes grit to aid with digesting its prey, but any plant material and non-flying invertebrates consumed are taken inadvertently while hunting other food items. Young chicks have been known to eat their own faeces.
Birds hunt over open habitats and woodland clearings and edges, and may be attracted to insects concentrating around artificial lights, near farm animals or over stagnant ponds. They usually feed at night, but occasionally venture out on overcast days. Nightjars pursue insects with a light twisting flight, or flycatch from a perch; they may rarely take prey off the ground. They drink by dipping to the water surface as they fly. Breeding European nightjars travel on average 3.1 km (3,400 yd) from their nests to feed. Migrating birds live off their fat reserves.
European nightjars hunt by sight, silhouetting their prey against the night sky. They tend to flycatch from a perch on moonlit nights, but fly continuously on darker nights when prey is harder to see; Tracking experiments show that feeding activity more than doubles on moonlit nights. Hunting frequency reduces in the middle of the night. Although they have very small bills, the mouth can be opened very wide as they catch insects. They have long sensitive bristles around the mouth, which may help to locate or funnel prey into the mouth. Indigestible parts of insects, such as the chitin exoskeleton, are regurgitated as pellets. They often hunt around herds, especially herds of livestock including goats, sheep and cattle. These animals attract huge amounts of haematophagous insects.
Nightjars have relatively large eyes, each with a tapetum lucidum (reflective layer behind the retina) that makes the eyes shine in torchlight and improves light detection at dusk, dawn and in moonlight. The retinas of nocturnal birds, including nightjars, are adapted for sight in low-light areas and have a higher density of rod cells and far fewer cone cells compared to those of most diurnal birds. These adaptations favour good night vision at the expense of colour discrimination In many day-flying species, light passes through coloured oil droplets within the cone cells to improve colour vision. In contrast, nightjars have a limited number of cone cells, either lacking or having only a few oil droplets. The nocturnal eyesight of nightjars is probably equivalent to that of owls. Although they have good hearing, European nightjars appear not to rely on sound to find insects, and nightjars do not echolocate.
## Predators and parasites
The eggs and chicks of this ground-nesting bird are vulnerable to predation by red foxes, pine martens, European hedgehogs, least weasels and domestic dogs, and by birds including crows, Eurasian magpies, Eurasian jays and owls. Snakes, such as common adders, may also rob the nest. Adults may be caught by birds of prey including northern goshawks, hen harriers, Eurasian sparrowhawks, common buzzards, peregrines and sooty falcons.
Parasites recorded on the European nightjar include a single species of biting louse found on the wings, and a feather mite that occurs only on the white wing markings. Avian malaria has also been recorded. The leucocytozoon blood parasite L. caprimulgi is rare in the European nightjar. Its scarcity and the fact that it is the only one of its genus found in nightjars support the suggestion that it has crossed over from close relatives that normally infect owls.
## Status
The global population of the European nightjar in 2020 was estimated at 3–6 million birds, and estimates of the European population ranged from 290,000 to 830,000 individuals. Although there appeared to be a fall in numbers, it is not rapid enough to trigger the vulnerability criteria. The huge breeding range and population mean that this species is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being of least concern.
The largest breeding populations as of 2012 were in Russia (up to 500,000 pairs), Spain (112,000 pairs) and Belarus (60,000 pairs). There have been declines in much of the range, but especially in northwestern Europe. The loss of insect prey through pesticide use, coupled with disturbance, collision with vehicles and habitat loss have contributed to the falling population. As ground-nesting birds, they are adversely affected by disturbance, especially by domestic dogs, which may destroy the nest or advertise its presence to crows or predatory mammals. Breeding success is higher in areas with no public access; where access is permitted, and particularly where dog owners allow their pets to run loose, successful nests tend to be far from footpaths or human habitation.
In Britain and elsewhere, commercial forestry has created new habitat which has increased numbers, but these gains are likely to be temporary as the woodland develops and becomes unsuitable for nightjars. In the United Kingdom, it is red-listed as a cause for concern, and in Ireland it was close to extinction as of 2012.
## In culture
Poets sometimes use the nightjar as an indicator of warm summer nights, as in George Meredith's "Love in the Valley";
> > Lone on the fir-branch, his rattle-notes unvaried Brooding o'er the gloom, spins the brown eve-jar
Wordsworth's "Calm is the fragrant air":
> > The busy dor-hawk chases the white moth With burring note.
or Dylan Thomas's "Fern Hill":
> > and all the night long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars flying with the ricks
Nightjars sing only when perched, and Thomas Hardy referenced the eerie silence of a hunting bird in "Afterwards":
> > If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight Upon the wind-warped upland thorn.
In the final track on Divers, Time, As a Symptom, Joanna Newsom rounds out the album with a litany of:
> > No time, no flock, no chime, no clock, no end White star, white ship, Nightjar, transmit, transcend (joy) White star, white ship, Nightjar, transmit, transcend (we go down) White star, white ship, Nightjar, transmit, transcend White star, white ship, Nightjar, transmit, tran- [birdsong]
Caprimulgus and the old name "goatsucker" both refer to the myth, old even in the time of Aristotle, that nightjars suckled from nanny goats, which subsequently ceased to give milk or went blind. This ancient belief is reflected in nightjar names in other European languages, such as German Ziegenmelker, Polish kozodój and Italian succiacapre, which also mean goatsucker, but despite its antiquity, it has no equivalents in Arab, Chinese or Hindu traditions. The birds are attracted by insects around domestic animals and, as unusual nocturnal creatures, were then blamed for any misfortune that befell the beast. Another old name, "puckeridge", was used to refer to both the bird and a disease of farm animals, the latter actually caused by botfly larvae under the skin. "Lich fowl" (corpse bird) is an old name which reflects the superstitions that surrounded this strange nocturnal bird. Like "gabble ratchet" (corpse hound), it may refer to the belief that the souls of unbaptised children were doomed to wander in nightjar form until Judgement Day.
## Explanatory notes
## Cited texts
|
9,008,254 |
Fauna of Scotland
| 1,152,031,935 |
Animals living in Scotland
|
[
"Fauna of Great Britain",
"Fauna of Scotland",
"Natural history of Scotland",
"Nature conservation in Scotland"
] |
The fauna of Scotland is generally typical of the northwest European part of the Palearctic realm, although several of the country's larger mammals were hunted to extinction in historic times and human activity has also led to various species of wildlife being introduced. Scotland's diverse temperate environments support 62 species of wild mammals, including a population of wild cats, important numbers of grey and harbour seals and the most northerly colony of bottlenose dolphins in the world.
Many populations of moorland birds, including the black and red grouse live here, and the country has internationally significant nesting grounds for seabirds such as the northern gannet. The golden eagle has become a national icon, and white-tailed eagles and ospreys have recently re-colonised the land. The Scottish crossbill is the only endemic vertebrate species in the UK.
Scotland's seas are among the most biologically productive in the world; it is estimated that the total number of Scottish marine species exceeds 40,000. The Darwin Mounds are an important area of deep sea cold water coral reefs discovered in 1998. Inland, nearly 400 genetically distinct populations of Atlantic salmon live in Scottish rivers. Of the 42 species of fish found in the country's fresh waters, half have arrived by natural colonisation and half by human introduction.
Only six amphibians and four land reptiles are native to Scotland, but many species of invertebrates live there that are otherwise rare in the United Kingdom (UK). An estimated 14,000 species of insect, including rare bees and butterflies protected by conservation action plans, inhabit Scotland. Conservation agencies in the UK are concerned that climate change, especially its potential effects on mountain plateaus and marine life, threaten much of the fauna of Scotland.
## Habitats
Scotland enjoys diverse temperate environments, incorporating deciduous and coniferous woodlands, and moorland, montane, estuarine, freshwater, oceanic, and tundra landscapes. About 14% of Scotland is wooded, much of it in forestry plantations, but before humans cleared the land it supported much larger boreal Caledonian and broad-leaved forests. Although much reduced, significant remnants of the native Scots pine woodlands can be found. Seventeen per cent of Scotland is covered by heather moorland and peatland. Caithness and Sutherland have one of the world's largest and most intact areas of blanket bog, which supports a distinctive wildlife community. Seventy-five per cent of Scotland's land is classed as agricultural (including some moorland) while urban areas account for around 3%. The coastline is 11,803 kilometres (7,334 mi) long, and the number of islands with terrestrial vegetation is nearly 800, about 600 of them lying off the west coast. Scotland has more than 90% of the volume and 70% of the total surface area of fresh water in the United Kingdom. There are more than 30,000 freshwater lochs and 6,600 river systems.
Under the auspices of the European Union's Habitats Directive, 244 sites in Scotland covering more than 8,750 square kilometres (3,380 sq mi) had been accepted by European Commission as Special Areas of Conservation (SAC). Scotland's seas are among the most biologically productive in the world and contain 40,000 or more species. Twenty-four of the SACs are marine sites, and a further nine are coastal with marine and non-marine elements. These marine elements extend to an area of around 350 square kilometres (140 sq mi). The Darwin Mounds, covering about 100 square kilometres (39 sq mi), are being considered as the first offshore SAC.
## Mammals
Scotland was entirely covered in ice during the Pleistocene glaciations. As the post-glacial weather warmed and the ice retreated, mammals migrated through the landscape. However, the opening of the English Channel (as sea levels rose) prevented further migrations, so mainland Britain has only two-thirds of the species that reached Scandinavia. The Hebridean islands off Scotland's west coast have only half those of Britain. Sixty-two species of mammal live wild in and around Scotland including 13 species found in coastal waters. The populations of a third of the land mammal species are thought to be in decline due to factors including environmental pollution, habitat fragmentation, changes in agricultural practices, particularly overgrazing, and competition from introduced species. No mammal species are unique to Scotland, although the St. Kilda field mouse, Apodemus sylvaticus hirtensi, is an endemic subspecies of the wood mouse that reaches twice the size of its mainland cousins, and the Orkney vole or cuttick, Microtus arvalis orcadensis found only in the Orkney archipelago, is a sub-species of the common vole. It may have been introduced by early settlers about 4,000 years ago. There are various notable domesticated Scottish mammal breeds including Highland Cattle, the Shetland Pony, Eriskay Pony, Soay Sheep and Scottish Terrier.
### Carnivores
The representation of the weasel family (Mustelidae) in Scotland is typical of Britain as a whole save that the polecat is absent and that Scotland is the UK's stronghold of the pine marten, although the purity of the latter breed is threatened by a release of American martens in northern England. Scotland hosts the only populations of the Scottish wildcat (Felis silvestris) in the British Isles with numbers estimated at between 400 and 2,000 animals, and of the red fox subspecies Vulpes vulpes vulpes, a larger race than the more common V. v. crucigera and which has two distinct forms. The wild cat is at risk due to the inadequacy of protective legislation and is now considered at serious risk of extinction. In 2013 it was announced that the island of Càrna is to provide a sanctuary and breeding station in order to protect the species. Exterminations of the population of feral American mink, which were brought to Britain for fur farms in the 1950s, have been undertaken under the auspices of the Hebridean Mink Project and the Scottish Mink Initiative, which hopes to create a mink-free zone in a large area stretching from Wester Ross to Tayside.
Other than occasional vagrants, among the seals only the Phocidae, or earless seals, are represented. Two species, the grey seal and harbour or common seal, are present around the coast of Scotland in internationally important numbers. In 2002 the Scottish grey seal population was estimated at 120,600 adult animals, which is around 36% of the world population and more than 90% of the UK's. The Scottish population of the common seal is 29,700, about 90% of the UK and 36% of the European total.
### Rodents, insectivores and lagomorphs
Seventy-five per cent of the UK's red squirrels are found in Scotland. This species faces threats that include competition from the introduced grey squirrel, and the 'Scottish Strategy for Red Squirrel Conservation' provides a framework for supporting its long-term conservation. Research in 2007 credited the growing population of pine martens with assisting this programme by preying selectively on the grey squirrels. Scotland has no population of the edible or hazel dormouse, or of the yellow-necked mouse, and the harvest mouse's range is limited to the southern part of the country. The St Kilda mouse and Orkney vole (see above) are endemic, but otherwise population distributions are similar to the rest of mainland Britain. Colonies of black rats remain only on the island of Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth and on the Shiant Isles.
Mainland insectivore populations are generally similar to the rest of Britain. Recent steps by Scottish Natural Heritage, the Scottish Executive and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to remove European hedgehogs from the Outer Hebrides, where their introduction has caused declines in internationally important breeding populations of wading seabird such as dunlin, ringed plover and redshank, has caused considerable controversy, and hedgehog culls were halted in 2007. The trapped animals are now relocated to the mainland. The programme has reduced this population; only two individuals were caught in 2007.
Of the lagomorphs only hares and rabbits are represented in Scotland. The mountain hare is the only native member of the hare family and is the dominant species throughout most of upland Scotland. The European hare and European rabbit are both present, the latter having been brought to Britain by the Romans but not becoming widespread in Scotland until the 19th century.
### Artiodactyls
Landseer's painting of a red deer stag, Monarch of the Glen, is one of the most notable images of Victorian Scotland. The species, a member of the biological order artiodactyla or "even-toed ungulates", is still 400,000 strong, although its existence in the pure form is threatened by hybridisation with introduced sika deer. Very much a hill-dwelling species in Scotland (and so typically smaller in stature than its European forest-loving cousins), it is generally replaced by roe deer in lower-lying land. Although found elsewhere in the UK, no wild populations of Chinese water deer and no or very few Chinese muntjac exist in Scotland. It has isolated populations of feral goats Capra hircus and feral sheep (Ovis aries), such as the herd of 1,000 Soay sheep on St Kilda. Since 1952 a herd of reindeer have lived in the Cairngorm National Park, the species having become extinct in Scotland after it was recorded as having been hunted in Orkney in the 12th century.
### Other mammals
Only nine of the sixteen or seventeen bat species found elsewhere in Britain are present in Scotland. Widespread species are common and soprano pipistrelles, the brown long-eared bat, Daubenton's bat and Natterer's bat. Those with a more restricted distribution are the whiskered bat, noctule, Leisler's bat and Nathusius's pipistrelle. Absences include the greater and lesser horseshoe bat, the greater mouse-eared bat and Bechstein's bat. No bats reside in the Shetland Islands; the only records there are of migrants or vagrants.
Twenty-one species of cetacean have been recorded in Scottish waters within the last 100 years including Cuvier's beaked whale, killer whales, sperm whales, minke whales and common, white-beaked and Risso's dolphins. The Moray Firth colony of about 100 bottlenose dolphins is the most northerly in the world. As recent dramatic television coverage indicated, this species preys on harbour porpoises; a third of the porpoise carcasses examined by pathologists from 1992 to 2002 indicated that death resulted from dolphin attacks. However, conservationists expressed dismay that the UK government decided to allow oil and gas prospecting in the Moray Firth, putting these populations of cetaceans at risk. In response, the government have placed seismic surveys "on hold" during 2009 pending further research. The introduced marsupial, the red-necked wallaby, is confined to a colony on an island in Loch Lomond.
### Extinctions and reintroductions
During the Pleistocene interglacials, arctic animals that are no longer extant occupied Scotland, including the woolly rhinoceros, mammoth, polar bear, lemming, Arctic fox and the giant deer Megaloceros giganteus. Other mammals that used to inhabit Scotland but became extinct in the wild during historic times include the Eurasian lynx, which lived in Britain until 1,500 years ago, the European brown bear, subspecies Ursus arctos caledoniensis, which was taken to entertain the Roman circuses but died out in the 9th or 10th century, and the elk, which lasted until about 1300. The wild boar and wild ox or urus died out in the subsequent two centuries, although the former's domesticated cousin, the grice, lasted until 1930 in Shetland. The last known wolf was shot on Mackintosh land in Inverness-shire in 1743, and the walrus is now only an occasional vagrant. St Kilda also possessed an endemic subspecies of the house mouse, Mus musculus muralis, which was longer, hairier, coloured differently and had a skull shape at variance to the norm. It became extinct in 1938, just eight years after the evacuation of the native St Kildans.
A joint project of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, the Scottish Wildlife Trust and Forestry Commission Scotland have successfully re-introduced the European beaver to the wild in Scotland using Norwegian stock. The species was found in the Highlands until the 15th century, and although the then Scottish Government initially rejected the idea, a trial commenced in May 2009 in Knapdale. Separately, on Tayside, deliberate releases or escapes have led to up to 250 animals colonising the area. Although it was initially planned to remove these unofficially reintroduced beavers, in March 2012 the Scottish Government reversed the decision to remove beavers from the Tay, pending the outcome of studies into the suitability of re-introduction. Following receipt of the results of the studies, in November 2016 the Scottish Government announced that beavers could remain permanently, and would be given protected status as a native species within Scotland. Beavers will be allowed to extend their range naturally from Knapdale and along the River Tay, however to aid this process and improve the health and resilience of the population a further 28 beavers will be released in Knapdale between 2017 and 2020.
By means of escapes or deliberate releases, wild boar (Sus scrofa) have been re-introduced to several places in Scotland including a wide area of Lochaber and West Inverness-shire. Various other schemes are under consideration. For example, the owner of the Alladale estate north of Inverness has expressed a desire to reintroduce wolves as part of a wilderness reserve, the first of its kind in Britain.
## Avifauna
The history of mammals suggests three broad overlapping phases: natural colonisation after the ice age, human-caused extinctions, and introduction by humans of non-native species. The greater mobility of birds makes such generalisations hard to substantiate in their case. Modern humans have done great damage to bird species, especially the raptors, but natural variations in populations are complex. For example, northern fulmars were present at Skara Brae during the Neolithic period, but in medieval times their breeding range was restricted to St Kilda. Since then they have spread throughout the British Isles.
Most of about 250 species of bird regularly recorded in Britain venture into Scotland, and perhaps up to 300 more occur with varying degrees of rarity. A total of 247 species have been assessed and each placed onto one of three lists, red, amber or green, indicating the level of concern for their future. Forty species are red-listed, 121 are amber-listed and 86 are green-listed.
The Scottish crossbill, Loxia scotica, which inhabits the coniferous forests of the Highlands, is Britain's only endemic bird and, with only 300 breeding pairs, one of Europe's most threatened species. Its shape, red/green hue and habit of hanging upside down has led to comparisons with parrots. St Kilda has a unique subspecies of wren, the St Kilda wren Troglodytes troglodytes hirtensis, which has adapted to perching on the rocks and cliffs of this treeless Atlantic island, and consequently has developed larger and stronger feet than the mainland variant. It is also slightly larger, has a longer beak, a drabber though more varied colouring, and a "peculiarly sweet and soft" song. The subspecies was recognised in 1884 and was protected by a special Act of Parliament in 1904 to prevent its destruction "at the hands of ornithologists, egg-collectors, taxidermists and tourists".
### Raptors
All but a few pairs of Britain's approximately 600 golden eagles are found in Scotland as are most of the breeding peregrine falcons. The hobby, marsh harrier and Montagu's harrier although found in England and Wales are generally absent.
In 1916 an English vicar stole the last native white-tailed sea eagle eggs on Skye, and the last adult was shot in Shetland two years later. However, the species was reintroduced to the island of Rùm in 1975. The bird spread successfully to various neighbouring islands, and 30 pairs were established by 2006. Despite fears expressed by local farmers, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) are in process of releasing up to 100 young eagles on the east coast in the Forth and Tay estuaries. The red kite was exterminated in Scotland in 1879, and a reintroduction programme was launched by the RSPB in the 1980s. Although the species has made significant advances, it is estimated that 38% of the 395 birds fledged between 1999 and 2003 were poisoned and a further 9% shot or otherwise killed by humans. The RSPB stated: "it may take a custodial sentence before people engaged with this activity begin to take the matter seriously".
After an absence of nearly 40 years the osprey successfully re-colonised Scotland in the early 1950s. In 1899 they had bred at the ruined Loch an Eilean castle near Aviemore and at Loch Arkaig until 1908. In 1952 they claimed a new site at Loch Garten. There are now 150 breeding pairs.
Other raptor species found in the UK such as the kestrel, hen harrier, goshawk, sparrowhawk, tawny owl, and barn owl are widely distributed in Scotland, although the little owl is confined to the south. Buzzards have displayed a remarkable resilience, having recovered from human persecution and the myxomatosis epidemic of the 1950s, which reduced their food supply. Numbers more than trebled between 1978 and 1998. At the other end of the population scale, a single pair of snowy owls bred on Fetlar from 1967 to 1975.
In 2009 it was reported that the Scottish Government have decided to proceed with a controversial plan to relocate sparrowhawks found near pigeon lofts in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Kilmarnock, Stirling and Dumfries at a cost of £25,000.
### Seabirds
Scotland's seas host almost half of the European Union's breeding seabirds including about half of the world's northern gannets and a third of the world's Manx shearwaters. Four seabird species have more than 95% of their combined British and Irish population in Scotland, while a further fourteen species have more than half of their breeding population in Scottish colonies. St Kilda, which is a World Heritage Site, is a seabird haven of great significance. It has 60,000 northern gannets, amounting to 24% of the world population, 49,000 breeding pairs of Leach's storm petrel, up to 90% of the European population, 136,000 pairs of puffin and 67,000 northern fulmar pairs, about 30% and 13% of the respective UK totals. The island of Mingulay also has a large seabird population and is an important breeding ground for razorbills, with 9,514 pairs, 6.3% of the European population.
Sixty per cent of all breeding bonxies nest in Scotland, mostly in Orkney and Shetland, even though they did not arrive at all until the 18th century. Scotland is the breeding station for about 90% of the UK's Arctic terns, the majority of which make use of colonies in Orkney and Shetland. A similar percentage of the UK's tysties breed on Scottish islands including Unst, Mingulay and Iona. Scotland also hosts 1,000 pairs of Arctic skua and 21,000 breeding pairs of shag, 40% of the global population of the species.
In excess of 130,000 birds inhabit Fowlsheugh nature reserve in Aberdeenshire at the peak of the breeding season, making it one of the largest seabird colonies in Britain. There are significant numbers of kittiwake, Atlantic puffin, razorbill, fulmar, herring gull and great black-backed gull. The Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth hosts upwards of 40,000 pairs of northern gannets and is the largest single rock gannetry in the world. The bird's scientific name Morus bassanus, derives from the rock.
### Game birds, waders and water fowl
Red-listed western capercaillie and ptarmigan breed in Scotland and are absent elsewhere in the British Isles. The former became extinct in Scotland in 1785 but was successfully reintroduced from Swedish stock in 1837. There are significant populations of other Galliformes including blackcock and the famous red grouse. Common quail, grey partridge and pheasant are well-distributed, although the red-legged partridge is less so. A small colony of the introduced golden pheasant exists in the southwest.
Among the waders, avocet, stone-curlew, little ringed plover and Kentish plover are absent, but most of the 100 or so pairs of dotterel in the UK spend their summers in Scotland as do all of the breeding Eurasian whimbrel, greenshank and red-necked phalarope, (although the latter two species also breed in Ireland). In summer the shallow lochs of the machair lands in the Uists and Benbecula provide for a remarkable variety of waders and ducks including shoveler and eider. The rare Slavonian grebe and common scoter breed on a small number of lochs in Highland region. Goldeneye have colonised an area centred around the Cairngorms National Park since the 1970s, and about 100 pairs breed there. The majority of the roughly 25,000 whooper swans in the British Isles winter in Scotland and Ireland.
About half of the 80,000 barnacle geese, which breed in Greenland, arrive on Islay for the winter, with further flocks wintering on other Scottish islands (e.g. Uists, Tiree, Colonsay) and many thousands wintering in Ireland. Tens of thousands of pink-footed geese use the Montrose Basin as a winter roost in October and November as they do Loch Strathbeg and various lochs and reservoirs in Tayside and the Lothians. The amber-listed black and red-throated diver's freshwater breeding strongholds in the British Isles are in the north and west of Scotland.
### Other non-passerines
Considerable efforts have been taken to conserve the shy corncrake, and summer numbers of this red-listed species have recovered to over 1200 pairs. The wryneck is now almost extinct in Scotland with one or two birds singing each summer, but not breeding. Of the Columbidae the turtle dove is largely absent, but in the British Isles the rock dove is confined to the north and west coasts of Scotland and Ireland.
### Passerines
Ravens are typically forest-dwelling birds in much of Europe, but in Scotland they are generally associated with mountains and sea coasts. In 2002 the hooded crow was recognised as a separate species from the carrion crow. Scotland and Northern Ireland host all of the approximately 190,000 UK territories of the former. A recent survey suggest that raven numbers are increasing but that hooded crows had declined by 59% while carrion crow numbers were essentially static. Concentrated on the islands of Islay and Colonsay, about 80 of Britain's 400 pairs of red-billed chough nest in Scotland.
In addition to crossbills (see above), crested tits exist as a fragmented population of 2,400 breeding pairs in remnant patches of Caledonian Forest and in some larger plantations such as the Culbin Forest in Moray. Ring ouzels have declined to around 7,000 pairs, possibly due to disturbance from the growing number of human visitors to their upland habitat. There are fewer than 100 breeding pairs of snow bunting, although in winter they are joined by migrants from continental Europe. A nest site near Dumfries is thought to have been in use by dippers since 1881. Scotland has 95% of the British breeding population of red-listed twite, about 64,000 pairs. However, a recent RSPB survey found a sudden and dramatic fall in winter numbers from 6,000 in 1998 to only 300 in 2006 in the counties of Caithness and Sutherland.
### Vagrants
Scotland's position on the western seaboard of Europe means that a variety of birds not normally found in the country visit from time to time. These include accidental visits by vagrant birds that have wandered far from their normal habitations.
Fair Isle is an internationally renowned site for the observation of migrant birds. Rarities have included passerines such as the thick-billed warbler, white-throated sparrow, yellow-rumped warbler and collared flycatcher. More than 345 species of bird have been recorded on this island, which measures only 7.68 square kilometres (2.97 sq mi).
Elsewhere, other rarities reported in 2006 include a white-billed diver at Gairloch, a black-browed albatross in the Western Isles, a laughing gull in Shetland and a buff-breasted sandpiper at Lossiemouth. Accidentals recorded in earlier years include an American bittern in 1888 and a purple heron in the same year, a Baikal teal in 1958, and a black stork in 1977. Birds are also presumed to have escaped from captivity, such as a lanner falcon in 1976, Chilean flamingos in 1976 and 1979, a black-necked swan in 1988, and a red-tailed hawk in 1989. These records are but a small selection from two counties in the north-east and give only a flavour of the complexity and diversity of avian life in Scotland.
### Extinctions
The common crane and great bittern were exterminated by hunters and the draining of marshes in the 18th century. The last great auk seen in Britain was killed on Stac an Armin, a rocky pinnacle in the St Kilda archipelago in July 1840.
## Fish life in the sea
Of the 42 species of fish found in Scottish fresh waters, only half have arrived by natural colonisation. Native species include allis shad, brown trout, European eel and river lamprey. Scottish rivers support one of the largest Atlantic salmon resources in Europe, with nearly 400 rivers supporting genetically distinct populations. Five fish species are considered 'late arrivals' to Scotland, having colonised by natural means prior to 1790. They are the northern pike, roach, stone loach, European perch, and minnow. Rarer native species include the endemic Salvelinus killinensis and the powan, the latter found in only two locations and under threat from introduced ruffe and the Arctic charr. The latter may have been the first fish species to re-enter fresh waters when the last ice age ended, and about 200 populations exist.
The freshwater pearl mussel was once abundant enough to support commercial activities, and Scotland is the remaining European stronghold with about half the global number present. There are populations in more than 50 rivers, mainly in the Highlands, although illegal harvesting has seriously affected their survival.
Scotland's seas, which constitute an area greater than that of the seas around the rest of the UK, are among the most biologically productive in the world. They are home to a third of the world's whale and dolphin species, most of the UK's maerl, (a collective term for several species of calcified red seaweed, and an important marine habitat), Horsemussel (Modiolus modiolus) and seagrass beds, and distinctive species like the tall sea pen, Funiculina quadrangularis. It is estimated that the total number of Scottish marine species exceeds 40,000. This includes 250 species of fish, the most numerous inshore variety being saithe, and deeper water creatures such as the dogfish, porbeagle and blue shark, European eel, sea bass, Atlantic halibut and various rays. There are four species of sea turtle, the leatherback, loggerhead, Kemp's ridley and green turtle. Scottish waters contain around 2,500 crustacean species and 700 molluscs and in 2012 a bed of 100 million flame shells was found during a survey of Loch Alsh.
The Darwin Mounds, an important area of cold water coral reefs discovered in 1988, are about 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) deep in the Atlantic Ocean, about 185 kilometres (115 mi) north-west of Cape Wrath in the north-east corner of the Rockall Trough. The area covers approximately 100 square kilometres (39 sq mi) and contains hundreds of mounds of about 100 metres (330 ft) in diameter and 5 metres (16 ft) in height, many having a teardrop shaped 'tail' orientated south-west of the mound. This feature may be unique globally. The tops of the mounds have living stands of Lophelia corals and support significant populations of the single-celled Syringammina fragilissima. Fish have been observed in the vicinity but not at higher densities than the background environment. Damage from trawler fishing was visible over about a half of the eastern Darwin Mounds surveyed during summer 2000, and the UK government is taking steps to protect the area. In 2003 the European Commission provided emergency protection and banned damaging fishing activity in the locality.
Further action on a much wider scale may be required. According to a recent report "Scotland's marine life could be almost wiped out within 50 years unless tough action is taken to manage the way humans use the seas". Fears were expressed by a consortium of environmental organisations that commercial fish stocks, including Atlantic cod are suffering from over-fishing, that fish farming, especially for salmon is damaging the aquatic environment, a reduction in coastal marsh habitats is affecting marine bird life, litter in densely populated estuaries such as the Firth of Clyde is affecting all forms of marine life and that the growth in off-shore tourism was deleterious to populations of, for example, basking shark. A call was made for a 'Scottish Marine Bill' to co-ordinate and manage human activity at sea and to provide more protected areas such as marine national parks. The Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 was subsequently passed by the Scottish Parliament.
Calyptraea chinensis (L.) is a gastropod that has invaded the shores of Scotland and by 1998 had reached nearly as far north as Oban. One living specimen was found at Clachan Sound, and earlier records showed findings of gastropod shells.
### Riverine extinctions
Pollution and predation led to the extinction of both species of vendace from its very restricted range in south-western Scottish freshwaters in 1980. In the 1990s a successful attempt to reintroduce Coregonus vandesius to the Lochmaben area began. Coregonus albula remains absent.
Salvelinus inframundus, a rare char species that could be vulnerable to extinct, has been found in Loch Mealt, Isle of Skye, Scottish Highlands.
## Amphibians and land reptiles
Only six amphibians and four land reptiles are native to Scotland. The amphibians include three species of newt: the great crested, of which fewer than 1,000 individuals survive; the smooth, and the palmate. The other amphibians are the common toad, the natterjack toad, found in only four locations in the south-west, and the common frog. A single alien amphibian is known in Scotland, the Alpine newt, a recent escapee confined to the Edinburgh area.
The reptiles include the adder and the grass snake, the slowworm, which is a legless lizard, and the common lizard. Smooth snakes, found elsewhere in the UK are absent, and grass snakes are rarely reported.
## Terrestrial invertebrates
Seventy-seven species of land snail and an estimated 14,000 species of insect live in Scotland, none of them "truly" endemic. These include Pardosa lugubris, a species of wolf spider first found in the UK in 2000 at Abernethy Forest nature reserve, and the Scottish wood ant. These ants, which are the most numerous residents of the Caledonian pine forest, build mounds from the pine cones and needles they find on the forest floor and may inhabit the mounds for decades. A single colony may collect 100,000 insects a day to feed its half million citizens and produce up to 250 kilograms (550 lb) of honeydew per season.
In addition to the Scottish wood ant, several Scottish species of invertebrate exist that are otherwise rare in the UK and important enough to have a specific "Action Plan" to provide protection. These are five species of ant and bee, six moths and butterfly, five flies and a single beetle (the reed beetle) and snail (the round-mouthed whorl snail, Vertigo genesii). Northern colletes is a rare species of bee, the most significant British habitat for which is in the Outer Hebrides, where there are more than ten colonies. Scotland is also the UK stronghold of the Blaeberry bumblebee, and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust recently created the world's first sanctuary for this genus of insects at RSPB Vane Farm Nature Reserve near Loch Leven. The bumblebee Bombus jonellus var. hebridensis is endemic to the Hebrides. In 2010, a colony of the beetle Meloe brevicollis was found on the island of Coll. The species is otherwise extinct in Scotland and is also flightless, raising the question of how the colony arrived on the island. The northern February red stonefly (Brachyptera putata) has recently lost its range elsewhere in Britain and is now it considered to be a Scottish endemic.
Although many species of butterfly are in decline in the UK, recent research suggests that some, such as the pearl-bordered fritillary, marsh fritillary and chequered skipper, which are becoming rare in the rest of the UK, are moving north into Scotland in response to climate change. In June 2008 an adult Ethmia pyrausta moth was discovered in Easter Ross. This find was only the fifth sighting since its discovery in the UK at Loch Shin in 1853, and the species has gained "almost mythical status" according to Butterfly Conservation Scotland.
The most well-known invertebrate may be a species of midge (Culicoides impunctatus), a tiny flying gnat that is the scourge of summer visitors and residents alike. Its predations result in the loss of up to 20% of summer working days in the forestry industry. Others of significance include the pine weevil, black pine beetle, clytra beetle, and the timberman, a long-horned beetle. The archaeological site at Skara Brae provided the earliest known record of the human flea, Pulex irritans in Europe.
The islands of Colonsay and Oronsay are home to about 50 colonies of the only native species of honeybee in Britain–Apis mellifera mellifera. The Scottish Government introduced the Bee Keeping (Colonsay and Oronsay) Order 2013 to protect the species from cross-breeding and disease as the species has suffered serious declines on the mainland.
## Cryptozoology
A variety of exotic cats are rumoured to exist, including the 'Beast of Buchan'. The 'Kellas Cat' of Moray is a jet black, long-legged animal, and is probably the result of a modern wild cat/domestic cat hybrid, or a melanistic wild cat. In earlier times it may have spawned the legend of the Cat Sidhe or "Fairy Cat". The fabulous Loch Ness Monster, possibly a form of "water horse", has a long history; the first recorded sighting allegedly took place in 565 AD. More recently, the Stronsay Beast was an unidentified cryptid washed ashore in the Orkney islands in the 19th century.
## Nature conservation in Scotland
### Challenges
Conservation of the natural environment is well-developed in the United Kingdom. The resources of the organisations concerned may be insufficient to the challenge, but the contrast with earlier attitudes about the environment is striking. In Victorian times few animals became extinct in Scotland, but the scale of the slaughter on hunting estates was staggering. Richard Perry records that on a single estate in the Cairngorms between 1837 and 1840 the following "vermin" were exterminated by keepers purely in the interests of preserving the grouse population:
> 246 Martens, 198 Wild Cats, 106 Polecats, 67 Badgers, 58 Otters, 475 Ravens, 462 Kestrels, 371 Rough-legged Buzzards, 285 Common Buzzards, 275 Kites, 98 Peregrine Falcons, 92 Hen Harriers, 78 Merlins, 71 Short-eared Owls, 63 Goshawks, 35 Long-eared Owls, 27 Sea Eagles, 18 Ospreys, 15 Golden Eagles, 11 Hobbys, 6 Gyrfalcons, 5 Marsh Harriers, 3 Honey Buzzards,
and for reasons apparently unconnected to grouse shooting, a further
> 11 Foxes, 301 Stoats and Weasels, 78 House Cats, 1,431 Hooded or Carrion Crow, 3 Barn Owls, 8 Magpies and 7 "Orange-legged Falcons".
Writing in 1947, Perry stated that his "first reaction to this dreadful black-list was that of amazed incredulity. I still find the details incredible. However, they were supplied by the lessee himself." In several instances these extermination totals are larger than the current resident numbers for the entire country.
It remains to be seen if the destruction wrought by the Victorians continues to be the nadir for the fauna of Scotland. In addition to other difficulties the marine environment faces, climate change is a challenge facing all of Scotland's habitats. Among the birds, ptarmigan, dotterel and snow bunting in particular may be affected as they depend on high-altitude habitats, and populations are likely to decline if warmer weather brings competitors into their restricted ranges. Mammals and other vertebrates may fare better, although localised invertebrate populations are at risk. Marine life is already being affected. Planktonic species that prefer cold water are declining and are not able support the crucial food chains on which many seabirds depend. Further evidence of problems for marine species has been provided by the St Andrews University Sea Mammal Research Unit. An analysis suggests that common seal populations in Orkney and Shetland fell by 40% from 2001 to 2006, prompting the then Scottish Executive to announce the likelihood of a new protective conservation order.
The complexities involved in conserving Scottish wildlife are highlighted in an RSPB report, noting that pine martens have been found to be a significant predator of capercaillie nests. Both species are protected, providing conservation agencies with a challenging conundrum to address. In 2012 the Scottish Government published a "Code of Practice on Non-Native Species" to help people understand their responsibilities and provide guidance as to which public body has responsibility for the various habitats involved.
### Conservation organisations
Various public sector organisations have an important role in the stewardship of the country's fauna. Scottish Natural Heritage is the statutory body responsible for natural heritage management in Scotland. One of its duties is to establish national nature reserves (NNR)s. Until 2004 there were 73, but a review carried out in that year resulted in a significant number of sites losing their NNR status, and by 2006 there were 55. As of 2018 there are 43. Forestry and Land Scotland serves as the forestry department of the Scottish Government and is one of the country's largest landowners. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee is the statutory adviser to Government on UK and international nature conservation.
The country has two national parks. Cairngorms National Park includes the largest area of arctic mountain landscape in the UK. Sites designated as of importance to natural heritage take up 39% of the land area, two-thirds of which are of Europe-wide importance. Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park includes Britain's largest body of fresh water, the mountains of Breadalbane and the sea lochs of Argyll.
Charitable and voluntary organisations also have important roles to play. The National Trust for Scotland is the conservation charity that protects and promotes Scotland's natural and cultural heritage. With more than 270,000 members it is the largest conservation charity in Scotland. The Scottish Wildlife Trust is a leading voluntary conservation organisation, working to protect Scotland's natural environment. The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland is a learned society and registered charity that maintains Edinburgh Zoo and the Highland Wildlife Park (a safari park and zoo near Kingussie, which specialises in native fauna). The Society is also involved in various conservation programs around Scotland and the world. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds promotes conservation of birds and other wildlife through the protection and re-creation of habitats. The John Muir Trust is a charity whose main role is as a guardian of wild land and wildlife, through the ownership of land and the promotion of education and conservation. The trust owns and manages estates in locations including Knoydart and Assynt, and on the isle of Skye. It has links with the Sierra Club in the United States, which also celebrates the legacy of Dunbar-born John Muir. Trees for Life is a charity that aims to restore a "wild forest" in the Northwest Highlands and Grampian Mountains.
## See also
- British avifauna
- Climate of Scotland
- Flora of Scotland
- Geography of Scotland
- Geology of Scotland
- Nature of the Outer Hebrides
- List of British amphibians
- List of British birds
- List of British butterflies
- List of British mammals
- List of British reptiles
- List of extinct animals of Britain
- List of fauna of the Scottish Highlands
- Lists of insects recorded in Britain
- List of moths of Great Britain (Arctiidae)
- List of moths of Great Britain (Geometridae)
- National nature reserve (Scotland)
- Royal Society for the Protection of Birds reserves in Scotland
|
1,391,710 |
Ferugliotheriidae
| 1,170,114,279 |
One of three known families in the order Gondwanatheria, an enigmatic group of extinct mammals
|
[
"Cretaceous mammals",
"Gondwanatheres",
"Late Cretaceous first appearances",
"Prehistoric mammal families",
"Taxa named by José Bonaparte"
] |
Ferugliotheriidae is one of three known families in the order Gondwanatheria, an enigmatic group of extinct mammals. Gondwanatheres have been classified as a group of uncertain affinities or as members of Multituberculata, a major extinct mammalian order. The best-known representative of Ferugliotheriidae is the genus Ferugliotherium from the Late Cretaceous epoch in Argentina. A second genus, Trapalcotherium, is known from a single tooth, a first lower molariform (molar-like tooth), from a different Late Cretaceous Argentinean locality. Another genus known from a single tooth (in this case, a fourth lower premolar), Argentodites, was first described as an unrelated multituberculate, but later identified as possibly related to Ferugliotherium. Finally, a single tooth from the Paleogene of Peru, LACM 149371, perhaps a last upper molariform, and a recent specimen from Mexico, may represent related animals.
Ferugliotheriids are known from isolated, low-crowned (brachydont) teeth and possibly a fragment of a lower jaw. Ferugliotherium is estimated to have weighed 70 g (2.5 oz). The incisors are long and procumbent and contain a band of enamel on only part of the tooth. The jaw fragment contains a long tooth socket for the incisor and bears a bladelike fourth lower premolar, resembling those of multituberculates. The premolar of Argentodites is similar. Two upper premolars also resemble multituberculate teeth, but whether these premolars are referable to Ferugliotheriidae is controversial. Molariforms are rectangular and brachydont and consist of longitudinal rows of cusps, connected by transverse crests and separated by transverse furrows. Lower molariforms have two cusp rows, and the single known putative upper molariform has three. Low-crowned and bladelike teeth as seen in ferugliotheriids may have been evolutionary precursors of the high-crowned (hypsodont) teeth of the other gondwanathere family, Sudamericidae.
Most ferugliotheriids come from the Late Cretaceous epoch (Campanian–Maastrichtian ages, 84–66 million years ago, or mya) of Argentina, where they may have lived in a marshy or seashore environment. They coexisted with mammals such as dryolestoids and a variety of other animals, including dinosaurs. Ferugliotheriids may have been herbivores or omnivores.
## Taxonomy
The first member of the family Ferugliotheriidae to be discovered, Ferugliotherium windhauseni, was named in 1986 by Argentinean paleontologist José F. Bonaparte on the basis of a tooth from the Late Cretaceous Los Alamitos Formation of Argentina. Bonaparte placed Ferugliotherium as the only member of the new family Ferugliotheriidae, which he tentatively assigned to the order Multituberculata, a large group of extinct mammals (distinct from both monotremes and therians, the two major groups of living mammals) that was particularly widespread in the northern continents (Laurasia), but had never previously been found in the south (Gondwana). In 1990, Bonaparte named another species, Vucetichia gracilis, from Los Alamitos. He placed it in the family Gondwanatheriidae, together with Gondwanatherium, another Los Alamitos mammal, within the order Gondwanatheria, which also contained the family Sudamericidae, then with the single genus Sudamerica. Bonaparte considered the gondwanatheres to be probably most closely related to the xenarthrans (sloths, armadillos, and anteaters) within a group called Paratheria.
Also in 1990, Bonaparte merged the family Gondwanatheriidae into Sudamericidae and, together with David Krause, redefined Gondwanatheria as a multituberculate suborder that included both Ferugliotheriidae and Sudamericidae, thus rejecting a relationship between gondwanatheres and xenarthrans. Krause, Bonaparte, and Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska redescribed Ferugliotherium in 1992 and suggested that the teeth that Vucetichia was based on may have been worn specimens of Ferugliotherium. They placed Ferugliotherium among multituberculates and suggested that it may be part of the suborder Plagiaulacoidea. The following year, Krause confirmed that Vucetichia gracilis is a synonym of Ferugliotherium windhauseni. Together with Bonaparte, he also proposed to classify gondwanatheres as a superfamily (Gondwanatherioidea) within Plagiaulacoidea, including the families Ferugliotheriidae and Sudamericidae. In 1996, Kielan-Jaworowska and Bonaparte tentatively identified a lower jaw fragment with a multituberculate-like fourth lower premolar (p4) from Los Alamitos as Ferugliotherium. On the basis of the morphological features of the jaw fragment, they argued that gondwanatheres are not closely related to any other multituberculate group, and consequently placed them in a suborder of their own, Gondwanatheria.
In 1999, Rosendo Pascual and colleagues described a lower jaw of Sudamerica, which had previously only been known from isolated teeth. This jaw fragment showed that Sudamerica had four molariform teeth on each side of the lower jaws, more than any multituberculate, and consequently they removed gondwanatheres from Multituberculata and regarded their affinities as uncertain. As a consequence, Kielan-Jaworowska and colleagues excluded Gondwanatheria from multituberculates, but identified the jaw fragment and a few upper premolars of Ferugliotherium as indeterminate multituberculates in a 2001 paper and a 2004 book. However, in 2009 Yamila Gurovich and Robin Beck identified these fossils as Ferugliotherium and argued in favor of a close relationship between gondwanatheres (including Ferugliotheriidae) and multituberculates.
In the 2000s, additional members of Ferugliotheriidae were described. In 2004, Francisco Goin and colleagues described a single enigmatic tooth from the Paleogene of Peru, LACM 149371; their best estimate was that it represented a member of Ferugliotheriidae. On the basis of a single p4, Kielan-Jaworowska and colleagues named Argentodites coloniensis, from the Late Cretaceous La Colonia Formation of Argentina, in 2007 as a multituberculate, possibly referable to the suborder Cimolodonta. Gurovich and Beck argued, however, that the p4 of Argentodites did not differ materially from that in the jaw they allocated to Ferugliotherium, and that Argentodites was based on a specimen of either Ferugliotherium or a closely related animal. Guillermo Rougier and colleagues described mammals from the Allen Formation, a third Argentinean formation of similar age, in 2009, including a new ferugliotheriid, Trapalcotherium matuastensis. They also regarded Argentodites as a likely relative of Ferugliotherium and suggested that Ferugliotheriidae are either multituberculates or closely related to them. Some studies have recovered Ferugliotheriidae as unrelated to the rest of Gondwanatheria, but instead nested within the Multituberculates.
## Description
Ferugliotheriids are known from a few dozen isolated teeth and a questionably allocated jaw fragment. Most fossils are referred to Ferugliotherium; Trapalcotherium and Argentodites were each described on the basis of a single tooth. Their precise dental formula is unknown, but incisors, premolars, and molariform teeth have been identified. Gurovich suggested that Ferugliotherium had one incisor (possibly two in the upper jaw), no canines, one or two premolars, and two molars on each side of the lower and upper jaws.
Unlike the very high-crowned (hypsodont) sudamericids, ferugliotheriid teeth were low-crowned (brachydont). Furthermore, sudamericid molariforms tend to be larger and are supported by one large root, but the smaller ferugliotheriids have at least two roots under their molariforms. Ferugliotherium is estimated to have weighed 70 g (2.5 oz).
The incisors, known only from Ferugliotherium, are procumbent and long. Three lower and four upper incisors are known. As is usual in mammals with similarly shaped (gliriform) incisors, the lower incisors are more laterally compressed, are less curved, form a greater angle between the front side and the wear facet at the tip, and are less elliptical in shape than the uppers. The enamel band is restricted to the side that faces the lips in both the lower and upper incisors (the lower side in the lowers and the upper side in the uppers).
The specimen MACN Pv-RN 975, first described by Kielan-Jaworowska and Bonaparte in 1996, may be a jaw fragment of Ferugliotherium, although it has also been identified as an unrelated multituberculate. The fossil preserves a bladelike premolar, identified as the fourth premolar, and the piece of the jawbone below it. A diastema (gap) is present between the premolar and the incisor that would have been located in front of it. The alveolus (socket) of the lower incisor extends all the way through the fossil. The p4 bears eight ridges on both sides of the longitudinal crest and is supported by two roots at the front and back. The p4 assigned to Argentodites also has eight ridges on both sides, which descend from cusps on the upper margin, and roots at the front and back. According to Kielan-Jaworowska and colleagues, it differs from that of MACN Pv-RN 975 in its rounded, as opposed to angular shape. However, Gurovich and Beck attribute this difference to the fact that the latter has undergone much more wear.
Two fossils have been interpreted as isolated lower premolars of Ferugliotherium, but neither is still regarded as such. Two other teeth have been identified as upper premolars of Ferugliotherium; as with the jaw fragment, they may also represent an indeterminate multituberculate. One of the two preserves two longitudinal rows of cusps, of which one contains four and the other at least two cusps. The other is more poorly preserved, but may represent the same tooth position. These teeth resemble multituberculate upper premolars.
Four putative first lower molariforms (mf1s) of Ferugliotherium are known, and the only known tooth of Trapalcotherium is also thought to be an mf1. Ferugliotherium mf1s are roughly rectangular, with rounded corners, and bear two longitudinal rows of cusps. There are four cusps in the lingual row (on the side of the tongue) and three in the labial row (the side of the lips). The cusps are connected to cusps in the other row by transverse ridges and separated from cusps in their own rows by three transverse furrows. Two heavily worn Ferugliotherium mf1s were originally identified as upper molars of Vucetichia gracilis by Bonaparte in 1990. One of the two preserves the roots; at the front and back, there were two roots, fused at their bases. The mf1 of Trapalcotherium differs only in some details; among others, the cusps are less distinct from the crests. The sole mf2 of Ferugliotherium is the holotype. It bears two rows of two cusps. The cusps in the front and back pairs are connected by a broad ridge and the two pairs are separated by a deep furrow. Transverse ridges between the cusps similar to those seen in ferugliotheriids are not known in any multituberculate. On the other hand, overall patterns of cusps and ridges are essentially similar among Ferugliotherium, Gondwanatherium, and Sudamerica, indicating that the three are closely related.
One Ferugliotherium tooth is thought to be a first upper molariform (MF1). It is almost rectangular and bears three longitudinal rows of cusps. There are five cusps in the middle row, which is oriented obliquely, four cusps in one of the rows on the side of the tooth, and two or three in the other row on the side. As in the lower molariforms, the cusps are connected by transverse ridges and separated by furrows. LACM 149371, the enigmatic possibly ferugliotheriid tooth from Peru, is a triangular tooth bearing six or seven cusps, which are connected by crests and surround two deep fossae (basins) and a third shallower fossa.
## Range, ecology, and evolution
With its low-crowned teeth, Ferugliotherium may have been an insectivore or omnivore, like similar multituberculates such as Mesodma, which is thought to have eaten insects, other arthropods, seeds, and/or nuts. The wear on Ferugliotherium teeth suggests that the animal may have eaten some plant material. The high-crowned sudamericids are thought to have been herbivores feeding on abrasive vegetation, although their precise diet is not known. In the evolutionary history of gondwanatheres, hypsodont teeth are thought to have evolved from brachydont precursors. Gurovich hypothesizes that the anterior molariforms of sudamericids may have evolved from bladelike premolars as seen in Ferugliotherium.
Fossils of Argentinean ferugliotheriids come from the Los Alamitos (Ferugliotherium), La Colonia (Ferugliotherium and Argentodites), and Allen Formations (Trapalcotherium). All three are approximately the same age, dating to the Campanian (84–71 mya) or more likely the Maastrichtian (71–66 mya), but the La Colonia Formation is perhaps a little younger. The Los Alamitos and Allen Formations may have been deposited in a marshy environments, and the depositional environment of the La Colonia Formations may have been an estuary, tidal flat, or coastal plain.
In each of the three formations, the mammalian fauna is dominated by the archaic group Dryolestoidea; the Los Alamitos Formation has also produced the sudamericid Gondwanatherium. Only seven mammalian teeth have been found in the Allen Formation. All three also contain remains of numerous other animals, including dinosaurs, amphibians, and fish.
The Santa Rosa fossil site, where LACM 149371 was found, is in the Ucayali Region of Peru. The Santa Rosa fauna also contains fossils of various unique species of marsupials and hystricognath rodents, a possible bat, and some notoungulates (a unique extinct group of South American ungulates). The age of this fauna is unclear, and estimates range from near the Eocene–Oligocene boundary (\~35 mya) to the late Oligocene (\~25 mya). The Santa Rosa mammals may have lived in a savanna habitat that contained rivers.
More recently, a specimen has been found in the Cerro del Pueblo Formation of Mexico, bearing several similarities to Ferugliotherium. If a ferugliotheriid, this would extend the clade's range into the Maastrichtian of North America.
The range of the Ferugliotheriidae is overall more limited, both in extent and time, than that of Sudamericidae; sudamericids have been recorded from the Late Cretaceous to Miocene of Argentina, the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar and India, the Middle Eocene of Antarctica, and perhaps the Cretaceous of Tanzania (TNM 02067, tentatively referred to Sudamericidae). Nevertheless, ferugliotheriids may be the only gondwanatheres to have had a presence in the northern hemisphere.
|
1,338,681 |
Portman Road
| 1,170,521,462 |
Stadium for Ipswich Town Football Club
|
[
"1884 establishments in England",
"English Football League venues",
"Football venues in England",
"Football venues in Suffolk",
"Ipswich Town F.C.",
"Premier League venues",
"Sports venues completed in 1884",
"Sports venues in Ipswich"
] |
Portman Road is a football stadium in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, which has been the home ground of Ipswich Town F.C. since 1884. The stadium has also hosted many England youth international matches, and one senior England friendly international match, against Croatia in 2003. It staged several other sporting events, including athletics meetings and international hockey matches, musical concerts and Christian events.
The stadium underwent significant redevelopments in the early 2000s, which increased the capacity from 22,600 to a current figure of 29,673, making it the largest-capacity football ground in East Anglia. Its four stands have since been converted to all-seater, following the recommendations of the Taylor Report.
## History
Ipswich played their early matches at Broomhill Park, but in 1884, the club moved to Portman Road and have played there ever since. The ground was also used as a cricket pitch during the summer by the East Suffolk Cricket Club who had played there since 1855. The cricket club had erected a pavilion, the first fixed building at the ground. More substantial elements of ground development did not begin for a further 11 years, though Ipswich became one of the first clubs to implement the use of goal nets in 1890. At this time, Ipswich were an amateur side (the team became professional in 1936) and the first visit of a professional club came in 1892, when Preston North End played a Suffolk County Football Association team. This was followed six years later by a visit from Aston Villa, a game which was so popular that a temporary stand was erected in order to accommodate a crowd of around 5,000. In 1901, a tobacco processing plant was built along the south edge of the ground by the Churchman brothers, a name which would later become synonymous with the south stand located there.
The first permanent stand, a wooden structure known affectionately as the "Chicken Run", was built on the Portman Road side of the ground in 1906. This structure was sold in 1971 to the local speedway team, the Ipswich Witches, who installed it at Foxhall Stadium. In 1914, the ground was commandeered by the British Army for use as a training camp for the duration of the First World War. Control of Portman Road was not returned to the club until two years after the end of the war and significant work was required to repair damage to the ground caused by heavy machinery.
For a short period during the 1920s, Portman Road was host to a number of whippet races in an attempt to increase revenue, and in 1928 a small stand was built on the west side of the ground. The football club turned professional in 1936 and the cricket club were forced to move out, so work began on the first bank of terracing at the north end of the pitch. The following year, on the back of winning the Southern League, a similar terrace was built at the southern "Churchmans" end and 650 tip-up seats, bought from Arsenal, were installed. Portman Road was home to Ipswich Town's first Football League match on 27 August 1938, a 4–2 victory against Southend United in Division Three (South) witnessed by more than 19,000 spectators.
The Supporters' Association funded a number of improvements at Portman Road; in 1952, concrete terracing replaced the wooden terraces at the cost of £3,000 and another £3,000 was used to re-terrace the North Stand in 1954, bringing the capacity of the ground to approximately 29,000. In 1957, the association raised £30,500 towards the building of a new West Stand, increasing ground capacity to around 31,000. Floodlights were installed two years later; the result of £15,000 raised by the association. The floodlights were switched on by club president Lady Blanche Cobbold for the first floodlit match at the ground, a friendly against Arsenal, in February 1960.
Television cameras made their debut at Portman Road in 1962 as Anglia Television arrived for Match of the Week; it was another six years before the BBC televised a match at the ground, Match of the Day visiting Portman Road for the first time in 1968 to witness Ipswich's league fixture against Birmingham City. Meanwhile, ground development continued with roofing enhancements to the North Stand and an increase in capacity to 31,500 by 1963. Dressing rooms were constructed in 1965 and new turnstiles were introduced two years later, including a separate entrance for juveniles at the Churchmans end. In 1968 the club agreed to a new 99-year lease on the ground with owners Ipswich Borough Council.
The two-tier propped cantilever Portman Stand was built along the east side of the ground in place of the existing terraces in 1971, providing 3,500 additional seats and increasing the capacity of the ground to approximately 37,000. Advertising appeared around the perimeter of the ground in the same year, while the following year saw the construction of the "Centre Spot" restaurant underneath the Portman Stand. Additional seating was added to the Portman Stand in 1974 and the ground saw its record attendance of 38,010 the following year in an FA Cup tie against Leeds United. Following success in the 1978 FA Cup, the club invested in 24 executive boxes in front of the Portman Stand and, as a result of the Safety of Sports Ground Act (1975), reduced the capacity in front by introducing seats, taking the overall capacity down to 34,600.
Plastic seats replaced wooden benches in the West Stand in 1980 and in the following year, the club announced a deal with electronics company Pioneer Corporation with the stand expanded at a cost of around £1.3m, renamed as the Pioneer Stand and re-opened in 1983. However, the cost of building the stand meant the club had to sell players, and led to a decline in fortunes on the pitch. Safety barriers were removed from the North Stand in 1989 following the Hillsborough disaster and following the recommendations of the Taylor Report, the terraces in both the North and South stands were also converted to all-seating. The Pioneer Stand was renamed as the Britannia Stand following a new sponsorship deal with the building society in 1999, and in the following year a statue of Sir Alf Ramsey was unveiled at the corner of Portman Road and Sir Alf Ramsey Way.
Success for Ipswich Town in promotion to the Premier League in 2000 led to further investment in the infrastructure, with the club spending around £22 million on redeveloping both the North and South stands. The complete renovation of the South Stand into a two-tier stand added 4,000 seats to the stadium. The subsequent demolition and reconstruction of a two-tier North Stand added a further 4,000 seats and brought the total capacity of the ground to more than 30,000. In 2001, local brewery Greene King took on the sponsorship of the updated South Stand and as such, the stand was renamed the Greene King stand until 2009, when the sponsorship deal ended and the name changed back to the original 'South Stand'.
Following the death of former manager Bobby Robson in 2009, the club announced that the North Stand would be renamed as the Sir Bobby Robson Stand. The official unveiling took place at half time during the league match hosting Newcastle United, another of Robson's former clubs, on 26 September 2009. On 31 March 2012, the South Stand was renamed the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand in memory of Sir Alf Ramsey who guided Ipswich Town to the Old First Division title. The season was the 50th anniversary of Ipswich Town winning the old First Division title. On 10 July 2012, the Britannia Stand was renamed East of England Co-operative Stand following a sponsorship deal with the East of England Co-operative Society.
Following the club's change in ownership in April 2021, it was announced that improvements to Portman Road would begin that summer. These included the prospect of introducing safe standing sections and giant LED screens, improvements to concourse bars, removal of old Marcus Evans branding, as well as general cleanup and restoration work. In July 2021, it was also announced that East of England Co-Op would not be extending their sponsorship of the West Stand, thus the stand's name returned to simply the 'West Stand'. In August 2021, the Magnus Group was announced as the new sponsors of the West Stand, thus the stand became known as the 'Magnus Group West Stand'.
In March 2022, the club applied for planning permission to install a large LED screen at the south-east corner of the pitch as well as improvements to the dug outs and adding a new access on the south-east corner. Both of these additions were completed in time for the start of the 2022–23 season. Additionally, the club has purchased the land behind the Sir Alf Ramsey stand, the use of which is yet to be confirmed. The club also confirmed that the new pitch would be installed in the summer of 2023, in time for the start of the 2023–24 football season.
## Structure and facilities
The pitch is surrounded by four all-seater stands, the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, the Cobbold Stand, the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand and the Magnus Group West Stand. All stands are covered and are multi-tiered.
### Sir Bobby Robson Stand
The Sir Bobby Robson Stand was completely rebuilt in 2001 following Portman Road's redevelopment and has a capacity of around 7,500. It is a two-tier cantilever stand which is divided into an adults-only lower tier "...traditionally for the 'hard core' Town fan..." and a mixed upper tier. It was previously known as simply the 'North Stand', but was renamed to its current name in 2009 following the death of former manager Bobby Robson.
### Cobbold Stand
The Cobbold Stand was constructed in 1971, and was previously known as the Portman Stand. With two tiers and a cantilever roof, it is used to accommodate away fans, with an allocation of up to 3,000 seats per game and for family seating. It also contains a number of executive boxes as well as regular seating for home fans.
### Sir Alf Ramsey Stand
The Sir Alf Ramsey Stand is a two-tiered stand which has a match-day capacity of approximately 7,000. Previously known as the 'South Stand' and the 'Greene King Stand' (from 2001 to 2009), it was renamed to its current name in March 2012 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the club's First Division title win, which Ramsey achieved as manager. Up until 2000, when the stand was completely rebuilt, it was also commonly referred to as the 'Churchmans' stand after the family who owned the tobacco factory (before John Players Ltd) which stood next to it. It also houses the "Sir Bobby Robson Suite" restaurant and "Legends Bar". The tunnel, from which the players emerge onto the pitch from their dressing rooms, is unusually located in the corner of the stadium between the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand and the West Stand.
### Magnus Group West Stand
The West Stand, first constructed in 1957, was updated to an all-seater stand in 1990 and currently has three tiers consisting of home fan seating and an additional family area. It was previously known as the 'Pioneer Stand' from 1981 to 1999, the 'Britannia Stand' from 1999 to 2012, and the 'East of England Co-operative Stand' from 2012 to 2021. It is currently known as the 'Magnus Group West Stand', following a sponsorship deal with the Magnus Group, a local logistics company, that was struck in August 2021. It also contains the directors' box, further executive boxes and the press area. Behind the stand is a full-size AstroTurf pitch which is often used on a casual basis by fans before home games.
There are nine areas throughout the ground designated for disabled supporters, in the lower West Stand, the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand and the Sir Bobby Robson Stand. These provide over 300 spaces to accommodate wheelchair users and ambulant disabled, together with their carers. The ground also provides 12 seats in the West Stand for visually impaired spectators with commentary via individual radio headsets in each seat, provided by local radio station BBC Radio Suffolk.
The former groundsman, Alan Ferguson, received a number of accolades, including both Premiership and Championship Groundsman of the Year, and the pitch was voted the best in the Championship for three consecutive seasons in 2003, 2004 and 2005.
There are statues of Sir Alf Ramsey and Sir Bobby Robson, both former Ipswich Town and England managers, as well a statue of Kevin Beattie, often considered Ipswich Town's greatest ever player, outside the ground. Nearby Portman's Walk was renamed Sir Alf Ramsey Way in 1999.
## Other uses
On 20 August 2003, Portman Road hosted its first and thus far only senior England fixture, a friendly against Croatia, the match finishing 3–1 to England in front of 28,700 spectators. The stadium has been used by England youth teams on a number of occasions, the first on 24 November 1971, saw the England U23 team draw 1–1 with Switzerland. England U21s drew in a UEFA European U21 Championship qualifying match there on 18 August 2006 against Moldova, in front of 13,556 spectators.
During the years when Ipswich were members of the Amateur Football Alliance (AFA), Portman Road was a regular venue for showpiece matches, staging AFA Senior Cup Finals and matches against the Corinthians. It also hosted two AFA international representative matches in 1909 and 1910, with an England XI beating teams representing Bohemia (10–1) and France (20–0).
In addition, a variety of other sports have been hosted at Portman Road, including athletics in 1927, an American football match in 1953, and several international hockey matches in the 1960s and 1970s.
The stadium has also hosted several music concerts, including performances by Elton John, R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pink, Neil Diamond, Tina Turner, and Rod Stewart, among others.
In March 2005, around 8,000 Christians attended a gathering at the stadium, the largest act of Christian worship in Suffolk since Billy Graham, an American evangelist, used Portman Road on part of his Mission England Tour in 1984.
## Records
The highest attendance recorded at Portman Road is 38,010 for a match against Leeds United in the FA Cup sixth round on 8 March 1975. The record modern (all-seated) attendance is 30,152, set on 21 December 2003 against local rivals Norwich City in Football League Division One. The largest crowd for a non-competitive game at the ground was over 23,000 for Bobby Robson's testimonial where Ipswich, including George Best, played against an England XI.
The highest seasonal average at the stadium since Ipswich turned professional was 26,431 in the 1976–77 season while Ipswich were playing in the First Division. The lowest average attendance at Portman Road was 8,741 in the club's inaugural league season, the 1936–37 season in the Southern League. The highest total seasonal attendance was recorded during the 1980–81 season when the aggregate was more than 814,000 during a season in which Ipswich won the UEFA Cup Final and finished second in the First Division.
Portman Road hosted Ipswich Town's first appearance in European football competition when they defeated Floriana of Malta 10–0, still a club record, in the European Cup in 1962. Since then, Ipswich Town remain undefeated at Portman Road in all European competitions, a total of 31 matches spanning 40 years, a record until it was surpassed by AZ Alkmaar in December 2007.
## Transport
The stadium is approximately 450 yards (410 m) from Ipswich railway station, which lies on the Great Eastern Main Line from London Liverpool Street to Norwich. The stadium has parking nearby for supporters, and the streets around the ground are subject to a residents-only permit parking scheme, but there are several pay and display or park and ride car parks within a short distance of the ground.
|
45,488,348 |
The Blue Flame (play)
| 1,167,595,485 |
1920 science fiction play
|
[
"1920 plays",
"Broadway plays",
"Dreams in theatre",
"Melodramas",
"Plays by George V. Hobart",
"Science fiction theatre"
] |
The Blue Flame is a four-act play written by George V. Hobart and John Willard, who revised an earlier version by Leta Vance Nicholson. In 1920, producer Albert H. Woods staged the play on Broadway and on tour across the United States. Ruth Gordon, the main character, is a religious young woman who dies and is revived by her scientist fiancé as a soulless femme fatale. She seduces several men and involves them in crimes, including drug use and murder. In the final act, her death and resurrection are revealed to be a dream. The production starred Theda Bara, a popular silent film actress who was known for playing similar roles in movies.
Critics panned the play, ridiculing the plot, dialogue, and Bara's acting. Theater historian Ward Morehouse called it "one of the worst plays ever written". Bara's movie fame drew large crowds to theaters, and the play was a commercial success, breaking attendance records at some venues. Ruth Gordon was Bara's only Broadway role, and The Blue Flame was one of her last professional acting projects.
## Plot
In the first act, irreligious scientist John Varnum has developed a device to bring the recently dead back to life. His sweet, religious fiancée, Ruth Gordon, does not approve of his experiments and hopes to reform him. When she is struck by lightning and killed, she becomes the first person to be revived by his machine. Before she is reanimated, the audience sees her soul visibly leave her body as the "blue flame" of the title. With no soul, the revived Ruth has an entirely different personality. Upon waking, she asks John for a kiss, then suggests they marry immediately so they can begin having sex.
In the second and third acts, Ruth seduces a young man named Larry Winston and steals him away from his fiancée. She takes Larry to New York's Chinatown, where she gets him hooked on cocaine and steals an emerald from an idol. She meets another young man, Ned Maddox, whom she seduces and kills for insurance money, framing another man for the murder. In the final act, Ruth's death and revival is revealed to be a dream John was having. Upon waking he understands the importance of the soul; he embraces religion and destroys his life-restoration device.
## Cast and characters
The characters and cast from the Broadway production are listed below:
## History
### Background and development
Leta Vance Nicholson, a movie scenario writer, wrote the first version of The Blue Flame. She sold it to theatrical agent Walter C. Jordan, who had it rewritten by George V. Hobart and John Willard. Jordan paid the three writers \$10,000 for their work (about \$ in dollars), then resold the play to producer Albert H. Woods for \$35,000.
Actress Theda Bara was one of the most popular stars of silent films. From her first leading role as "the Vampire" in the 1915 movie A Fool There Was, Bara had been typecast as a "vamp" or femme fatale who seduced and ruined innocent men. Although she sometimes performed in films playing other types of roles, these were not as successful commercially as her "vamp" films. She played dozens of similar roles while contracted with Fox Film from 1915 to 1919.
After Bara's contract with Fox ended, Woods approached her about appearing in a play. She had performed on stage early in her career, working with touring companies and in summer stock, but had not performed on Broadway. Bara told a reporter that she was offered a few scripts to consider, and chose The Blue Flame (at that time titled The Lost Soul) because it allowed her to play two versions of the character, one good and the other bad. She also hoped moving to the stage would bring her new career opportunities. Woods gave Bara a lucrative contract. Each week she received a salary of \$1500. This was considerably less than the \$4000 per week she had earned in her last year with Fox, but Bara was also promised half the production's net profits. For example, the play's two-week run in Boston netted Bara \$10,700. Woods also provided a finely appointed private railroad car to take her from city to city when the show toured.
### Productions and legacy
Woods hired two directors, J. C. Huffman and W. H. Gilmore, to assist with the production. The production began with a series of preview performances in February 1920, appearing in Pittsburgh; Washington, D.C.; Stamford, Connecticut; and Chicago. The final performances before the Broadway premier were in Boston in early March.
While the show was still in previews, writer Owen Davis claimed the story had been lifted from his earlier play Lola, which had appeared briefly on Broadway in March 1911, then was adapted as a movie in 1914. He filed a lawsuit, but by the end of May it was settled with a cash payment to Davis.
The show opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on March 15, 1920. It had a run of 48 performances and closed in late April. The show then continued to other cities on tour. The play was further promoted by the release of sheet music for a theme song, with Bara's image featured prominently on the cover. William Frederic Peters wrote the music and Ballard MacDonald wrote the lyrics for the song, which was published in April by Shapiro, Bernstein & Co.
The tour closed on January 1, 1921. The Blue Flame was Bara's last Broadway performance and her last acting tour. She did a season of vaudeville touring, but did not act in it; instead she talked with audiences and told stories about her career. Her only subsequent stage acting was in a Little Theatre production of Bella Donna in 1934. Bara's film career was also waning. She acted in only one feature film after The Blue Flame ended, the 1925 drama The Unchastened Woman.
## Reception
### Critical reception
The play received overwhelmingly negative reviews, although some critics had minor compliments for Bara. Biographer Eve Golden described the reviews of Bara's acting as "nothing less than vicious", but the commentary about the play as a whole was even more negative. Variety expected Bara to draw audiences to the theater for at least a few weeks, but said opinions in the daily press were united about how bad the play was. In The New York Times, Alexander Woollcott mocked the dialogue, which included lines such as, "Have you brought the cocaine?" and "You make my heart laugh and I feel like a woman of the streets." Delivered seriously, this dialogue drew laughter from the audience. Woollcott highlighted one particular line: "I'm going to be so bad, I'll be remembered always." He said Bara was bad, but not bad enough to be memorable. He credited her for speaking clearly and for not losing her composure when the audience laughed at her. Other reviewers gave Bara similarly faint praise: she had "average competence" or "was not so bad". Some complimented her looks or her glamorous wardrobe.
Other reviewers were even more negative, condemning Bara along with the play generally. The theater critic for Munsey's Magazine quoted several negative reviews and compared Bara's acting unfavorably to that of drama school students. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle said she fulfilled the promise to be unforgettably bad, calling her acting "freakish". The Sun and New York Herald said Bara's acting was disappointing and the play was "abysmal in intelligence and all that touches the art of the theatre". In Ainslee's Magazine, Dorothy Parker said the play's authors had taken the line about being remembered for badness "as their working motto", and suggested the crowds at the performances were there to attack the playwrights. In the New-York Tribune, Heywood Broun suggested that the entire production company should fear the wrath of God for such a terrible play.
Historians and critics looking back on the play have affirmed the negative assessment. Biographer Ronald Genini called the play "painfully bad" and described the reviews as "a panning orgy". Theater historian Ward Morehouse described it as "one of the worst plays ever written". Literary critic Edward Wagenknecht said Bara's participation helped end her acting career. Golden wondered why Bara took the role, speculating that only "desperation and incredibly poor judgement" could have explained her participation.
### Box office
Overall the play was a tremendous financial success; the previews broke attendance records. In Boston, the show sold out even after the addition of extra matinées. The first week on Broadway took in nearly \$20,000, close to the maximum the Shubert Theatre could generate at normal prices. However, ticket sales fell off rapidly following the strongly negative reviews. Woods pre-sold four weeks of tickets to local ticket brokers, which helped the box office totals, but the brokers were left with unsold seats even after offering deep discounts. After leaving New York, the show returned to strong sales on the road.
|
1,922,628 |
J. C. W. Beckham
| 1,163,429,303 |
Governor of Kentucky from 1900 to 1907
|
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"University of Kentucky alumni"
] |
John Crepps Wickliffe Beckham (August 5, 1869 – January 9, 1940) was an American attorney serving as the 35th Governor of Kentucky and a United States Senator from Kentucky. He was the state's first popularly-elected senator after the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment.
Descended from a prominent political family, Beckham was chosen as Democrat William Goebel's running mate in the gubernatorial election of 1899 despite the fact that he had turned 30, the minimum age for governor, during the campaign. Goebel lost the election to Republican William S. Taylor, but the Kentucky General Assembly disputed the election results. During the political wrangling that followed, an unknown assassin shot Goebel. A day later the General Assembly invalidated enough votes to give the election to Goebel, who was sworn into office on his deathbed. Taylor claimed the election had been stolen by the Democratic majority in the General Assembly, and a legal fight occurred between him and Beckham over the governorship. Beckham ultimately prevailed and Taylor fled the state. Beckham later won a special election to fill the remainder of Goebel's term, since less than half the term had expired, and an election in his own right in 1903.
During his second term as governor, in 1906, Beckham made a bid to become a US senator. His stance in favor of prohibition cost him the votes of four legislators in his own party, and in 1908 the General Assembly gave the seat to Republican William O. Bradley, who had been governor from 1895 to 1899. Six years later, Beckham secured the seat by popular election, but he lost his re-election bid in 1920, largely because of his pro-temperance views and his opposition to women's suffrage.
Though he continued to play an active role in state politics for another two decades, he never returned to elected office, failing both in his gubernatorial bid in 1927 (with suspected electoral fraud) and his senatorial campaign in 1936. He died in Louisville on January 9, 1940.
Beckham County, Oklahoma, is named for him.
## Early life
He was born in Wickland, near Bardstown in Nelson County, Kentucky, son of William Netherton and Julia Tevis (Wickliffe) Beckham. His maternal grandfather, Charles A. Wickliffe, was governor of Kentucky from 1839 to 1840 and served as postmaster general in the administration of John Tyler. His uncle, Robert C. Wickliffe, served as governor of Louisiana.
Beckham obtained his early education at Roseland Academy in Bardstown. In 1881, he served as a page in the Kentucky House of Representatives at 12. Later, he enrolled at Central University (now Eastern Kentucky University) in Richmond, Kentucky, but was forced to quit school at 17 to support his widowed mother. Two years later, he became principal of Bardstown public schools, from 1888 to 1893.
Concurrently, he studied law at the University of Kentucky, where he earned his law degree in 1889. He was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Bardstown in 1893. He also served as president of the Young Democrats' Club of Nelson County.
## Political career
Beckham's political career began in 1894, when he was elected without opposition to the Kentucky House of Representatives. He served four consecutive terms and was its Speaker in 1898, his final year in the House. He also served as a delegate to every Democratic National Convention from 1900 to 1920.
### Governor of Kentucky
Democrat William Goebel chose Beckham as his running mate in the Kentucky gubernatorial election of 1899. Goebel was hesitant about the selection because he wanted someone who could deliver the vote of his home county in the general election, and Beckham's native Nelson County was already committed to a rival candidate. However, friends of Goebel assured him that Beckham would be loyal to Goebel's reform agenda, but the two other men Goebel was considering as running mates would "stack the Senate committees against him." Beckham was not yet 30, the minimum age to serve as governor, at the time of his selection.
Goebel lost a close election to Republican William S. Taylor. When the General Assembly's session opened on January 2, 1900, the election results were immediately challenged. With Democrats in control of both houses of the Assembly, the results seemed sure to be reversed. The Assembly was still deliberating on January 30, 1900, when Goebel was shot by an unknown assailant as he entered the state capitol building. The following day, as Goebel was being treated for his wounds at a local hotel, the General Assembly invalidated enough votes to give him the election. Goebel was sworn into office from his bed the same day. Three days later, Goebel died, never having risen from the bed.
Legislative chaos ensued, as Taylor refused to acknowledge the Assembly's decision and vacate the governorship. The Republicans in the legislature obeyed Taylor's orders, but the Democrats ignored Taylor and followed the orders of their leadership. Finally, on February 21, 1900, Taylor and Beckham agreed to let the courts settle the matter. The case first went before the Louisville Circuit Court, which found in favor of Beckham. Republicans appealed to the Kentucky Court of Appeals, then the court of last resort in the state. On April 6, 1900, the Court of Appeals upheld the ruling of the lower court. Taylor appealed to the US Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case on May 21, 1900. Taylor's only supporter on the court was John Marshall Harlan, from Kentucky.
After the Supreme Court ruling, Taylor fled to Indianapolis, Indiana, fearing he would be implicated in Goebel's assassination. Beckham remained governor, but because of the unusual circumstances surrounding the election, a special election was held on November 6, 1900, to determine who would complete Goebel's unexpired term. Beckham, now of age, won the election over Republican John W. Yerkes by fewer than 4,000 votes. Shortly afterward, Beckham married Jean Raphael Fuqua, of Owensboro. The couple had two sons.
As governor, Beckham sought to unite his party and the state by supporting changes to the blatantly-partisan Goebel Election Law, which had been authored by his late running mate while the latter was a member of the General Assembly. He stressed non-controversial issues, such as improvements to roads and the state's educational system. He recommended passage of a law to set uniform school textbook prices, a reform that both he and Goebel had advocated during the gubernatorial campaign. However, his passive leadership ensured that the General Assembly did little to address his agenda. The only major pieces of legislation passed during Beckham's term were a tax increase that added a half million dollars to the state's revenue and a child labor law that forbade children under fourteen to work without their parents' consent.
### Second term
Although the Kentucky Constitution prohibited governors from serving consecutive terms, Beckham announced that he would seek a full term as governor in 1903. His candidacy was challenged in court, but the court ruled Beckham had not served a full first term and so was eligible to run. His record of reconciliation and of supporting non-controversial reforms prevented significant opposition when he won the party's nomination. His record also deprived his Republican opponent, Morris B. Belknap, of any significant campaign issue in the general election. Beckham defeated Belknap and three minor candidates.
In his message to the legislature in 1904, Beckham again raised the issue of a uniform school textbook law, which had not passed during his first term. The law was one of few significant reforms that passed during the 1904 session. Also during the session, funds were approved for building a new capitol building and a memorial to the late Governor Goebel.
In March 1904, Beckham signed the Day Law, mandating racial segregation of all schools in Kentucky. Berea College, a private college in eastern Kentucky that had been integrated since the 1850s, immediately filed suit to challenge the law. Its substance was upheld in the circuit court and the Kentucky Court of Appeals. Berea appealed to the Supreme Court, which, in 1908, which decided, in Berea College v. Kentucky, against the college. Again, only Harlan dissented.
Near the close of the 1904 session, legislators approved the creation of Beckham County from parts of Carter, Elliott, and Lewis Counties. Olive Hill was made the county seat. Soon, the county's existence was challenged in court on grounds that it fell short of the 400 square miles (1,000 km<sup>2</sup>) required by the state constitution and that it reduced the counties from which it was carved to less than 400 square miles (1,000 km<sup>2</sup>). Carter County joined the lawsuit, claiming the border of Beckham County passed too close to Grayson, the seat of Carter County, and to Vanceburg, the seat of Lewis County. The state constitution forbade county borders from passing within 10 miles (16 km) of a county seat. On April 29, 1904, the Kentucky Court of Appeals found in favor of the plaintiffs and dissolved Beckham County.
During the 1906 legislative session, Beckham urged investigation and prosecution of corrupt insurance companies by following the lead of New York attorney Charles Evans Hughes. In particular, he recommended reducing the practice of deferred dividends, which allowed the insurance companies to keep large stores of cash on hand for illegal purposes. He further advocated for insurance companies doing business in the state to be required to invest a certain percentage of their earnings in Kentucky to bolstering the state's economy and to provide policyholders some protection against fraud.
Beckham refused to send troops into the western part of the state to quell the ongoing Black Patch Tobacco Wars. He cited constitutional reasons for his refusal, but more probably, his reasons were political. The Democrats were dominant in the region, and he wanted to avoid challenging his own party.
By collecting some old US Civil War debts from the federal government, Beckham also virtually eliminated the state's debt. Encouraged by the state's improved finances, the General Assembly voted to expand two of the state's normal schools: Western State Teachers College in Bowling Green (later Western Kentucky University) and Eastern State Teachers College in Richmond (later part of Eastern Kentucky University).
With a successful legislative session behind him, Beckham made a bold political move in June 1906. He orchestrated an effort to set the Democratic gubernatorial and senatorial primaries in November, a full year before the gubernatorial election and two years before the senatorial election. Beckham wanted the Senate seat, and if the primary was moved up two years, he could secure his party's nomination while he was still governor. He could also use his influence as governor to sway the party's choice of his potential successor as governor. State Auditor Samuel Wilber Hager was Beckham's choice for governor and easily won the early primary over challenger N.B. Hays. Former Governor James B. McCreary challenged Beckham for the senatorial nomination, but Beckham won by more than 11,000 votes.
### U.S. Senator
Beckham's term as governor ended on December 10, 1907. In January 1908, he faced the legislature as the Democratic nominee for a seat in the US Senate by virtue of the primary that had been held two years earlier. The Republicans nominated former Governor William O. Bradley. On the first ballot, Beckham secured 66 of the needed 69 votes; Bradley received 64 votes. Seven Democrats had not voted for Beckham. Over the next six weeks, 25 more votes were taken, with neither man securing a majority, even though William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic nominee for president, campaigned for Beckham. Some Democrats pressured Beckham to withdraw and to allow a more palatable Democrat to run, but he refused. On the 29th ballot, taken near the end of February 1908, Bradley finally secured a majority, after four Democrats crossed party lines to vote for him.
Beckham's ardent support of Prohibition likely cost him the election. That put him at odds with Henry Watterson, editor of the powerful Louisville Courier-Journal. As governor Beckham had crossed the liquor interests and the political machine in Louisville. When the Kentucky Court of Appeals invalidated the results of Louisville's municipal elections for interference by the city's "whiskey ring" in May 1907, Beckham appointed Robert Worth Bingham, a young lawyer and fellow prohibitionist, as the interim mayor until elections could be held in November. Bingham eliminated grafting in the police department, closed gambling houses, and enforced blue laws that closed saloons on Sunday. The whiskey ring, therefore, announced that Beckham had forfeited the support of Louisville's legislators. In the senatorial election in 1908, three of the four Democrats who voted against Beckham were from Louisville. Following his defeat, Beckham returned to his law practice.
Six years later, Beckham again attempted to win a Senate seat. The passage of the Seventeenth Amendment meant that the Senate would no longer be elected by the legislature but instead by popular vote.
In the Democratic primary, Beckham defeated Augustus O. Stanley, a 12-year veteran of the House of Representatives. The Republican nominee was former Governor Augustus E. Willson. Bolstered by his support of President Woodrow Wilson, Beckham won the election by 32,000 votes.
Beckham served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Expenditures in the US Department of Labor from 1915 to 1917 and on the Senate Committee on Military Affairs. In the latter position, he was influential in securing two large military training posts for Kentucky: Camp Zachary Taylor and Fort Knox. Though Camp Zachary Taylor was abandoned after World War I, Fort Knox became the home of the US Bullion Depository.
After the United States entered World War I, Beckham continued to back Wilson and later supported the League of Nations.
True to his prohibitionist stance, Beckham supported passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, which enacted Prohibition in the United States. The amendment was ratified and became effective in January 1920. Believing that women should be protected from involvement in politics, Beckham opposed the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women's suffrage. The amendment failed on February 10, 1919, but passed on June 4. Beckham voted against it both times.
The Democrats renominated Beckham without opposition in 1920. His opponent in the general election was Republican Richard P. Ernst. Prohibition had destroyed the distilling industry and the saloon business in the state, and in areas that those industries were prominent, Beckham received more than 5,000 fewer votes than Democratic presidential nominee James M. Cox. He was also hurt by the women's vote and by his support of Wilson, who had lost popularity since Beckham's election, in 1914. Ernst won the election by fewer than 5,000 votes, winning the race with 50.3% of the vote to Beckham's 49.7%.
During his only term in the Senate, Beckham served alongside three other U.S. senators from Kentucky: Ollie M. James, George B. Martin, and Augustus O. Stanley.
## Later life
After his term in the Senate ended, Beckham resumed his legal practice in Louisville. He sought another term as governor in 1927. This time, he had the support of the Louisville Courier-Journal, which had been purchased by his ally, Robert W. Bingham. He was opposed by a powerful political machine, known as the Jockey Club, whose main interest was securing legislation to allow parimutuel betting at the state's horse racetracks.
The Jockey Club ran a candidate in both parties' primary elections. In the Democratic primary, Beckham defeated the Club's relatively-obscure candidate, Robert T. Crowe. Flem D. Sampson, the Club's nominee in the Republican primary, won his party's nomination. In the general election, Beckham could not secure the support of Democratic Governor William J. Fields, who had been elected with the help of the Jockey Club. Despite the Democrats winning every other contest on the ballot, including the race for lieutenant governor, Beckham lost to Sampson by more than 32,000 votes, with voting fraud suspected but never proved. It was estimated that the Club spent over \$500,000 to defeat him.
Beckham was expected to be the Democrats' nominee for governor in 1935, but the death of his son in late 1934 had left him distraught, and his wife was opposed to another campaign. The Democrats turned to A. B. "Happy" Chandler, of Henderson, who won the election. Beckham supported Chandler's bid, and in return, Chandler appointed him to the Kentucky Public Service Commission in 1936. Beckham also served on the Department of Business Regulations Commission and chaired the State Government Reorganization Commission.
Beckham attempted to return to the Senate in 1936. The head of the Jockey Club, James B. Brown, had lost his fortune and influence when his banking empire crashed in 1930.
In 1933, Beckham's ally, Bingham, had been appointed ambassador to the Court of St. James's, in London, increasing his prominence and his influence. Beckham also enjoyed the support of the United Mine Workers and Louisville Mayor Neville Miller. The race was complicated, however, by the entry of John Y. Brown, a U.S. Democratic Representative and former Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives. He had agreed to support Chandler's bid for the governorship in exchange for Chandler's support in his run for the Senate. However, Chandler threw his support to Beckham, and while Brown was not able to win the seat without the support of Bingham and Chandler, he won 85,000 votes, most of them at Beckham's expense. Democratic incumbent M. M. Logan retained the seat by 2,385 votes.
Beckham died in Louisville on January 9, 1940, and was buried in Frankfort Cemetery in Frankfort, Kentucky. Beckham County, Oklahoma, was named in his honor at the suggestion of a Kentuckian who was serving as a delegate to Oklahoma's constitutional convention in 1907. Wickland, his birthplace, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 16, 1973.
## See also
- Taylor v. Beckham
|
738,695 |
Francis Tresham
| 1,123,752,612 |
16th-century English assassination conspirator
|
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Francis Tresham (c. 1567 – 23 December 1605), eldest son of Thomas Tresham and Muriel Throckmorton, was a member of the group of English provincial Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, a conspiracy to assassinate King James I of England.
Tresham joined the Earl of Essex's failed rebellion against the government in 1601, for which he was imprisoned. Only his family's intervention and his father's money saved him from attainder. Despite this, he became involved in two missions to Catholic Spain to seek support for English Catholics (then heavily persecuted), and finally with the Gunpowder Plotters.
According to his confession, Tresham joined the plot in October 1605. Its leader, Robert Catesby, asked him to provide a large sum of money and the use of Rushton Hall, but Tresham apparently provided neither, instead giving a much smaller amount of money to fellow plotter Thomas Wintour. Tresham also expressed concern that if the plot was successful, two of his brothers-in-law would be killed. An anonymous letter delivered to one of them, William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, found its way to the English Secretary of State, Robert Cecil, an event which eventually proved decisive in the conspiracy's failure.
Historians have long suspected that Tresham wrote the letter, a hypothesis that remains unproven. Catesby and Wintour shared the same suspicion and threatened to kill him, but he was able to convince them otherwise. He was arrested on 12 November and confined to the Tower of London. In his confession, he sought to allay his involvement in the plot, but never mentioned the letter. He died of natural causes on 23 December 1605.
## Family and life before 1605
Born in about 1567, Francis Tresham was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Tresham, of Rushton Hall in Northamptonshire, and Meriel Throckmorton, daughter of Sir Robert Throckmorton of Coughton in Warwickshire. According to the antiquary Anthony Wood, Tresham was educated in Oxford at either St John's College or Gloucester Hall or both, although biographer Mark Nicholls mentions that there appears to be no other evidence to corroborate that claim.
Francis is said to have been a fellow prisoner with Robert Catesby held in Wisbech Castle at the time of the Spanish Armada.
He married Anne Tufton, daughter of Sir John Tufton of Hothfield in Kent, in 1593. The couple had three children, twins Lucy and Thomas (b.1598), and Elizabeth. Thomas died in infancy, Lucy became a nun in Brussels, and Elizabeth married Sir George Heneage of Hainton, Lincolnshire.
Tresham's father, born near the end of Henry VIII's reign, was regarded by the Catholic community as one of its leaders. Thomas was received into the Catholic Church in 1580, and in the same year he allowed the Jesuit Edmund Campion to stay at his house in Hoxton. For the latter, following Campion's capture in 1581, he was tried in Star Chamber. Thomas's refusal to fully comply with his interrogators was the beginning of years of fines and spells in prison. He proclaimed the accession of James I to the English throne, but the king's promises to Thomas of forestry commissions and an end to recusancy fines were not kept. His finances were seriously depleted by fines of £7,720 for recusancy, and the spending of £12,200 on the marriages of six daughters meant that when he died in 1605, his estate was £11,500 in debt.
Author Antonia Fraser suggests that as a young man Francis became "resentful of his father's authority and profligate with his father's money." Authors Peter Marshall and Geoffrey Scott describe him as possessing a "somewhat hot-headed nature", while another source calls him a "wild unstayed man". The Jesuit priest Oswald Tesimond wrote that he was "a man of sound judgement. He knew how to look after himself, but was not much to be trusted". While still young he assaulted a man and his pregnant daughter, claiming that their family owed his father money. Tresham spent time in prison for this offence.
On 8 February 1601 he joined the Earl of Essex in open rebellion against the government. Essex's aim was to secure his own ambitions, but the Jesuit Henry Garnet described the young men who accompanied him as being interested mostly in furthering the Catholic cause. Captured and imprisoned, Tresham appealed to Katherine Howard, but was rebuked. His sister, Lady Mounteagle, alerted his cousin John Throckmorton, who turned to "three most honorable parsons and one especiall instrument" for help. The identity of these individuals is unclear, but Tresham was promised freedom on the condition that over the next three months his father pay £2,100 to William Ayloffe, to "save his lyef attainder in bloode." He was released on 21 June. The experience did not dissuade him from engaging in further conspiracies; in 1602 and 1603 he was involved in the missions to Catholic Spain made by Thomas Wintour, Anthony Dutton (possibly an alias of Christopher Wright) and Guy Fawkes, later dubbed by the English government as the Spanish Treason. However, upon James's accession to the throne, he told Thomas Wintour (secretary to Tresham's brother-in-law William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle), that he would "stand wholly for the King", and "to have no speech with him of Spain."
His father tried to have him appointed as keeper of the deer parks at Brigstock. This was resisted by the villagers in May 1603, who objected to the Tresham family's recusancy. One of Tresham's servants Thomas Walker was installed at a lodge in Brigstock and Catholics gathered at the lodge at night.
## Introduction
English Catholics had hoped that the persecution of their faith would end when James succeeded Elizabeth I, as he appeared to hold more moderate views toward Catholics than his predecessor but Robert Catesby, a religious zealot also imprisoned for his involvement in the Essex rebellion, had grown tired of James's supposed perfidy and planned to kill the king. He hoped to achieve this by blowing up the House of Lords with gunpowder and inciting a popular revolt to install James's daughter Princess Elizabeth as titular Queen.
Catesby had recruited 11 fellow Catholics to his cause but was running out of money. Even with his debts, with an annual income of over £3,000 Tresham was one of the wealthiest people known to the plotters, and Catesby's mother was Anne Throckmorton, an aunt of Tresham's. The two cousins had been raised together and shared a close relationship.
Despite their shared upbringing and involvement in the Spanish Treason, the conspirators chose not to reveal the plot to him until 14 October 1605, shortly after his father died, and just weeks before the planned explosion. According to his confession, the meeting took place at the home of Tresham's brother-in-law, Lord Stourton, in Clerkenwell. Tresham claimed to have questioned Catesby on the morality of the plot, asking if it was spiritually "damnable". Catesby replied that it was not, at which point Tresham highlighted the danger that all Catholics would face should the plot succeed. Catesby replied, "The necessity of the Catholics" was such that "it must needs be done". He wanted two things from Tresham: £2,000, and the use of Rushton Hall; Catesby received neither. Tresham had no money to spare, his father's debts having reduced his inheritance, although he paid a small sum to Thomas Wintour, on the understanding that the latter was to travel to the Low Countries. Following the meeting, he hurried back to Rushton Hall and closed his household, taking care to hide family papers (not discovered until 1838). He then returned to London with his mother and sisters, and on 2 November acquired a licence to travel abroad with his servants and horses.
## Monteagle letter
Later in October, during a meeting at which Tresham was present, the conspirators discussed the fates of several notable Catholic peers. Foremost in Tresham's thoughts were the lives of two brothers-in-law, William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, and Edward Stourton, 10th Baron Stourton, but Catesby proclaimed that "the innocent must perish with the guilty, sooner than ruin the chances of success." As the last few details were being finalised that month, on Saturday 26 October Monteagle received an anonymous letter while at his house in Hoxton. It contained the following message:
> My Lord, out of the love I bear to some of your friends, I have a care of your preservation. Therefore I would advise you, as you tender your life, to devise some excuse to shift your attendance at this parliament; for God and man hath concurred to punish the wickedness of this time. And think not slightly of this advertisement, but retire yourself into your country where you may expect the event in safety. For though there be no appearance of any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow this Parliament; and yet they shall not see who hurts them. This counsel is not to be condemned because it may do you good and can do you no harm; for the danger is passed as soon as you have burnt the letter. And I hope God will give you the grace to make good use of it, to whose holy protection I commend you.
Uncertain of its meaning, Monteagle delivered it to the English Secretary of State, Robert Cecil.
Tresham has long been suspected as the letter's author. Mark Nicholls states that he almost certainly wrote it, pointing to the fact that once Catesby was made aware of its existence he immediately suspected Tresham and went with Thomas Wintour to confront him. The two threatened to "hang him", but "with such oaths and emphatic assertions" Tresham managed to convince the pair of his innocence, the next day urging them by letter to abandon the plot. Antonia Fraser suggests that Catesby and Wintour's decision to believe him should not be disregarded. While making his deathbed confession in the Tower of London, Tresham failed to mention the letter; an omission which in her opinion makes no sense if he is to be regarded as its author, especially considering that its recipient was by then being credited as the country's saviour. Author Alan Haynes views Tresham as the most likely culprit, but raises the possibility that Cecil penned the letter himself, to protect a source.
## Revealed
Although he was already aware of certain stirrings even before he received the letter, Cecil did not yet know the exact nature of the plot or who was involved and had elected to watch to see what would happen. When Monteagle's letter was shown to the king on Friday 1 November, James felt that it hinted at "some stratagem of fire and powder", perhaps an explosion exceeding in violence the one that killed his father, Lord Darnley, in 1567. The following day, members of the Privy Council visited James to inform him that a search would be made of the Houses of Parliament, "both above and below". Meanwhile, Tresham again urged Catesby and Wintour to abandon the scheme, but his attempts were in vain. Fellow plotter Thomas Percy said he was ready to "abide the uttermost trial", and subsequently on 4 November Catesby and several others left London for the Midlands to prepare for the planned uprising.
Fawkes was arrested while guarding the explosives shortly after midnight on 5 November 1605. Calling himself John Johnson, he was at first interrogated by members of the King's Privy Chamber, but on 6 November James ordered that "John Johnson" be tortured. His will finally broken, he revealed his true identity on 7 November, and on 8 November he began to name some of those with whom he was associated. Tresham's complicity was not revealed until the following day, although he was attributed with only a minor role. But while his compatriots had fled London the moment they discovered that Fawkes had been captured, Tresham had stayed in the city. He was arrested on 12 November and transferred to the Tower three days later. Catesby and several other plotters were killed on 8 November, during an armed siege at Holbeche House in Staffordshire.
## Death
Although at first he was uncooperative, on 13 November Tresham confessed to being involved in the plot, outlining his version of events to his interrogators. Moving his family from the safety of Rushton was, he pointed out, not the action of a man who believed he was taking them into "the very mouth and fury" of the plot. He admitted to the government that he was guilty only of the plot's concealment, denying that he had ever been an active member of the conspiracy, although by the end of the month he had also admitted his involvement in the Spanish Treason of 1602–1603. He claimed to have persuaded Thomas Wintour and Thomas Percy to postpone the explosion, and that he had planned to inform the king's secretary Thomas Lake of a "Puritan conspiracy". Fraser views much of his confession as "highly partial ... not only for his own sake but for that of his wife and children", and important in serving to highlight his unreliability.
Tresham suffered from a strangury caused by an inflammation of his urinary tract, and in December 1605 his health began to decline. Lieutenant of the Tower William Waad, wondering if Tresham would live long enough for justice to take its course, described his condition as "worse and worse". Tresham preferred the services of a Dr Richard Foster over those of the Tower's regular doctor Matthew Gwinne; apparently Foster understood his case, indicating that it was not the first occasion on which he had treated him. During his last days, he was attended by three more doctors and a nurse, along with William Vavasour, a rumoured illegitimate child of Thomas Tresham and possibly Francis's half-brother. As Tresham's wife, Anne, was apparently too upset, Vavasour wrote Tresham's deathbed confession and also an account of his last hours. Tresham apologised to the Jesuit priest Henry Garnet for implicating him in the Spanish Treason, and used the rest of his deathbed confession to protest his innocence. Anne and William read prayers at his bedside; he died at 2:00 am on 23 December. Despite not being tried, his head joined those of Catesby and Percy on display at Northampton, while his body was thrown into a hole at Tower Hill. His estates passed to his brother Lewis. Tresham's apology never reached its intended target, and his letter, along with the discovery of Garnet's Of Equivocation, found among the "heretical, treasonable and damnable books" at Tresham's chamber in the Inner Temple, was used to great effect by Sir Edward Coke in Garnet's trial. The priest was executed in May 1606.
|
42,058,947 |
Last Gasp (Inside No. 9)
| 1,170,279,156 | null |
[
"2014 British television episodes",
"Cultural depictions of pop musicians",
"Inside No. 9 episodes",
"Television episodes about birthdays",
"Television episodes about death",
"Television episodes about murder",
"Works about singers"
] |
"Last Gasp" is the fourth episode of the first series of British dark comedy anthology television programme Inside No. 9. It first aired on 26 February 2014 on BBC Two. The story revolves around the ninth birthday of the severely ill Tamsin (Lucy Hutchinson). Tamsin's parents Jan (Sophie Thompson) and Graham (Steve Pemberton) have arranged with charity WishmakerUK for singer Frankie J Parsons (David Bedella) to visit as a treat for their daughter. Frankie dies after blowing up a balloon, leading to arguments between Graham, WishmakerUK representative Sally (Tamsin Greig) and Frankie's assistant Si (Adam Deacon) over the now-valuable balloon containing Frankie's last breath. The story, written by Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, was inspired by someone Pemberton had seen on television who collected air from different places. The episode is more comedic than others in the series, and critiques celebrity culture and human greed.
"Last Gasp" received a fairly negative critical response; in retrospect, Pemberton claimed that "people hated" the episode. Several critics, including Gerard Gilbert of The Independent, Jack Seale of Radio Times and comedy critic Bruce Dessau—though complimentary of Inside No. 9 generally—considered "Last Gasp" to be weaker than the previous three episodes, but not unwatchable. Other reviewers gave a more positive response, but a particularly scathing review by columnist Virginia Blackburn was published in the Daily Express. On its first showing, "Last Gasp" drew 872,000 viewers, lower than any previous episode. Pemberton subsequently sold a balloon containing his own breath on eBay, with proceeds going to a Sport Relief charity.
## Production
"Last Gasp" was inspired by someone Pemberton had seen on children's programme Multi-Coloured Swap Shop who collected apparently empty jars which actually contained air taken from different places. The idea, which he considered "bizarre" but "very special", had "haunted" him. This gave him the idea of collecting the breath of celebrities. The death of Michael Jackson and the death of Amy Winehouse, along with the associated collecting of memorabilia, also served as inspiration. For Pemberton, the family and house in "Last Gasp" were very "normal". The episode was filmed on location in what director David Kerr called an "utterly freezing" house. The finished episode, for Kerr, had a degree of "suburban darkness" in that, though the events unfold in a relatively unremarkable setting, the darker side of human nature is revealed. At the same time, the characters' arguments lead to humour. Shearsmith described "Last Gasp" as like a My Family episode "gone wrong".
As the format of Inside No. 9 requires new characters each week, the writers were able to attract actors who may have been unwilling to commit to an entire series. In addition to Pemberton—who played Graham, the father—"Last Gasp" starred Sophie Thompson as Jan, the mother; Lucy Hutchinson as 9-year-old Tamsin; David Bedella as popstar Frankie J Parsons; Tamsin Greig as Sally, of WishmakerUK; and Adam Deacon as Si, Parsons's assistant. It was the first episode of the programme not to star Shearsmith. For Kerr, the typical difficulty associated with the use of child actors was not present in "Last Gasp"; for him, Hutchinson "was superb. She was brilliant; she had maturity beyond her years." Pemberton and Shearsmith had been keen to use Inside No. 9 as a vehicle to work with new people, and had been keen to collaborate with Greig for some time. Kerr said that "one of the real joys of Inside No. 9" was the opportunity to see actors in very different roles to those in which they had previously starred. He used Greig as his example, saying the character of Sally was somewhat different from the roles in which Greig had previously performed.
## Plot
On the ninth birthday of the severely ill Tamsin, parents Graham and Jan struggle with a camcorder and blow up balloons. A charity called WishmakerUK has arranged for pop star Frankie J Parsons to visit Tamsin. Frankie arrives, much to the excitement of Jan, accompanied by his personal assistant Si and WishmakerUK representative Sally. Frankie visits Tamsin in her bedroom, and blows up a purple balloon for her. He begins to struggle for breath and then collapses from an intracranial aneurysm. Later, Graham makes tea for Jan and Sally. Jan is upset about Frankie's death. Si says that no one can touch anything or call an ambulance until Frankie's manager arrives. Tamsin, sitting in her wheelchair, holds the balloon; and Graham and Si realise that it may be valuable. Si takes the balloon from Tamsin, and Graham ties it. Sally takes a call from her boss, but does not mention Frankie's death. She makes excuses to have a colleague cover for her on her next assignment so that she can stay at the house. Graham and Si argue over the balloon, and Graham gives it to Sally, as he considers her "a neutral". He looks online to work out how much the balloon and accompanying footage may be worth.
Later, Jan starts playing one of Frankie's CDs, but Graham turns it off to talk about money with Si and Sally. Jan takes Tamsin outside. Tamsin worries that Frankie's death is her fault because she asked him to blow up the balloon. She asks if Frankie's soul will go to Heaven, and Jan says that it will. Inside, Si, Sally and Graham argue about how to split the money they will make from the balloon. The argument gets heated after Sally argues that the fact Tamsin will soon die should preclude her from getting a share. As Graham threatens to pop the balloon, Jan reappears and chastises him. Tamsin, who is now considered neutral, takes the balloon. Graham says they should all settle down and have lunch. In the kitchen, Sally and Jan talk about Sally's work, and, in Tamsin's bedroom, Graham and Si talk about Parsons, with Si revealing that Parsons was actually unpleasant to work for. There is a loud bang from outside, and everyone goes back into the lounge, erroneously thinking that the balloon has burst. Graham and Si take the balloon to an upstairs bedroom and tuck it into a bed, while Jan turns the music back on.
Everyone sits in silence, waiting for Parsons's manager to arrive. Jan suggests that Graham blow up another balloon for Tamsin. Sally, Si and Graham realise that, with the camera footage they have, they can blow up all the purple balloons and sell them to multiple bidders. Jan screams when she sees movement in Tamsin's bedroom, and it is realised that Frankie is still alive. Jan takes Tamsin out of the room and the remaining three agree, after panicked discussion, that they should kill Frankie. Si loses a coin toss and smothers Frankie with a cushion. Later, out on the street, Frankie's body is put into an ambulance. Si says to Sally and Graham that he will be in touch and leaves. Sally and Graham discuss selling the camcorder footage, and Jan runs inside to see that Tamsin is not in her chair or room. Upstairs, Tamsin crawls onto the bed containing the balloon, carrying a heart-shaped helium balloon. On the street, Sally, Graham and Jan see Tamsin opening the upstairs window. She releases the helium balloon with the balloon containing Frankie's breath attached. The two float skyward as Graham films.
## Themes and analysis
Comedy critic Bruce Dessau described the episode as containing "a nice if not very subtle critique" of the value of celebrity, and noted that there was "a flicker" of "The Pardoner's Tale", a story from writer Geoffrey Chaucer's collection The Canterbury Tales. Rebecca McQuillan, writing in The Herald, felt the episode captures the "sheer unctuousness" of fandom. She added that, as the plot advances, the venal and vulgar attitudes which are initially hidden behind the characters' fake grins are revealed. For her, the story takes place around Tamsin, who looks "worldly and disappointed with the human race". David Chater, of The Times, identified celebrity worship and greed as the episode's themes.
In South African newspaper The Star, the episode was identified as the most cynical of the first series. For the reviewer, it "parades before us the depravity to which the human animal will stoop, and explores how agendas can be furthered under the noble cover of altruism". David Upton, writing for PopMatters, called it "easily the most acerbic and most overtly comic" episode of the series. He listed three reasons that the episode does not seem like something produced by Pemberton and Shearsmith: its avoidance of the horrific; the fact that it does not star Shearsmith; and its direct focus on celebrity culture, which Upton considers a modern phenomenon. Instead, he suggested that it feels closer to a story from Charlie Brooker's anthology programme Black Mirror. The focus of "Last Gasp" on comedy to the exclusion of horror, for Upton, leaves it "stranded" when compared to the other episodes.
Some critics questioned the plausibility of the premise. Daily Express columnist Virginia Blackburn felt that there was potential for a comedic critique of the celebrity memorabilia market. Such a story, she suggested, would be based around selling the balloon—not the breath—something she felt may have happened. Paddy Shennan, writing for the Liverpool Echo, questioned the extent to which the ending would actually impact the characters, asking whether they could have nonetheless sold the fake balloons. For freelance journalist Dan Owen the premise "riff[s] on the fact [that] online auction sites like eBay often sell ludicrous items for huge amounts of money". Owen argued that the episode's plot offers an amusing way that such a sale could come about. Though not fraudulent, the sale would nonetheless be "highly disrespectful and money-grabbing".
## Reception
Gerard Gilbert of The Independent, Jack Seale of Radio Times, Dessau and Owen all stressed that "Last Gasp" was weaker than the three previous episodes of Inside No. 9. Seale claimed that there were "several sublime moments – but no knockout blow", while Dessau wrote that "it doesn't really go anywhere and it resolves itself a little too simplistically", and Owen felt that the episode "didn't manage to go anywhere very unexpected... and just sort of ended". All three suggested, however, that the episode still had its strengths; for Seale, it was as "brilliantly acted and constructed as you'd expect", Dessau considered it watchable, and Owen felt it was enjoyable to watch with a number of funny moments. Shennan, writing for the Liverpool Echo, wrote that "perhaps there had to be a dud – or, at least, disappointing – episode sooner or later", noting that you "can't win 'em all".
The acting in the episode was praised by Michael Hogan and Rachel Ward, who wrote in The Daily Telegraph that "with their gift for comedy, vulnerability and pathos, Tamsin Grieg [sic] and Sophie Thompson ... deliver excellent performances". Similarly, Owen wrote that "the performances were good—especially from Thompson as the mousy housewife, and I liked the sour expressions from child star Hutchinson". Nonetheless, he thought it regrettable than a real-world musician had not been cast, especially as he considered it unlikely that Tamsin would admire Parsons. Awarding the episode three and a half out of five, he thought "the set-up ... sublime, the central dilemma amusing, and the execution typically brilliant". In the review published in The Star, "Last Gasp" was described as "hilarious". The title, it was suggested, is appropriate, "as I caught myself gasping more than once as its foul contents unfolded". Upton called the episode "a clever little piece".
On the day it was shown, "Last Gasp" was selected as comedy "pick of the day" in the Daily Express, but, the following day, an extremely critical review of the episode by Virginia Blackburn was published in the newspaper. She felt that the episode was disappointing and wasted the talent of the actors, and that the concept was "the sort of idea you can imagine two students coming up with after the sixth pint ... and then feeling slightly embarrassed about it when they wake up the next morning". She summed up the episode by saying that it was neither funny nor clever, and "is so utterly, irredeemably, naffly silly that it ends up being incredibly irritating and nothing else".
An interview with Shearsmith and Pemberton was published on British comedy website Chortle.co.uk after Inside No. 9 won the Chortle Award for best TV show. The pair were asked if they would ever consider writing an episode with a happy ending. Shearsmith responded by saying "Yes, because that would be the biggest surprise of all ... But last year we had the Last Gasp, and that had quite a happy ending - and people hated that one!" Similarly, Pemberton suggested that "people are disappointed if we don't deliver something horrible".
### Viewing figures
Based on overnight viewing figures, "Last Gasp" drew a lower viewership than any previous episode of Inside No. 9, with 872,000 viewers. In most UK listings, it was preceded by Line of Duty, which drew 2.2 million viewers (9.7% of the audience). However, the following episode of Inside No. 9, "The Understudy", drew a lower number of viewers still, with 720,000 viewers. The final episode of the first series, "The Harrowing", saw an increase in viewing figures, leaving "Last Gasp" with the second-lowest viewership of the series, below the series average of 904,000 people, and the slot average of 970,000 people.
## Charity auction
Pemberton listed a balloon containing his breath which had appeared on "Last Gasp" on eBay. Listed with the balloon was a copy of the episode's poster signed by Pemberton and Shearsmith. The auction was held to raise money for Give It Up, a Sport Relief charity founded by comedian Russell Brand to help those recovering from alcoholism and drug addiction. The winning bid on the auction was for £265.00.
|
17,860 |
Logarithm
| 1,172,070,290 |
Inverse of the exponential function
|
[
"Additive functions",
"Elementary special functions",
"Logarithms",
"Scottish inventions"
] |
In mathematics, the logarithm is the inverse function to exponentiation. That means that the logarithm of a number x to the base b is the exponent to which b must be raised to produce x. For example, since 1000 = 10<sup>3</sup>, the logarithm base 10 of 1000 is 3, or log<sub>10</sub> (1000) = 3. The logarithm of x to base b is denoted as log<sub>b</sub> (x), or without parentheses, log<sub>b</sub> x, or even without the explicit base, log x, when no confusion is possible, or when the base does not matter such as in big O notation.
The logarithm base 10 is called the decimal or common logarithm and is commonly used in science and engineering. The natural logarithm has the number e ≈ 2.718 as its base; its use is widespread in mathematics and physics, because of its very simple derivative. The binary logarithm uses base 2 and is frequently used in computer science.
Logarithms were introduced by John Napier in 1614 as a means of simplifying calculations. They were rapidly adopted by navigators, scientists, engineers, surveyors and others to perform high-accuracy computations more easily. Using logarithm tables, tedious multi-digit multiplication steps can be replaced by table look-ups and simpler addition. This is possible because the logarithm of a product is the sum of the logarithms of the factors: $\log_b(xy) = \log_b x + \log_b y,$ provided that b, x and y are all positive and b ≠ 1. The slide rule, also based on logarithms, allows quick calculations without tables, but at lower precision. The present-day notion of logarithms comes from Leonhard Euler, who connected them to the exponential function in the 18th century, and who also introduced the letter e as the base of natural logarithms.
Logarithmic scales reduce wide-ranging quantities to smaller scopes. For example, the decibel (dB) is a unit used to express ratio as logarithms, mostly for signal power and amplitude (of which sound pressure is a common example). In chemistry, pH is a logarithmic measure for the acidity of an aqueous solution. Logarithms are commonplace in scientific formulae, and in measurements of the complexity of algorithms and of geometric objects called fractals. They help to describe frequency ratios of musical intervals, appear in formulas counting prime numbers or approximating factorials, inform some models in psychophysics, and can aid in forensic accounting.
The concept of logarithm as the inverse of exponentiation extends to other mathematical structures as well. However, in general settings, the logarithm tends to be a multi-valued function. For example, the complex logarithm is the multi-valued inverse of the complex exponential function. Similarly, the discrete logarithm is the multi-valued inverse of the exponential function in finite groups; it has uses in public-key cryptography.
## Motivation
Addition, multiplication, and exponentiation are three of the most fundamental arithmetic operations. The inverse of addition is subtraction, and the inverse of multiplication is division. Similarly, a logarithm is the inverse operation of exponentiation. Exponentiation is when a number b, the base, is raised to a certain power y, the exponent, to give a value x; this is denoted $b^y=x.$ For example, raising 2 to the power of 3 gives 8: $2^3 = 8.$
The logarithm of base b is the inverse operation, that provides the output y from the input x. That is, $y = \log_b x$ is equivalent to $x=b^y$ if b is a positive real number. (If b is not a positive real number, both exponentiation and logarithm can be defined but may take several values, which makes definitions much more complicated.)
One of the main historical motivations of introducing logarithms is the formula $\log_b(xy)=\log_b x + \log_b y,$ which allowed (before the invention of computers) reducing computation of multiplications and divisions to additions, subtractions and logarithm table looking.
## Definition
Given a positive real number b such that b ≠ 1, the logarithm of a positive real number x with respect to base b is the exponent by which b must be raised to yield x. In other words, the logarithm of x to base b is the unique real number y such that $b^y = x$.
The logarithm is denoted "log<sub>b</sub> x" (pronounced as "the logarithm of x to base b", "the base-b logarithm of x", or most commonly "the log, base b, of x").
An equivalent and more succinct definition is that the function log<sub>b</sub> is the inverse function to the function $x\mapsto b^x$.
### Examples
- log<sub>2</sub> 16 = 4, since 2<sup>4</sup> = 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 = 16.
- Logarithms can also be negative: $\log_2 \! \frac{1}{2} = -1$ since $2^{-1} = \frac{1}{2^1} = \frac{1}{2}.$
- log<sub>10</sub> 150 is approximately 2.176, which lies between 2 and 3, just as 150 lies between 10<sup>2</sup> = 100 and 10<sup>3</sup> = 1000.
- For any base b, log<sub>b</sub> b = 1 and log<sub>b</sub> 1 = 0, since b<sup>1</sup> = b and b<sup>0</sup> = 1, respectively.
## Logarithmic identities
Several important formulas, sometimes called logarithmic identities or logarithmic laws, relate logarithms to one another.
### Product, quotient, power, and root
The logarithm of a product is the sum of the logarithms of the numbers being multiplied; the logarithm of the ratio of two numbers is the difference of the logarithms. The logarithm of the p-th power of a number is p times the logarithm of the number itself; the logarithm of a p-th root is the logarithm of the number divided by p. The following table lists these identities with examples. Each of the identities can be derived after substitution of the logarithm definitions $x = b^{\, \log_b x}$ or $y = b^{\, \log_b y}$ in the left hand sides.
### Change of base
The logarithm log<sub>b</sub> x can be computed from the logarithms of x and b with respect to an arbitrary base k using the following formula: $\log_b x = \frac{\log_k x}{\log_k b}.$
Typical scientific calculators calculate the logarithms to bases 10 and e. Logarithms with respect to any base b can be determined using either of these two logarithms by the previous formula: $\log_b x = \frac{\log_{10} x}{\log_{10} b} = \frac{\log_{e} x}{\log_{e} b}.$
Given a number x and its logarithm y = log<sub>b</sub> x to an unknown base b, the base is given by:
$b = x^\frac{1}{y},$
which can be seen from taking the defining equation $x = b^{\,\log_b x} = b^y$ to the power of $\tfrac{1}{y}.$
## Particular bases
Among all choices for the base, three are particularly common. These are b = 10, b = e (the irrational mathematical constant ≈ 2.71828), and b = 2 (the binary logarithm). In mathematical analysis, the logarithm base e is widespread because of analytical properties explained below. On the other hand, base-10 logarithms (the common logarithm) are easy to use for manual calculations in the decimal number system: $\log_{10}(10 x) = \log_{10} 10 + \log_{10} x = 1 + \log_{10} x.\$ Thus, log<sub>10</sub> (x) is related to the number of decimal digits of a positive integer x: the number of digits is the smallest integer strictly bigger than log<sub>10</sub> (x). For example, log<sub>10</sub>(1430) is approximately 3.15. The next integer is 4, which is the number of digits of 1430. Both the natural logarithm and the binary logarithm are used in information theory, corresponding to the use of nats or bits as the fundamental units of information, respectively. Binary logarithms are also used in computer science, where the binary system is ubiquitous; in music theory, where a pitch ratio of two (the octave) is ubiquitous and the number of cents between any two pitches is the binary logarithm, times 1200, of their ratio (that is, 100 cents per equal-temperament semitone); and in photography to measure exposure values, light levels, exposure times, apertures, and film speeds in "stops".
The following table lists common notations for logarithms to these bases and the fields where they are used. Many disciplines write log x instead of log<sub>b</sub> x, when the intended base can be determined from the context. The "ISO notation" column lists designations suggested by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 80000-2). Because the notation log x has been used for all three bases (or when the base is indeterminate or immaterial), the intended base must often be inferred based on context or discipline. In computer science, log usually refers to log<sub>2</sub>, and in mathematics log usually refers to log<sub>e</sub>. In other contexts, log often means log<sub>10</sub>.
## History
The history of logarithms in seventeenth-century Europe saw the discovery of a new function that extended the realm of analysis beyond the scope of algebraic methods. The method of logarithms was publicly propounded by John Napier in 1614, in a book titled Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio (Description of the Wonderful Canon of Logarithms). Prior to Napier's invention, there had been other techniques of similar scopes, such as the prosthaphaeresis or the use of tables of progressions, extensively developed by Jost Bürgi around 1600. Napier coined the term for logarithm in Middle Latin, "logarithmus," derived from the Greek, literally meaning, "ratio-number," from logos "proportion, ratio, word" + arithmos "number".
The common logarithm of a number is the index of that power of ten which equals the number. Speaking of a number as requiring so many figures is a rough allusion to common logarithm, and was referred to by Archimedes as the "order of a number". The first real logarithms were heuristic methods to turn multiplication into addition, thus facilitating rapid computation. Some of these methods used tables derived from trigonometric identities. Such methods are called prosthaphaeresis.
Invention of the function now known as the natural logarithm began as an attempt to perform a quadrature of a rectangular hyperbola by Grégoire de Saint-Vincent, a Belgian Jesuit residing in Prague. Archimedes had written The Quadrature of the Parabola in the third century BC, but a quadrature for the hyperbola eluded all efforts until Saint-Vincent published his results in 1647. The relation that the logarithm provides between a geometric progression in its argument and an arithmetic progression of values, prompted A. A. de Sarasa to make the connection of Saint-Vincent's quadrature and the tradition of logarithms in prosthaphaeresis, leading to the term "hyperbolic logarithm", a synonym for natural logarithm. Soon the new function was appreciated by Christiaan Huygens, and James Gregory. The notation Log y was adopted by Leibniz in 1675, and the next year he connected it to the integral $\int \frac{dy}{y} .$
Before Euler developed his modern conception of complex natural logarithms, Roger Cotes had a nearly equivalent result when he showed in 1714 that $\log(\cos \theta + i\sin \theta) = i\theta.$
## Logarithm tables, slide rules, and historical applications
By simplifying difficult calculations before calculators and computers became available, logarithms contributed to the advance of science, especially astronomy. They were critical to advances in surveying, celestial navigation, and other domains. Pierre-Simon Laplace called logarithms
: "...[a]n admirable artifice which, by reducing to a few days the labour of many months, doubles the life of the astronomer, and spares him the errors and disgust inseparable from long calculations."
As the function f(x) = b<sup>x</sup> is the inverse function of log<sub>b</sub> x, it has been called an antilogarithm. Nowadays, this function is more commonly called an exponential function.
### Log tables
A key tool that enabled the practical use of logarithms was the table of logarithms. The first such table was compiled by Henry Briggs in 1617, immediately after Napier's invention but with the innovation of using 10 as the base. Briggs' first table contained the common logarithms of all integers in the range from 1 to 1000, with a precision of 14 digits. Subsequently, tables with increasing scope were written. These tables listed the values of log<sub>10</sub> x for any number x in a certain range, at a certain precision. Base-10 logarithms were universally used for computation, hence the name common logarithm, since numbers that differ by factors of 10 have logarithms that differ by integers. The common logarithm of x can be separated into an integer part and a fractional part, known as the characteristic and mantissa. Tables of logarithms need only include the mantissa, as the characteristic can be easily determined by counting digits from the decimal point. The characteristic of 10 · x is one plus the characteristic of x, and their mantissas are the same. Thus using a three-digit log table, the logarithm of 3542 is approximated by
$\log_{10}3542 = \log_{10}(1000 \cdot 3.542) = 3 + \log_{10}3.542 \approx 3 + \log_{10}3.54$
Greater accuracy can be obtained by interpolation:
$\log_{10}3542 \approx 3 + \log_{10}3.54 + 0.2 (\log_{10}3.55-\log_{10}3.54)$
The value of 10<sup>x</sup> can be determined by reverse look up in the same table, since the logarithm is a monotonic function.
### Computations
The product and quotient of two positive numbers c and d were routinely calculated as the sum and difference of their logarithms. The product cd or quotient c/d came from looking up the antilogarithm of the sum or difference, via the same table:
$cd = 10^{\, \log_{10} c} \, 10^{\,\log_{10} d} = 10^{\,\log_{10} c \, + \, \log_{10} d}$ and $\frac c d = c d^{-1} = 10^{\, \log_{10}c \, - \, \log_{10}d}.$
For manual calculations that demand any appreciable precision, performing the lookups of the two logarithms, calculating their sum or difference, and looking up the antilogarithm is much faster than performing the multiplication by earlier methods such as prosthaphaeresis, which relies on trigonometric identities.
Calculations of powers and roots are reduced to multiplications or divisions and lookups by $c^d = \left(10^{\, \log_{10} c}\right)^d = 10^{\, d \log_{10} c}$
and $\sqrt[d]{c} = c^\frac{1}{d} = 10^{\frac{1}{d} \log_{10} c}.$
Trigonometric calculations were facilitated by tables that contained the common logarithms of trigonometric functions.
### Slide rules
Another critical application was the slide rule, a pair of logarithmically divided scales used for calculation. The non-sliding logarithmic scale, Gunter's rule, was invented shortly after Napier's invention. William Oughtred enhanced it to create the slide rule—a pair of logarithmic scales movable with respect to each other. Numbers are placed on sliding scales at distances proportional to the differences between their logarithms. Sliding the upper scale appropriately amounts to mechanically adding logarithms, as illustrated here:
For example, adding the distance from 1 to 2 on the lower scale to the distance from 1 to 3 on the upper scale yields a product of 6, which is read off at the lower part. The slide rule was an essential calculating tool for engineers and scientists until the 1970s, because it allows, at the expense of precision, much faster computation than techniques based on tables.
## Analytic properties
A deeper study of logarithms requires the concept of a function. A function is a rule that, given one number, produces another number. An example is the function producing the x-th power of b from any real number x, where the base b is a fixed number. This function is written as f(x) = b<sup> x</sup>. When b is positive and unequal to 1, we show below that f is invertible when considered as a function from the reals to the positive reals.
### Existence
Let b be a positive real number not equal to 1 and let f(x) = b<sup> x</sup>.
It is a standard result in real analysis that any continuous strictly monotonic function is bijective between its domain and range. This fact follows from the intermediate value theorem. Now, f is strictly increasing (for b \> 1), or strictly decreasing (for 0 \< b \< 1), is continuous, has domain $\R$, and has range $\R_{> 0}$. Therefore, f is a bijection from $\R$ to $\R_{>0}$. In other words, for each positive real number y, there is exactly one real number x such that $b^x = y$.
We let $\log_b\colon\R_{>0}\to\R$ denote the inverse of f. That is, log<sub>b</sub> y is the unique real number x such that $b^x = y$. This function is called the base-b logarithm function or logarithmic function (or just logarithm).
### Characterization by the product formula
The function log<sub>b</sub> x can also be essentially characterized by the product formula $\log_b(xy) = \log_b x + \log_b y.$ More precisely, the logarithm to any base b \> 1 is the only increasing function f from the positive reals to the reals satisfying f(b) = 1 and $f(xy)=f(x)+f(y).$
### Graph of the logarithm function
As discussed above, the function log<sub>b</sub> is the inverse to the exponential function $x\mapsto b^x$. Therefore, their graphs correspond to each other upon exchanging the x- and the y-coordinates (or upon reflection at the diagonal line x = y), as shown at the right: a point (t, u = b<sup>t</sup>) on the graph of f yields a point (u, t = log<sub>b</sub> u) on the graph of the logarithm and vice versa. As a consequence, log<sub>b</sub> (x) diverges to infinity (gets bigger than any given number) if x grows to infinity, provided that b is greater than one. In that case, log<sub>b</sub>(x) is an increasing function. For b \< 1, log<sub>b</sub> (x) tends to minus infinity instead. When x approaches zero, log<sub>b</sub> x goes to minus infinity for b \> 1 (plus infinity for b \< 1, respectively).
### Derivative and antiderivative
Analytic properties of functions pass to their inverses. Thus, as f(x) = b<sup>x</sup> is a continuous and differentiable function, so is log<sub>b</sub> y. Roughly, a continuous function is differentiable if its graph has no sharp "corners". Moreover, as the derivative of f(x) evaluates to ln(b) b<sup>x</sup> by the properties of the exponential function, the chain rule implies that the derivative of log<sub>b</sub> x is given by $\frac{d}{dx} \log_b x = \frac{1}{x\ln b}.$ That is, the slope of the tangent touching the graph of the base-b logarithm at the point (x, log<sub>b</sub> (x)) equals 1/(x ln(b)).
The derivative of ln(x) is 1/x; this implies that ln(x) is the unique antiderivative of 1/x that has the value 0 for x = 1. It is this very simple formula that motivated to qualify as "natural" the natural logarithm; this is also one of the main reasons of the importance of the constant e.
The derivative with a generalized functional argument f(x) is $\frac{d}{dx} \ln f(x) = \frac{f'(x)}{f(x)}.$ The quotient at the right hand side is called the logarithmic derivative of f. Computing f'(x) by means of the derivative of ln(f(x)) is known as logarithmic differentiation. The antiderivative of the natural logarithm ln(x) is: $\int \ln(x) \,dx = x \ln(x) - x + C.$ Related formulas, such as antiderivatives of logarithms to other bases can be derived from this equation using the change of bases.
### Integral representation of the natural logarithm
The natural logarithm of t can be defined as the definite integral:
$\ln t = \int_1^t \frac{1}{x} \, dx.$ This definition has the advantage that it does not rely on the exponential function or any trigonometric functions; the definition is in terms of an integral of a simple reciprocal. As an integral, ln(t) equals the area between the x-axis and the graph of the function 1/x, ranging from x = 1 to x = t. This is a consequence of the fundamental theorem of calculus and the fact that the derivative of ln(x) is 1/x. Product and power logarithm formulas can be derived from this definition. For example, the product formula ln(tu) = ln(t) + ln(u) is deduced as:
$\ln(tu) = \int_1^{tu} \frac{1}{x} \, dx \ \stackrel {(1)} = \int_1^{t} \frac{1}{x} \, dx + \int_t^{tu} \frac{1}{x} \, dx \ \stackrel {(2)} = \ln(t) + \int_1^u \frac{1}{w} \, dw = \ln(t) + \ln(u).$
The equality (1) splits the integral into two parts, while the equality (2) is a change of variable (w = x/t). In the illustration below, the splitting corresponds to dividing the area into the yellow and blue parts. Rescaling the left hand blue area vertically by the factor t and shrinking it by the same factor horizontally does not change its size. Moving it appropriately, the area fits the graph of the function f(x) = 1/x again. Therefore, the left hand blue area, which is the integral of f(x) from t to tu is the same as the integral from 1 to u. This justifies the equality (2) with a more geometric proof.
The power formula ln(t<sup>r</sup>) = r ln(t) may be derived in a similar way:
$\ln(t^r) = \int_1^{t^r} \frac{1}{x}dx = \int_1^t \frac{1}{w^r} \left(rw^{r - 1} \, dw\right) = r \int_1^t \frac{1}{w} \, dw = r \ln(t).$ The second equality uses a change of variables (integration by substitution), w = x<sup>1/r</sup>.
The sum over the reciprocals of natural numbers, $1 + \frac 1 2 + \frac 1 3 + \cdots + \frac 1 n = \sum_{k=1}^n \frac{1}{k},$ is called the harmonic series. It is closely tied to the natural logarithm: as n tends to infinity, the difference, $\sum_{k=1}^n \frac{1}{k} - \ln(n),$ converges (i.e. gets arbitrarily close) to a number known as the Euler–Mascheroni constant γ = 0.5772.... This relation aids in analyzing the performance of algorithms such as quicksort.
### Transcendence of the logarithm
Real numbers that are not algebraic are called transcendental; for example, π and e are such numbers, but $\sqrt{2-\sqrt 3}$ is not. Almost all real numbers are transcendental. The logarithm is an example of a transcendental function. The Gelfond–Schneider theorem asserts that logarithms usually take transcendental, i.e. "difficult" values.
## Calculation
Logarithms are easy to compute in some cases, such as log<sub>10</sub> (1000) = 3. In general, logarithms can be calculated using power series or the arithmetic–geometric mean, or be retrieved from a precalculated logarithm table that provides a fixed precision. Newton's method, an iterative method to solve equations approximately, can also be used to calculate the logarithm, because its inverse function, the exponential function, can be computed efficiently. Using look-up tables, CORDIC-like methods can be used to compute logarithms by using only the operations of addition and bit shifts. Moreover, the binary logarithm algorithm calculates lb(x) recursively, based on repeated squarings of x, taking advantage of the relation $\log_2\left(x^2\right) = 2 \log_2 |x|.$
### Power series
#### Taylor series
For any real number z that satisfies 0 \< z ≤ 2, the following formula holds: $\begin{align}\ln (z) &= \frac{(z-1)^1}{1} - \frac{(z-1)^2}{2} + \frac{(z-1)^3}{3} - \frac{(z-1)^4}{4} + \cdots \\
&= \sum_{k=1}^\infty (-1)^{k+1}\frac{(z-1)^k}{k}
\end{align}$ This is a shorthand for saying that ln(z) can be approximated to a more and more accurate value by the following expressions: $(z-1), \qquad (z-1) - \frac{(z-1)^2}{2}, \qquad (z-1) - \frac{(z-1)^2}{2} + \frac{(z-1)^3}{3}, \qquad \ldots$
For example, with z = 1.5 the third approximation yields 0.4167, which is about 0.011 greater than ln(1.5) = 0.405465. This series approximates ln(z) with arbitrary precision, provided the number of summands is large enough. In elementary calculus, ln(z) is therefore the limit of this series. It is the Taylor series of the natural logarithm at z = 1. The Taylor series of ln(z) provides a particularly useful approximation to ln(1 + z) when z is small, , since then $\ln (1+z) = z - \frac{z^2}{2} +\frac{z^3}{3} -\cdots \approx z.$ For example, with z = 0.1 the first-order approximation gives ln(1.1) ≈ 0.1, which is less than 5% off the correct value 0.0953.
#### Inverse hyperbolic tangent
Another series is based on the inverse hyperbolic tangent function: $\ln (z) = 2\cdot\operatorname{artanh}\,\frac{z-1}{z+1} = 2 \left ( \frac{z-1}{z+1} + \frac{1}{3}{\left(\frac{z-1}{z+1}\right)}^3 + \frac{1}{5}{\left(\frac{z-1}{z+1}\right)}^5 + \cdots \right ),$ for any real number z \> 0. Using sigma notation, this is also written as $\ln (z) = 2\sum_{k=0}^\infty\frac{1}{2k+1}\left(\frac{z-1}{z+1}\right)^{2k+1}.$ This series can be derived from the above Taylor series. It converges quicker than the Taylor series, especially if z is close to 1. For example, for z = 1.5, the first three terms of the second series approximate ln(1.5) with an error of about 3×10<sup>−6</sup>. The quick convergence for z close to 1 can be taken advantage of in the following way: given a low-accuracy approximation y ≈ ln(z) and putting $A = \frac z{\exp(y)},$ the logarithm of z is: $\ln (z)=y+\ln (A).$ The better the initial approximation y is, the closer A is to 1, so its logarithm can be calculated efficiently. A can be calculated using the exponential series, which converges quickly provided y is not too large. Calculating the logarithm of larger z can be reduced to smaller values of z by writing z = a · 10<sup>b</sup>, so that ln(z) = ln(a) + b · ln(10).
A closely related method can be used to compute the logarithm of integers. Putting $\textstyle z=\frac{n+1}{n}$ in the above series, it follows that: $\ln (n+1) = \ln(n) + 2\sum_{k=0}^\infty\frac{1}{2k+1}\left(\frac{1}{2 n+1}\right)^{2k+1}.$ If the logarithm of a large integer n is known, then this series yields a fast converging series for log(n+1), with a rate of convergence of $\left(\frac{1}{2 n+1}\right)^{2}$.
### Arithmetic–geometric mean approximation
The arithmetic–geometric mean yields high-precision approximations of the natural logarithm. Sasaki and Kanada showed in 1982 that it was particularly fast for precisions between 400 and 1000 decimal places, while Taylor series methods were typically faster when less precision was needed. In their work ln(x) is approximated to a precision of 2<sup>−p</sup> (or p precise bits) by the following formula (due to Carl Friedrich Gauss):
$\ln (x) \approx \frac{\pi}{2\, \mathrm{M}\!\left(1, 2^{2 - m}/x \right)} - m \ln(2).$
Here M(x, y) denotes the arithmetic–geometric mean of x and y. It is obtained by repeatedly calculating the average (x + y)/2 (arithmetic mean) and $\sqrt{xy}$ (geometric mean) of x and y then let those two numbers become the next x and y. The two numbers quickly converge to a common limit which is the value of M(x, y). m is chosen such that
$x \,2^m > 2^{p/2}.\,$
to ensure the required precision. A larger m makes the M(x, y) calculation take more steps (the initial x and y are farther apart so it takes more steps to converge) but gives more precision. The constants π and ln(2) can be calculated with quickly converging series.
### Feynman's algorithm
While at Los Alamos National Laboratory working on the Manhattan Project, Richard Feynman developed a bit-processing algorithm, to compute the logarithm, that is similar to long division and was later used in the Connection Machine. The algorithm uses the fact that every real number 1 \< x \< 2 is representable as a product of distinct factors of the form 1 + 2<sup>−k</sup>. The algorithm sequentially builds that product P, starting with P = 1 and k = 1: if P · (1 + 2<sup>−k</sup>) \< x, then it changes P to P · (1 + 2<sup>−k</sup>). It then increases $k$ by one regardless. The algorithm stops when k is large enough to give the desired accuracy. Because log(x) is the sum of the terms of the form log(1 + 2<sup>−k</sup>) corresponding to those k for which the factor 1 + 2<sup>−k</sup> was included in the product P, log(x) may be computed by simple addition, using a table of log(1 + 2<sup>−k</sup>) for all k. Any base may be used for the logarithm table.
## Applications
Logarithms have many applications inside and outside mathematics. Some of these occurrences are related to the notion of scale invariance. For example, each chamber of the shell of a nautilus is an approximate copy of the next one, scaled by a constant factor. This gives rise to a logarithmic spiral. Benford's law on the distribution of leading digits can also be explained by scale invariance. Logarithms are also linked to self-similarity. For example, logarithms appear in the analysis of algorithms that solve a problem by dividing it into two similar smaller problems and patching their solutions. The dimensions of self-similar geometric shapes, that is, shapes whose parts resemble the overall picture are also based on logarithms. Logarithmic scales are useful for quantifying the relative change of a value as opposed to its absolute difference. Moreover, because the logarithmic function log(x) grows very slowly for large x, logarithmic scales are used to compress large-scale scientific data. Logarithms also occur in numerous scientific formulas, such as the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, the Fenske equation, or the Nernst equation.
### Logarithmic scale
Scientific quantities are often expressed as logarithms of other quantities, using a logarithmic scale. For example, the decibel is a unit of measurement associated with logarithmic-scale quantities. It is based on the common logarithm of ratios—10 times the common logarithm of a power ratio or 20 times the common logarithm of a voltage ratio. It is used to quantify the loss of voltage levels in transmitting electrical signals, to describe power levels of sounds in acoustics, and the absorbance of light in the fields of spectrometry and optics. The signal-to-noise ratio describing the amount of unwanted noise in relation to a (meaningful) signal is also measured in decibels. In a similar vein, the peak signal-to-noise ratio is commonly used to assess the quality of sound and image compression methods using the logarithm.
The strength of an earthquake is measured by taking the common logarithm of the energy emitted at the quake. This is used in the moment magnitude scale or the Richter magnitude scale. For example, a 5.0 earthquake releases 32 times (10<sup>1.5</sup>) and a 6.0 releases 1000 times (10<sup>3</sup>) the energy of a 4.0. Apparent magnitude measures the brightness of stars logarithmically. In chemistry the negative of the decimal logarithm, the decimal ', is indicated by the letter p. For instance, pH is the decimal cologarithm of the activity of hydronium ions (the form hydrogen ions H<sup>+</sup>
take in water). The activity of hydronium ions in neutral water is 10<sup>−7</sup> mol·L<sup>−1</sup>, hence a pH of 7. Vinegar typically has a pH of about 3. The difference of 4 corresponds to a ratio of 10<sup>4</sup> of the activity, that is, vinegar's hydronium ion activity is about 10<sup>−3</sup> mol·L<sup>−1</sup>.
Semilog (log–linear) graphs use the logarithmic scale concept for visualization: one axis, typically the vertical one, is scaled logarithmically. For example, the chart at the right compresses the steep increase from 1 million to 1 trillion to the same space (on the vertical axis) as the increase from 1 to 1 million. In such graphs, exponential functions of the form f(x) = a · b appear as straight lines with slope equal to the logarithm of b. Log-log graphs scale both axes logarithmically, which causes functions of the form f(x) = a · x to be depicted as straight lines with slope equal to the exponent k. This is applied in visualizing and analyzing power laws.
### Psychology
Logarithms occur in several laws describing human perception: Hick's law proposes a logarithmic relation between the time individuals take to choose an alternative and the number of choices they have. Fitts's law predicts that the time required to rapidly move to a target area is a logarithmic function of the distance to and the size of the target. In psychophysics, the Weber–Fechner law proposes a logarithmic relationship between stimulus and sensation such as the actual vs. the perceived weight of an item a person is carrying. (This "law", however, is less realistic than more recent models, such as Stevens's power law.)
Psychological studies found that individuals with little mathematics education tend to estimate quantities logarithmically, that is, they position a number on an unmarked line according to its logarithm, so that 10 is positioned as close to 100 as 100 is to 1000. Increasing education shifts this to a linear estimate (positioning 1000 10 times as far away) in some circumstances, while logarithms are used when the numbers to be plotted are difficult to plot linearly.
### Probability theory and statistics
Logarithms arise in probability theory: the law of large numbers dictates that, for a fair coin, as the number of coin-tosses increases to infinity, the observed proportion of heads approaches one-half. The fluctuations of this proportion about one-half are described by the law of the iterated logarithm.
Logarithms also occur in log-normal distributions. When the logarithm of a random variable has a normal distribution, the variable is said to have a log-normal distribution. Log-normal distributions are encountered in many fields, wherever a variable is formed as the product of many independent positive random variables, for example in the study of turbulence.
Logarithms are used for maximum-likelihood estimation of parametric statistical models. For such a model, the likelihood function depends on at least one parameter that must be estimated. A maximum of the likelihood function occurs at the same parameter-value as a maximum of the logarithm of the likelihood (the "log likelihood"), because the logarithm is an increasing function. The log-likelihood is easier to maximize, especially for the multiplied likelihoods for independent random variables.
Benford's law describes the occurrence of digits in many data sets, such as heights of buildings. According to Benford's law, the probability that the first decimal-digit of an item in the data sample is d (from 1 to 9) equals log<sub>10</sub> (d + 1) − log<sub>10</sub> (d), regardless of the unit of measurement. Thus, about 30% of the data can be expected to have 1 as first digit, 18% start with 2, etc. Auditors examine deviations from Benford's law to detect fraudulent accounting.
The logarithm transformation is a type of data transformation used to bring the empirical distribution closer to the assumed one.
### Computational complexity
Analysis of algorithms is a branch of computer science that studies the performance of algorithms (computer programs solving a certain problem). Logarithms are valuable for describing algorithms that divide a problem into smaller ones, and join the solutions of the subproblems.
For example, to find a number in a sorted list, the binary search algorithm checks the middle entry and proceeds with the half before or after the middle entry if the number is still not found. This algorithm requires, on average, log<sub>2</sub> (N) comparisons, where N is the list's length. Similarly, the merge sort algorithm sorts an unsorted list by dividing the list into halves and sorting these first before merging the results. Merge sort algorithms typically require a time approximately proportional to N · log(N). The base of the logarithm is not specified here, because the result only changes by a constant factor when another base is used. A constant factor is usually disregarded in the analysis of algorithms under the standard uniform cost model.
A function f(x) is said to grow logarithmically if f(x) is (exactly or approximately) proportional to the logarithm of x. (Biological descriptions of organism growth, however, use this term for an exponential function.) For example, any natural number N can be represented in binary form in no more than log<sub>2</sub> N + 1 bits. In other words, the amount of memory needed to store N grows logarithmically with N.
### Entropy and chaos
Entropy is broadly a measure of the disorder of some system. In statistical thermodynamics, the entropy S of some physical system is defined as $S = - k \sum_i p_i \ln(p_i).\,$ The sum is over all possible states i of the system in question, such as the positions of gas particles in a container. Moreover, p<sub>i</sub> is the probability that the state i is attained and k is the Boltzmann constant. Similarly, entropy in information theory measures the quantity of information. If a message recipient may expect any one of N possible messages with equal likelihood, then the amount of information conveyed by any one such message is quantified as log<sub>2</sub> N bits.
Lyapunov exponents use logarithms to gauge the degree of chaoticity of a dynamical system. For example, for a particle moving on an oval billiard table, even small changes of the initial conditions result in very different paths of the particle. Such systems are chaotic in a deterministic way, because small measurement errors of the initial state predictably lead to largely different final states. At least one Lyapunov exponent of a deterministically chaotic system is positive.
### Fractals
Logarithms occur in definitions of the dimension of fractals. Fractals are geometric objects that are self-similar in the sense that small parts reproduce, at least roughly, the entire global structure. The Sierpinski triangle (pictured) can be covered by three copies of itself, each having sides half the original length. This makes the Hausdorff dimension of this structure ln(3)/ln(2) ≈ 1.58. Another logarithm-based notion of dimension is obtained by counting the number of boxes needed to cover the fractal in question.
### Music
Logarithms are related to musical tones and intervals. In equal temperament, the frequency ratio depends only on the interval between two tones, not on the specific frequency, or pitch, of the individual tones. For example, the note A has a frequency of 440 Hz and B-flat has a frequency of 466 Hz. The interval between A and B-flat is a semitone, as is the one between B-flat and B (frequency 493 Hz). Accordingly, the frequency ratios agree: $\frac{466}{440} \approx \frac{493}{466} \approx 1.059 \approx \sqrt[12]2.$ Therefore, logarithms can be used to describe the intervals: an interval is measured in semitones by taking the base-2<sup>1/12</sup> logarithm of the frequency ratio, while the base-2<sup>1/1200</sup> logarithm of the frequency ratio expresses the interval in cents, hundredths of a semitone. The latter is used for finer encoding, as it is needed for non-equal temperaments.
### Number theory
Natural logarithms are closely linked to counting prime numbers (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, ...), an important topic in number theory. For any integer x, the quantity of prime numbers less than or equal to x is denoted π(x). The prime number theorem asserts that π(x) is approximately given by $\frac{x}{\ln(x)},$ in the sense that the ratio of π(x) and that fraction approaches 1 when x tends to infinity. As a consequence, the probability that a randomly chosen number between 1 and x is prime is inversely proportional to the number of decimal digits of x. A far better estimate of π(x) is given by the offset logarithmic integral function Li(x), defined by $\mathrm{Li}(x) = \int_2^x \frac1{\ln(t)} \,dt.$ The Riemann hypothesis, one of the oldest open mathematical conjectures, can be stated in terms of comparing π(x) and Li(x). The Erdős–Kac theorem describing the number of distinct prime factors also involves the natural logarithm.
The logarithm of n factorial, n! = 1 · 2 · ... · n, is given by $\ln (n!) = \ln (1) + \ln (2) + \cdots + \ln (n).$ This can be used to obtain Stirling's formula, an approximation of n! for large n.
## Generalizations
### Complex logarithm
All the complex numbers a that solve the equation
$e^a=z$
are called complex logarithms of z, when z is (considered as) a complex number. A complex number is commonly represented as z = x + iy, where x and y are real numbers and i is an imaginary unit, the square of which is −1. Such a number can be visualized by a point in the complex plane, as shown at the right. The polar form encodes a non-zero complex number z by its absolute value, that is, the (positive, real) distance r to the origin, and an angle between the real (x) axis Re and the line passing through both the origin and z. This angle is called the argument of z.
The absolute value r of z is given by
$\textstyle r=\sqrt{x^2+y^2}.$
Using the geometrical interpretation of sine and cosine and their periodicity in 2π, any complex number z may be denoted as
$z = x + iy = r (\cos \varphi + i \sin \varphi )= r (\cos (\varphi + 2k\pi) + i \sin (\varphi + 2k\pi)),$
for any integer number k. Evidently the argument of z is not uniquely specified: both φ and <span class="texhtml " >φ = φ + 2kπ</span> are valid arguments of z for all integers k, because adding 2kπ radians or k⋅360° to φ corresponds to "winding" around the origin counter-clock-wise by k turns. The resulting complex number is always z, as illustrated at the right for k = 1. One may select exactly one of the possible arguments of z as the so-called principal argument, denoted Arg(z), with a capital A, by requiring φ to belong to one, conveniently selected turn, e.g. −π \< φ ≤ π or 0 ≤ φ \< 2π. These regions, where the argument of z is uniquely determined are called branches of the argument function.
Euler's formula connects the trigonometric functions sine and cosine to the complex exponential: $e^{i\varphi} = \cos \varphi + i\sin \varphi .$
Using this formula, and again the periodicity, the following identities hold:
$\begin{array}{lll}z& = & r \left (\cos \varphi + i \sin \varphi\right) \\
& = & r \left (\cos(\varphi + 2k\pi) + i \sin(\varphi + 2k\pi)\right) \\
& = & r e^{i (\varphi + 2k\pi)} \\
& = & e^{\ln(r)} e^{i (\varphi + 2k\pi)} \\
& = & e^{\ln(r) + i(\varphi + 2k\pi)} = e^{a_k},
\end{array}$
where ln(r) is the unique real natural logarithm, a<sub>k</sub> denote the complex logarithms of z, and k is an arbitrary integer. Therefore, the complex logarithms of z, which are all those complex values a<sub>k</sub> for which the a<sub>k</sub>-th power of e equals z, are the infinitely many values
Taking k such that φ + 2kπ is within the defined interval for the principal arguments, then a<sub>k</sub> is called the principal value of the logarithm, denoted Log(z), again with a capital L. The principal argument of any positive real number x is 0; hence Log(x) is a real number and equals the real (natural) logarithm. However, the above formulas for logarithms of products and powers do not generalize to the principal value of the complex logarithm.
The illustration at the right depicts Log(z), confining the arguments of z to the interval . This way the corresponding branch of the complex logarithm has discontinuities all along the negative real x axis, which can be seen in the jump in the hue there. This discontinuity arises from jumping to the other boundary in the same branch, when crossing a boundary, i.e. not changing to the corresponding k-value of the continuously neighboring branch. Such a locus is called a branch cut. Dropping the range restrictions on the argument makes the relations "argument of z", and consequently the "logarithm of z", multi-valued functions.
### Inverses of other exponential functions
Exponentiation occurs in many areas of mathematics and its inverse function is often referred to as the logarithm. For example, the logarithm of a matrix is the (multi-valued) inverse function of the matrix exponential. Another example is the p-adic logarithm, the inverse function of the p-adic exponential. Both are defined via Taylor series analogous to the real case. In the context of differential geometry, the exponential map maps the tangent space at a point of a manifold to a neighborhood of that point. Its inverse is also called the logarithmic (or log) map.
In the context of finite groups exponentiation is given by repeatedly multiplying one group element b with itself. The discrete logarithm is the integer n solving the equation $b^n = x,$ where x is an element of the group. Carrying out the exponentiation can be done efficiently, but the discrete logarithm is believed to be very hard to calculate in some groups. This asymmetry has important applications in public key cryptography, such as for example in the Diffie–Hellman key exchange, a routine that allows secure exchanges of cryptographic keys over unsecured information channels. Zech's logarithm is related to the discrete logarithm in the multiplicative group of non-zero elements of a finite field.
Further logarithm-like inverse functions include the double logarithm ln(ln(x)), the super- or hyper-4-logarithm (a slight variation of which is called iterated logarithm in computer science), the Lambert W function, and the logit. They are the inverse functions of the double exponential function, tetration, of f(w) = we<sup>w</sup>, and of the logistic function, respectively.
### Related concepts
From the perspective of group theory, the identity log(cd) = log(c) + log(d) expresses a group isomorphism between positive reals under multiplication and reals under addition. Logarithmic functions are the only continuous isomorphisms between these groups. By means of that isomorphism, the Haar measure (Lebesgue measure) dx on the reals corresponds to the Haar measure dx/x on the positive reals. The non-negative reals not only have a multiplication, but also have addition, and form a semiring, called the probability semiring; this is in fact a semifield. The logarithm then takes multiplication to addition (log multiplication), and takes addition to log addition (LogSumExp), giving an isomorphism of semirings between the probability semiring and the log semiring.
Logarithmic one-forms df/f appear in complex analysis and algebraic geometry as differential forms with logarithmic poles.
The polylogarithm is the function defined by $\operatorname{Li}_s(z) = \sum_{k=1}^\infty {z^k \over k^s}.$ It is related to the natural logarithm by Li<sub>1</sub> (z) = −ln(1 − z). Moreover, Li<sub>s</sub> (1) equals the Riemann zeta function ζ(s).
## See also
- Decimal exponent (dex)
- Exponential function
- Index of logarithm articles
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Woodleigh MRT station
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Mass Rapid Transit station in Singapore
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[
"Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore) stations",
"Railway stations in Serangoon",
"Railway stations in Singapore opened in 2011"
] |
Woodleigh MRT station is an underground Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station on the North East line (NEL), in Bidadari, Singapore. The station is underneath Upper Serangoon Road, near the junction with Upper Aljunied Road. Areas served include the Bidadari Estate and Stamford American International School.
Woodleigh was first announced along with the 16 NEL stations in March 1996. Though it was completed along with the rest of the NEL in June 2003, the station remained closed due to the lack of local developments. It eventually opened in June 2011. As with most of the NEL stations, it is a designated Civil Defence shelter. Woodleigh station features an Art-in-Transit public artwork Slow Motion by April Ng, depicting commuters going about their daily lives, on 30 zinc panels.
## History
The North East line (NEL) project, which was first proposed in 1984, received government approval in January 1996. Woodleigh station was among the sixteen NEL stations announced by communications minister Mah Bow Tan in March that year. To minimise operating costs, Woodleigh was not planned to open along with the other NEL stations. It was intended to build only the structural shell of Woodleigh station, but it was later decided to build it fully, as it would have been more costly to wait until later to complete the station from the structural shell.
The contract for the station's construction and 2.5 km (1.6 mi) of bored tunnels was awarded to a joint venture consisting of Wayss & Freytag, Econ Corporation and Chew Eu Hock Construction. The S\$317million contract (US\$ million in ) included the construction of the adjacent Serangoon station and a vehicular viaduct along Upper Serangoon Road. Though the station was fully equipped and ready for operations in 2003, transport minister Yeo Cheow Tong explained in July that the station might not open for seven or eight years. The station would begin operating once the area around it was sufficiently developed.
With preparations for the station's opening ongoing since the second half of 2010, The Straits Times transport correspondent Christopher Tan speculated that the station would open in mid-2011 to serve new developments in the area. In a parliamentary session in March, Transport Minister Raymond Lim confirmed that Woodleigh station would open on 20 June 2011. Before its opening, the station was refurbished and repainted, and SBS Transit staff tested the station equipment and lighting.
On the opening day, several commuters, who were unaware that Woodleigh station had opened, alighted there by accident, having intended to alight at the adjacent Serangoon station. The operator SBS Transit deployed several staff to assist the confused commuters.
### Security incident
On 18 April 2017, Woodleigh station was closed for about three hours after a suspicious substance was found in various areas in the station. All trains skipped Woodleigh station during the closure. The station reopened at 4:20pm after police established the substance to be baking flour. Authorities arrested a 69-year-old man that same day for "causing public alarm" and summoned two other men to help with police investigations. The investigation revealed that the three men were members of the running group Seletar Hash House Harriers, who intended to mark a trail for other runners to follow (known as "hashing"). The man responsible was fined S\$1000 (US\$) for causing a public nuisance.
## Station details
Woodleigh station serves the North East line (NEL) of the Singapore MRT and is between the Potong Pasir and Serangoon stations. The station code is NE11. Being part of the NEL, the station is operated by SBS Transit. The station operates daily from about 6:00am to 12:15am. Train frequencies vary from 2.5 to 5.0 minutes. The station is underneath Upper Serangoon Road, near the junction with Upper Aljunied Road. The station has three entrances, serving Stamford American International School, Mount Vernon Columbarium and Mount Vernon Sanctuary, along with various residential developments in the area such as Avon Park. Woodleigh station will also serve the developing Bidadari public housing estate. The station is next to Woodleigh Residences – an upcoming integrated commercial and residential development part of the estate's future town centre which will include a bus interchange.
Each of the three entrances has a curved canopy with aluminium louvres; these are linked to the taxi stands and bus stops near the station. The windows at the entrances allow commuters to have a view of the station's surroundings. The station is designated as a Civil Defence (CD) shelter: it is designed to accommodate at least 7,500 people and withstand airstrikes and chemical attacks. Equipment essential for the operations in the CD shelter is mounted on shock absorbers to prevent damage during a bombing. When electrical supply to the shelter is disrupted, there are backup generators to keep operations going. The shelter has dedicated built-in decontamination chambers and dry toilets with collection bins that will send human waste out of the shelter.
Like all other NEL stations, the platforms are wheelchair-accessible. A tactile system, consisting of tiles with rounded or elongated raised studs, guides visually impaired commuters through the station. Dedicated tactile routes connect the station entrances to the platforms.
### Public artwork
Commissioned as part of the MRT network's Art-in-Transit programme, a showcase of public artworks on the MRT network, April Ng's Slow Motion is displayed on the station walls at the concourse level. A "snapshot" of Singapore's urban life, the work is printed on thirty zinc panels, and depicts commuters going about their daily lives.
Ng had previously used photo etching to create pictures of her friends as their farewell gifts; the gifts were well-received and hence she decided to use the technique again for Slow Motion. Ng used photos that showed the diversity of Singapore's culture, representing people of all races and ages. She took the photos herself, using LTA staff and the Woodleigh station construction crew as subjects, along with photos of her friends and her husband and son. The LTA wanted the Art-in-Transit works to have a "wayfinding" element to help guide commuters towards the platforms or out of the station, and Ng attempted to achieve this by making sure that some of the photos were of people moving in the appropriate direction.
Ng chose zinc instead of copper because the photos she took reproduced better in zinc. The choice of zinc fit in well with the station's design, which used zinc in the roof materials. Singapore's high humidity caused problems during the photo-engraving process. To create the images, a polymer film had to be applied to the zinc plates. The humidity caused the film to stick to the plates immediately, so that it could not be adjusted. Ng was able to resolve the problem by spraying the film and plates with water before applying the film.
|
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Constantine II of Scotland
| 1,169,551,957 |
10th-century king of Scotland (Alba)
|
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"952 deaths",
"9th-century Scottish monarchs",
"9th-century births",
"Burials in Iona",
"Culdees",
"House of Alpin",
"Monarchs who abdicated",
"Scottish abbots",
"Year of birth unknown"
] |
Causantín mac Áeda (Modern Gaelic: Còiseam mac Aoidh, anglicised Constantine II; born no later than 879; died 952) was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine's lifetime, was situated in modern-day Northern Scotland.
The core of the kingdom was formed by the lands around the River Tay. Its southern limit was the River Forth, northwards it extended towards the Moray Firth and perhaps to Caithness, while its western limits are uncertain. Constantine's grandfather Kenneth I of Scotland (Cináed mac Ailpín, died 858) was the first of the family recorded as a king, but as king of the Picts. This change of title, from king of the Picts to king of Alba, is part of a broader transformation of Pictland and the origins of the Kingdom of Alba are traced to Constantine's lifetime.
His reign, like those of his predecessors, was dominated by the actions of Viking rulers in the British Isles, particularly the Uí Ímair ("the grandsons of Ímar", or Ivar the Boneless). During Constantine's reign the rulers of the southern kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia, later the Kingdom of England, extended their authority northwards into the disputed kingdoms of Northumbria. At first, the southern rulers allied with him against the Vikings, but in 934 Æthelstan, unprovoked, invaded Scotland both by sea and land with a huge retinue that included four Welsh Kings. He ravaged southern Alba but there is no record of any battles. He had withdrawn by September. Three years later in 937, probably in retaliation for the invasion of Alba, King Constantine allied with Olaf Guthfrithson, King of Dublin, and Owain ap Dyfnwal, King of Strathclyde, but they were defeated at the battle of Brunanburh. In 943 Constantine abdicated the throne and retired to the Céli Dé (Culdee) monastery of St Andrews where he died in 952. He was succeeded by his predecessor's son Malcolm I (Máel Coluim mac Domnaill).
Constantine's reign of 43 years, exceeded in Scotland only by that of King William the Lion before the Union of the Crowns in 1603, is believed to have played a defining part in the gaelicisation of Pictland, in which his patronage of the Irish Céli Dé monastic reformers was a significant factor. During his reign, the words "Scots" and "Scotland" (Old English: Scottas, Scotland) are first used to mean part of what is now Scotland. The earliest evidence for the ecclesiastical and administrative institutions which would last until the Davidian Revolution also appears at this time.
## Pictland from Constantín mac Fergusa to Constantine I
The dominant kingdom in eastern Scotland before the Viking Age was the northern Pictish kingdom of Fortriu on the shores of the Moray Firth. By the 9th century, the Gaels of Dál Riata (Dalriada) were subject to the kings of Fortriu of the family of Constantín mac Fergusa (Constantine son of Fergus). Constantín's family dominated Fortriu after 789 and perhaps, if Constantín was a kinsman of Óengus I of the Picts (Óengus son of Fergus), from around 730. The dominance of Fortriu came to an end in 839 with a defeat by Viking armies reported by the Annals of Ulster in which King Uen of Fortriu and his brother Bran, Constantín's nephews, together with the king of Dál Riata, Áed mac Boanta, "and others almost innumerable" were killed. These deaths led to a period of instability lasting a decade as several families attempted to establish their dominance in Pictland. By around 848 Kenneth MacAlpin had emerged as the winner.
Later national myth made Kenneth MacAlpin the creator of the kingdom of Scotland, the founding of which was dated from 843, the year in which he was said to have destroyed the Picts and inaugurated a new era. The historical record for 9th-century Scotland is meagre, but the Irish annals and the 10th-century Chronicle of the Kings of Alba agree that Kenneth was a Pictish king, and call him "king of the Picts" at his death. The same style is used of Kenneth's brother Donald I (Domnall mac Ailpín) and sons Constantine I (Constantín mac Cináeda) and Áed (Áed mac Cináeda).
The kingdom ruled by Kenneth's descendants—older works used the name House of Alpin to describe them but descent from Kenneth was the defining factor, Irish sources referring to Clann Cináeda meic Ailpín ("the Clan of Kenneth MacAlpin")—lay to the south of the previously dominant kingdom of Fortriu, centred in the lands around the River Tay. The extent of Kenneth's nameless kingdom is uncertain, but it certainly extended from the Firth of Forth in the south to the Mounth in the north. Whether it extended beyond the mountainous spine of north Britain—Druim Alban—is unclear. The core of the kingdom was similar to the old counties of Mearns, Forfar, Perth, Fife, and Kinross. Among the chief ecclesiastical centres named in the records are Dunkeld, probably seat of the bishop of the kingdom, and Cell Rígmonaid (modern St Andrews).
Kenneth's son Constantine died in 876, probably killed fighting against a Viking army that had come north from Northumbria in 874. According to the king lists, he was counted as the 70th and last king of the Picts in later times.
## Britain and Ireland at the end of the 9th century
In 899 Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, died leaving his son Edward the Elder as ruler of England south of the River Thames and his daughter Æthelflæd and son-in-law Æthelred ruling the western, English part of Mercia. The situation in the Danish kingdoms of eastern England is less clear. King Eohric was probably ruling in East Anglia, but no dates can reliably be assigned to the successors of Guthfrith of York in Northumbria. It is known that Guthfrith was succeeded by Sigurd and Cnut, although whether these men ruled jointly or one after the other is uncertain. Northumbria may have been divided by this time between the Viking kings in York and the local rulers, perhaps represented by Eadulf, based at Bamburgh who controlled the lands from the River Tyne or River Tees to the Forth in the north.
In Ireland, Flann Sinna, married to Constantine's aunt Máel Muire, was dominant. The years around 900 represented a period of weakness among the Vikings and Norse-Gaels of Dublin. They are reported to have been divided between two rival leaders. In 894 one group left Dublin, perhaps settling on the Irish Sea coast of Britain between the River Mersey and the Firth of Clyde. The remaining Dubliners were expelled in 902 by Flann Sinna's son-in-law Cerball mac Muirecáin, and soon afterwards appeared in western and northern Britain.
To the southwest of Constantine's lands lay the kingdom of Strathclyde. This extended north into the Lennox, east to the River Forth, and south into the Southern Uplands. In 900 it was probably ruled by King Dyfnwal.
The situation of the Gaelic kingdoms of Dál Riata in western Scotland is uncertain. No kings are known by name after Áed mac Boanta. The Frankish Annales Bertiniani may record the conquest of the Inner Hebrides, the seaward part of Dál Riata, by Northmen in 849. In addition to these, the arrival of new groups of Vikings from northern and western Europe was still commonplace. Whether there were Viking or Norse-Gael kingdoms in the Western Isles or the Northern Isles at this time is debated.
## Early life
Áed, Constantine's father, succeeded Constantine's uncle and namesake Constantine I in 876 but was killed in 878. Áed's short reign is glossed as being of no importance by most king lists. Although the date of his birth is nowhere recorded, Constantine II cannot have been born any later than the year after his father's death, i.e., 879. His name may suggest that he was born a few years earlier, during the reign of his uncle Constantine I.
After Áed's death, there is a two-decade gap until the death of Donald II (Domnall mac Constantín) in 900 during which nothing is reported in the Irish annals. The entry for the reign between Áed and Donald II is corrupt in the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba, and in this case, the Chronicle is at variance with every other king list. According to the Chronicle, Áed was followed by Eochaid, a grandson of Kenneth MacAlpin, who is somehow connected with Giric, but all other lists say that Giric ruled after Áed and make great claims for him. Giric is not known to have been a kinsman of Kenneth's, although it has been suggested that he was related to him by marriage. The major changes in Pictland which began at about this time have been associated by Alex Woolf and Archie Duncan with Giric's reign.
Woolf suggests that Constantine and his younger brother Donald may have passed Giric's reign in exile in Ireland where their aunt Máel Muire was wife of two successive High Kings of Ireland, Áed Findliath and Flann Sinna. Giric died in 889. If he had been in exile, Constantine may have returned to Pictland where his cousin Donald II became king. Donald's reputation is suggested by the epithet dasachtach, a word used of violent madmen and mad bulls, attached to him in the 11th-century writings of Flann Mainistrech, echoed by his description in the Prophecy of Berchan as "the rough one who will think relics and psalms of little worth". Wars with the Viking kings in Britain and Ireland continued during Donald's reign and he was probably killed fighting yet more Vikings at Dunnottar in the Mearns in 900. Constantine succeeded him as king.
## Vikings and bishops
The earliest event recorded in the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba in Constantine's reign is an attack by Vikings and the plundering of Dunkeld "and all Albania" in his third year. This is the first use of the word Albania, the Latin form of the Old Irish Alba, in the Chronicle which until then describes the lands ruled by the descendants of Cináed as Pictavia.
These Norsemen could have been some of those who were driven out of Dublin in 902, or were the same group who had defeated Domnall in 900. The Chronicle states that the Northmen were killed in Srath Erenn, which is confirmed by the Annals of Ulster which records the death of Ímar grandson of Ímar and many others at the hands of the men of Fortriu in 904. This Ímar was the first of the Uí Ímair, the grandsons of Ímar, to be reported; three more grandsons of Ímar appear later in Constantín's reign. The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland contain an account of the battle, and this attributes the defeat of the Norsemen to the intercession of Saint Columba following fasting and prayer. An entry in the Chronicon Scotorum under the year 904 may possibly contain a corrupted reference to this battle.
The next event reported by the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba is dated to 906. This records that:
> King Constantine and Bishop Cellach met at the Hill of Belief near the royal city of Scone and pledged themselves that the laws and disciplines of the faith, and the laws of churches and gospels, should be kept pariter cum Scottis.
The meaning of this entry, and its significance, have been the subject of debate.
The phrase pariter cum Scottis in the Latin text of the Chronicle has been translated in several ways. William Forbes Skene and Alan Orr Anderson proposed that it should be read as "in conformity with the customs of the Gaels", relating it to the claims in the king lists that Giric liberated the church from secular oppression and adopted Irish customs. It has been read as "together with the Gaels", suggesting either public participation or the presence of Gaels from the western coasts as well as the people of the east coast. Finally, it is suggested that it was the ceremony that followed "the custom of the Gaels" and not the agreements.
The idea that this gathering agreed to uphold Irish laws governing the church has suggested that it was an important step in the gaelicisation of the lands east of Druim Alban. Others have proposed that the ceremony in some way endorsed Constantine's kingship, prefiguring later royal inaugurations at Scone. Alternatively, if Bishop Cellach was appointed by Giric, it may be that the gathering was intended to heal a rift between king and church.
## Return of the Uí Ímair
Following the events at Scone, there is little of substance reported for a decade. A story in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland, perhaps referring to events sometime after 911, claims that Queen Æthelflæd, who ruled in Mercia, allied with the Irish and northern rulers against the Norsemen on the Irish sea coasts of Northumbria. The Annals of Ulster record the defeat of an Irish fleet from the kingdom of Ulaid by Vikings "on the coast of England" at about this time.
In this period the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba reports the death of Cormac mac Cuilennáin, king of Munster, in the eighth year of Constantine's reign. This is followed by an undated entry which was formerly read as "In his time Domnall [i.e. Dyfnwal], king of the [Strathclyde] Britons died, and Domnall son of Áed was elected". This was thought to record the election of a brother of Constantine named Domnall to the kingship of the Britons of Strathclyde and was seen as early evidence of the domination of Strathclyde by the kings of Alba. The entry in question is now read as "...Dyfnwal... and Domnall son Áed king of Ailech died", this Domnall being a son of Áed Findliath who died on 21 March 915. Finally, the deaths of Flann Sinna and Niall Glúndub are recorded.
There are more reports of Viking fleets in the Irish Sea from 914 onwards. By 916 fleets under Sihtric Cáech and Ragnall, said to be grandsons of Ímar (that is, they belonged to the same Uí Ímair kindred as the Ímar who was killed in 904), were very active in Ireland. Sihtric inflicted a heavy defeat on the armies of Leinster and retook Dublin in 917. The following year Ragnall appears to have returned across the Irish sea intent on establishing himself as king at York. The only precisely dated event in the summer of 918 is the death of Queen Æthelflæd on 12 June 918 at Tamworth, Staffordshire. Æthelflæd had been negotiating with the Northumbrians to obtain their submission, but her death put an end to this and her successor, her brother Edward the Elder, was occupied with securing control of Mercia.
The northern part of Northumbria, and perhaps the whole kingdom, had probably been ruled by Ealdred son of Eadulf since 913. Faced with Ragnall's invasion, Ealdred came north seeking assistance from Constantine. The two advanced south to face Ragnall, and this led to a battle somewhere on the banks of the River Tyne, probably at Corbridge where Dere Street crosses the river. The Battle of Corbridge appears to have been indecisive; the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba is alone in giving Constantine the victory.
The report of the battle in the Annals of Ulster says that none of the kings or mormaers among the men of Alba were killed. This is the first surviving use of the word mormaer; other than the knowledge that Constantine's kingdom had its own bishop or bishops and royal villas, this is the only hint to the institutions of the kingdom.
After Corbridge, Ragnall enjoyed only a short respite. In the south, Alfred's son Edward had rapidly secured control of Mercia and had a burh constructed at Bakewell in the Peak District from which his armies could easily strike north. An army from Dublin led by Ragnall's kinsman Sihtric struck at north-western Mercia in 919, but in 920 or 921 Edward met with Ragnall and other kings. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that these kings "chose Edward as father and lord". Among the other kings present were Constantine, Ealdred son of Eadwulf, and the king of Strathclyde, Owain ap Dyfnwal. Here, again, a new term appears in the record, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the first time using the word scottas, from which Scots derives, to describe the inhabitants of Constantine's kingdom in its report of these events.
Edward died in 924. His realms appear to have been divided with the West Saxons recognising Ælfweard while the Mercians chose Æthelstan who had been raised at Æthelflæd's court. Ælfweard died within weeks of his father and Æthelstan was inaugurated as king of all of Edward's lands in 925.
## Æthelstan
By 926 Sihtric had evidently acknowledged Æthelstan as overlord, adopting Christianity and marrying a sister of Æthelstan at Tamworth. Within the year he appears to have forsaken his new faith and repudiated his wife, but before Æthelstan could respond, Sihtric died suddenly in 927. His kinsman, perhaps brother, Gofraid, who had remained as his deputy in Dublin, came from Ireland to take power in York, but failed. Æthelstan moved quickly, seizing much of Northumbria. In less than a decade, the kingdom of the English had become by far the greatest power in Britain and Ireland, perhaps stretching as far north as the Firth of Forth.
John of Worcester's chronicle suggests that Æthelstan faced opposition from Constantine, Owain, and the Welsh kings. William of Malmesbury writes that Gofraid, together with Sihtric's young son Olaf Cuaran fled north and received refuge from Constantine, which led to war with Æthelstan. A meeting at Eamont Bridge on 12 July 927 was sealed by an agreement that Constantine, Owain, Hywel Dda, and Ealdred would "renounce all idolatry": that is, they would not ally with the Viking kings. William states that Æthelstan stood godfather to a son of Constantine, probably Indulf (Ildulb mac Constantín), during the conference.
Æthelstan followed up his advances in the north by securing the recognition of the Welsh kings. For the next seven years, the record of events in the north is blank. Æthelstan's court was attended by the Welsh kings, but not by Constantine or Owain. This absence of record means that Æthelstan's reasons for marching north against Constantine in 934 are unclear.
Æthelstan's invasion is reported in brief by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and later chroniclers such as John of Worcester, William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, and Symeon of Durham add detail to that bald account. Æthelstan's army began gathering at Winchester by 28 May 934, and travelled north to Nottingham by 7 June. He was accompanied by many leaders, including the Welsh kings Hywel Dda, Idwal Foel, and Morgan ab Owain. From Mercia the army continued to Chester-le-Street, before resuming the march accompanied by a fleet of ships. Owain was defeated and Symeon states that the army went as far north as Dunnottar and Fortriu, while the fleet is said to have raided Caithness, by which a much larger area, including Sutherland, is probably intended. It is unlikely that Constantine's personal authority extended so far north, so the attacks were probably directed at his allies, comprising simple looting expeditions.
The Annals of Clonmacnoise state that "the Scottish men compelled [Æthelstan] to return without any great victory", while Henry of Huntingdon claims that the English faced no opposition. A negotiated settlement might have ended matters: according to John of Worcester, a son of Constantine was given as a hostage to Æthelstan and Constantine himself accompanied the English king on his return south. He witnessed a charter with Æthelstan at Buckingham on 13 September 934 in which he is described as subregulus, i.e., a king acknowledging Æthelstan's overlordship, the only place there is any record of such a description. However, there is no record of Constantine having ever submitted to Æthelstan's overlordship or that he considered himself such. The following year, Constantine was again in England at Æthelstan's court, this time at Cirencester where he appears as a witness, as the first of several kings, followed by Owain and Hywel Dda, who subscribed to the diploma. At Christmas of 935, Owain was once more at Æthelstan's court along with the Welsh kings, but Constantine was not. His return to England less than two years later would be in very different circumstances.
## Brunanburh and after
Following his departure from Æthelstan's court after 935, there is no further report of Constantine until 937. In that year, together with Owain and Olaf Guthfrithson of Dublin, Constantine invaded England. The resulting battle of Brunanburh—Dún Brunde—is reported in the Annals of Ulster as follows:
> a great battle, lamentable and terrible was cruelly fought... in which fell uncounted thousands of the Northmen. ...And on the other side, a multitude of Saxons fell; but Æthelstan, the king of the Saxons, obtained a great victory.
The battle was remembered in England a generation later as "the Great Battle". When reporting the battle, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle abandons its usual terse style in favour of a heroic poem vaunting the great victory. In this, the "hoary" Constantine, by now around 60 years of age, is said to have lost a son in the battle, a claim which the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba confirms. The Annals of Clonmacnoise give his name as Cellach. For all its fame, the site of the battle is uncertain and several sites have been advanced, with Bromborough on the Wirral the most favoured location.
Brunanburh, for all that it had been a famous and bloody battle, settled nothing. On 27 October 939 Æthelstan, the "pillar of the dignity of the western world" in the words of the Annals of Ulster, died at Malmesbury. He was succeeded by his brother Edmund, then aged 18. Æthelstan's realm, seemingly made safe by the victory of Brunanburh, collapsed in little more than a year from his death when Amlaíb returned from Ireland and seized Northumbria and the Mercian Danelaw. Edmund spent the remainder of Constantín's reign rebuilding his kingdom.
For Constantine's last years as king, there is only the meagre record of the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba. The death of Æthelstan is reported, as are two others. The first of these, in 938, is that of Dubacan, mormaer of Angus or son of the mormaer. Unlike the report of 918, on this occasion, the title mormaer is attached to a geographical area, but it is unknown whether the Angus of 938 was in any way similar to the later mormaerdom or earldom. The second death, entered with that of Æthelstan, is that of Eochaid mac Ailpín, who might, from his name, have been a kinsman of Constantín.
## Abdication and posterity
By the early 940s Constantine was an old man in his late sixties or seventies. The kingdom of Alba was too new to be said to have a customary rule of succession, but Pictish and Irish precedents favoured an adult successor descended from Kenneth MacAlpin. Constantine's surviving son Indulf, probably baptised in 927, would have been too young to be a serious candidate for the kingship in the early 940s, and the obvious heir was Constantine's nephew, Malcolm I. As Malcolm was born no later than 901, by the 940s he was no longer a young man, and may have been impatient. Willingly or not—the 11th-century Prophecy of Berchán, a verse history in the form of a supposed prophecy, states that it was not a voluntary decision—Constantine abdicated in 943 and entered a monastery, leaving the kingdom to Malcolm.
Although his retirement might have been involuntary, the Life of Cathróe of Metz and the Prophecy of Berchán portray Constantine as a devout king. The monastery to which Constantine retired, and where he is said to have been abbot, was probably that of St Andrews. This had been refounded in his reign and given to the reforming Céli Dé (Culdee) movement. The Céli Dé were subsequently to be entrusted with many monasteries throughout the kingdom of Alba until replaced in the 12th century by new orders imported from France.
Seven years later the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba says:
> [Malcolm I] plundered the English as far as the river Tees, and he seized a multitude of people and many herds of cattle: and the Scots called this the raid of Albidosorum, that is, Nainndisi. But others say that Constantine made this raid, asking of the king, Malcolm, that the kingship should be given to him for a week's time so that he could visit the English. In fact, it was Malcolm who made the raid, but Constantine incited him, as I have said.
Woolf suggests that the association of Constantine with the raid is a late addition, one derived from a now-lost saga or poem.
Constantine's death in 952 is recorded by the Irish annals, who enter it among ecclesiastics. His son Indulf would become king on Malcolm's death. The last of Constantine's certain descendants to be king in Alba was a great-grandson, Constantine III (Constantín mac Cuiléin). Another son had died at Brunanburh, and, according to John of Worcester, Amlaíb mac Gofraid was married to a daughter of Constantine. It is possible that Constantine had other children, but like the name of his wife, or wives, this has not been recorded.
The form of kingdom which appeared in Constantine's reign continued in much the same way until the Davidian Revolution in the 12th century. As with his ecclesiastical reforms, his political legacy was the creation of a new form of Scottish kingship that lasted for two centuries after his death.
## Family
The name of Constantine's wife is not known, however, they are known to have had at least 3 children:
- Ildulb mac Causantín (Indulf or Indulph)(died 962), king of Alba 954–962.
- Cellach, died in 937 in the Battle of Brunanburh.
- A daughter, name not recorded, married Amlaíb mac Gofraid.
|
58,172,335 |
Hurricane Lane (2018)
| 1,171,665,768 |
Category 5 Pacific hurricane
|
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"Articles containing video clips",
"August 2018 events in Oceania",
"August 2018 events in the United States",
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] |
Hurricane Lane was a powerful tropical cyclone that brought torrential rainfall and strong winds to Hawaii during late August 2018. The storm was the wettest on record in Hawaii, with peak rainfall accumulations of 58 inches (1,473 mm) along the eastern slopes of Mauna Kea. The twelfth named storm, sixth hurricane, fourth major hurricane, and the first of three Category 5 hurricanes of the record-breaking 2018 Pacific hurricane season, Lane originated from an area of low pressure that formed well southwest of Mexico on August 13. Tracking west through a region of favorable atmospheric and oceanic conditions, the system steadily intensified over the following days. It reached an initial peak as a Category 4 hurricane on August 18. Temporarily inhibited by more hostile conditions, the hurricane weakened slightly before regaining strength and reaching Category 5 status on August 22 to the south of Hawaii. Lane peaked with winds of 160 mph (255 km/h) and a barometric pressure of 926 mbar (hPa; 27.34 inHg). Thereafter, the hurricane turned north and slowed. During this period, torrential rains battered much of the Hawaiian Islands. Unfavorable conditions again affected the hurricane, and it degraded to a tropical depression by August 28 before dissipating the following day.
Lane prompted the issuance of hurricane watches and warnings for every island in Hawaii. From August 22 to 26, Lane brought heavy rain to much of the Hawaiian Windward Islands, which caused flash flooding and mudslides. Effects were most significant in and around Hilo where multiple neighborhoods were flooded. Across the Big Island, 159 structures were damaged or destroyed. Strong winds downed trees and power lines on Maui, and brush fires ignited on both Maui and Oahu. One fatality occurred on Kauai. Landslides and flooding damaged roads statewide; repairs concluded in April 2019. Total economic losses from the hurricane exceeded \$250 million. In September, President Donald Trump declared much of Hawaii a disaster area; the Federal Emergency Management Agency ultimately provided about \$10 million in aid.
## Meteorological history
On July 31, 2018, a tropical wave emerged off the west coast of Africa. It moved west across the Atlantic with little to no convection (shower and thunderstorm activity) before crossing Central America and entering the Eastern Pacific basin on August 8. Intermittent convective activity ignited on August 11, and an area of low pressure consolidated on August 13 about 880 mi (1,415 km) southwest of Baja California Sur. Increased organization of the system marked its development into a tropical depression, the fourteenth of the season, by 00:00 UTC on August 15. A large subtropical ridge to the north steered the nascent system on a general west to west-northwest course, a direction it would maintain for about a week. Based on Dvorak satellite intensity estimates, the system is estimated to have become a tropical storm later that day. At that time, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) assigned it the name Lane.
Favorable environmental conditions, including warm sea surface temperatures averaging 81.5–82.4 °F (27.5–28 °C) and low wind shear, fostered intensification. From August 16 to 18, Lane underwent rapid intensification. A defined inner-core with symmetrical outflow aloft organized by August 17, and microwave satellite imagery showed an eye at the lower levels of the cyclone. This marked its intensification to a hurricane, with winds exceeding 74 mph (119 km/h). By the morning of August 18, the storm displayed a well-defined 17 mi (27 km) wide eye surrounded by very deep convection. Around 12:00 UTC that day, Lane reached its initial peak intensity with winds of 140 mph (225 km/h), approximately 1,810 mi (2,915 km) southwest of Baja California Sur. This ranked it as a Category 4 on the Saffir–Simpson scale.
Early on August 19, the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) assumed responsibility of the storm after it crossed 140°W. Increasing wind shear disrupted the storm's organization, elongating convection east-to-west and opening the eyewall to the southwest. Despite repeated forecasts calling for the storm to continue weakening, Lane maintained its intensity throughout the day. Hurricane Hunters began aerial reconnaissance on August 20, and found the system to be stronger than indicated by satellite estimates. Approaching the western edge of the subtropical ridge, Lane's forward motion slowed and gradually shifted northwest. The hurricane's eye became distinct again on August 21 and accompanying convection became more intense. Reconnaissance data around 09:00 UTC showed continued strengthening, with a blend of observed data yielding an estimated intensity of 150 mph (240 km/h). Continued observations by hurricane hunters indicated Lane achieved Category 5 strength around 00:00 UTC on August 22. They observed winds of 168 mph (270 km/h) at this time; however, the CPHC assessed its intensity at 160 mph (255 km/h) based on a blend of observations and satellite estimates. Stepped frequency microwave radiometer (SFMR) data from hurricane hunters indicated peak surface winds of 177 mph (285 km/h) at around 06:00 UTC, and a dropsonde observed the central pressure fell to a minimum of 926 mbar (hPa; 926 mbar (27.34 inHg).
At its peak on August 22, Hurricane Lane was roughly 320 mi (515 km) southeast of South Point, Hawaii. Increased wind shear from an approaching upper-level trough induced weakening once more by August 23. Continued weakening the following day included degradation of Lane's eye and its convective structure became increasingly elliptical. During this time, the hurricane turned almost due north. Increasingly intense wind shear caused the cyclone's inner core to collapse. The circulation center became exposed with meager convection restricted to the northeast early on August 25, marking Lane's degradation to a tropical storm. The abrupt weakening coincided with the storm turning back west within the easterlies, away from the Hawaiian Islands. At its closest approach, Lane was located approximately 150 mi (240 km) south and west of the main islands. Although the storm itself continued to weaken, shower and thunderstorms to the east of its center resulted in torrential rain across Hawaii. From August 26 to 27, Lane fluctuated in strength between tropical storm and tropical depression status. Sporadic convection, sometimes intense, occurred during this period. On August 27, Lane briefly reorganized with a burst of convection over its center and banding features developing to the east. The next day, the convection became far removed from the center and with no further development, the system degenerated into a remnant low. The circulation became increasingly distorted and the cyclone dissipated later on August 29 as it was absorbed into an upper-level low. This upper-level low would eventually develop into a subtropical storm along the International Date Line on September 1, and it was given the designation 96C. This subtropical storm proceeded to move northward for another few days, before it was absorbed into another extratropical cyclone on September 4.
## Preparations
Hurricane Lane was the most powerful storm to threaten Hawaii since Hurricane Iniki in 1992. On August 21–22, as Lane approached the Hawaiian Islands, hurricane watches and warnings were issued for Maui County, Hawaii County, Oahu, and Kauai County. Uncertainty in how close the hurricane would approach led to watches and warnings covering a broad area. Increased forecaster confidence on August 24 led to a reduction in the extent of warnings. Degradation of the cyclone and its concurrent turn away from Hawaii on August 25–26 prompted the cessation of watches and warnings.
All school districts statewide closed between August 22 and 24, and all non-essential state employees on the Big Island and Maui were told to stay home on those days. Hawaiian Airlines waived change fees for all tickets involving Hawaii from August 21–26. American Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, and United Airlines cancelled more than two dozen domestic and international flights at Honolulu International Airport, Hilo International Airport, Kahului Airport, and Lihue Airport. All commercial harbors in Hilo and Kawaihae suspended operations on August 23. Numerous state parks and hiking trails closed under the threat of flooding and landslides.
On August 22, the United States Navy and Air Force repositioned assets statewide, primarily at the Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam, to protect them from the hurricane. Navy vessels not undergoing maintenance were ordered to sortie, though remain in close enough proximity for quick relief efforts if needed. Aircraft were stored in hangars or flown to airfields outside the hurricane's projected path. The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific closed on August 24 and 25 and tours at the USS Arizona Memorial were suspended. President Donald Trump issued an emergency declaration for Hawaii. The Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was authorized to coordinate disaster relief beginning on August 22 and continuing indefinitely. More than 3,900 FEMA personnel were deployed or already in the state to assist with recovery efforts. The Hawaii National Guard placed 280 active duty members—including 120 already responding to the Kīlauea volcano—on alert for relief efforts. A further 3,000 personnel from the state's Army National Guard and Air National Guard were available if requested. The Red Cross opened 36 shelters statewide, with 825 people using them by the time the hurricane arrived.
## Impact
Hurricane Lane produced record-breaking rain across the Hawaiian Islands. The resulting floods and landslides caused extensive damage and one fatality. More than 3,000 insurance claims for damage were made statewide and total economic losses exceeded \$250 million.
### The Big Island
Although Hurricane Lane remained west of the Big Island, tremendous amounts of rain battered eastern areas of the island from August 22 to 26. Accumulations were greatest along the eastern slopes of Mauna Kea with a maximum of 58 in (1,473 mm) at Kahūnā Falls in Akaka Falls State Park, as measured by a private weather station. This made Lane the wettest tropical cyclone on record in the state of Hawaii, surpassing the previous peak of 52 in (1,300 mm) during Hurricane Hiki in 1950. Lane's peak rainfall total was also the second-highest recorded from a tropical cyclone within the United States, surpassed only by Hurricane Harvey in the preceding year. Hilo saw its wettest three-day period on record with 31.85 in (809 mm) of precipitation observed; 15 in (380 mm) fell on August 24 alone, marking the fifth-wettest day in the city's recorded history. Additional storm-total accumulations include 49.48 in (1,257 mm) at Waiākea-Uka, 48.52 in (1,232 mm) at the USGS Saddle Quarry station, and 48.13 in (1,223 mm) at the Waiakea Experiment Station in Hilo. Precipitation in the Hilo Region was likely amplified by the terrain on the windward side of the island, the position of rainbands, the environment generated by the cyclone, and katabatic winds. Along the erupting Kīlauea volcano, the rain led to minor rockfalls. The porous nature of volcanic rock and land in the Puna District served to mitigate the amount of runoff.
Flooding closed numerous roads island-wide, including portions of Route 11 and 19 along the Belt Road. Multiple landslides covered portions of the Akoni Pule Highway. In and around Hilo, swollen rivers inundated homes and 100 people required rescue in the Reeds Island subdivision. Water reached a depth of 5 ft (1.5 m) along Kaiulani Street. Six classrooms at Waiakea Elementary School also flooded, as was much of the Hilo Bayfront. Residents in Hawaiian Acres were forced to abandon their cars on flooded roads and landslides destroyed two homes. Overflowing sewage pumps spilled 9,000,000 US gallons (34,000,000 L) of wastewater into Hilo Bay. A small waterspout occurred off the coast of Paukaa on August 23. Across the Big Island, 3 homes were destroyed, 23 homes and 3 businesses suffered major flood damage, while another 113 homes and 17 businesses experienced minor damage. In Kurtistown, a bonsai nursery suffered \$3–5 million in lost inventory, including 100 trees described as "world-class". Power outages affected 4,500 customers islandwide. Damage to public infrastructure exceeded \$20 million.
### Maui and Molokaʻi
Prior to Lane's arrival in Maui, western areas of the island were suffering from a drought. The island's mountainous terrain results in sharp rainfall gradients during summer months, limiting rainfall along western slopes and enhancing it on eastern slopes. As Lane approached on August 23, enhanced flow associated with it and a ridge to the north produced strong, dry winds in western Maui. Sustained winds reached 44 mph (71 km/h) in Makawao on this day. The strong winds downed trees and power lines, cutting power to 11,450 customers across Maui and Molokai. Downed power lines prevented evacuated residents from returning home in the wake of the storm. Fires sparked in areas with dry brush and grew rapidly, fanned by wind gusts estimated at 60–80 mph (97–129 km/h). The largest of the fires occurred in Kauaula Valley, burning 2,800 acres (11 km<sup>2</sup>) and injuring two people, one due to burns and another due to smoke inhalation. Firefighters observed fire whirls as tall as 30 ft (9.1 m). Six hundred people were evacuated due to wildfires overall, including some from a hurricane shelter. The fire destroyed 22 homes, leaving 60 people homeless; it also burned 30 vehicles. Flames reached the field track at Lahainaluna High School. Damage from the Kauaula Valley fire alone amounted to \$4.3 million. A second fire ignited near the Lahaina Civic Center, burning 800 acres (3.2 km<sup>2</sup>) and one home in Kaanapali. Twenty-six evacuees staying at Lahaina Intermediate School were forced to relocate due to the fire. Around a dozen agricultural businesses and farmers suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses from the fires, with some losing large portions of their crop and equipment. One cacao farm saw total defoliation of its trees from strong winds. The Ku’ia Agricultural Education Center lost 60 percent of its crop and 40 percent of its infrastructure. A third fire occurred near Maalaea, though it burned without incident. Adverse conditions prevented firefighters from utilizing helicopters and difficult roads slowed response time. Once winds from Lane subsided on August 26, firefighters were able to contain the blazes. The cause of the fires was never ascertained; however, the Maui County Police Department determined arson was not involved.
Precipitation across Maui predominantly fell on August 25, with a peak accumulation of 25.58 in (650 mm) in West Wailuaiki. Hana Airport and Haiku both observed approximately 10.5 in (270 mm) of rain. The rainfall aided firefighters in containing the brushfires. Multiple landslides occurred along the Hana and Kahekili highways. A bridge along the former near Keʻanae was overtopped by 3 ft (0.91 m) of water, damaging a parapet and part of the foundation. Around 25 signs along the Lahaina bypass were blown away or burned. In Lahaina, the local aquatics center suffered minor damage. A culvert failure near Haiku caused the formation of a sinkhole about 20 ft (6.1 m) deep. Three residences, each with families home, were left isolated. Repair costs associated with the sinkhole reached an estimated \$2–2.5 million.
### Kauaʻi and Oʻahu
Torrential precipitation fell across Kauaʻi between August 27 and 28 with a peak accumulation of 34.78 in (883 mm) on Mount Waialeale. Rivers and streams swelled due to heavy rains, especially in the Wainiha and Hanalei Valleys; waters submerged roads and taro patches. In Koloa, a man drowned after jumping into a river to save a dog. Water and debris forced road closures along Kūhiō Highway. Flooding also affected Hanalei Elementary School, prompting early dismissal of students. Gusty winds, reaching 55 mph (89 km/h) in Wainiha, caused power outages. Some of the hardest-hit areas were previously affected by record-breaking flooding in April.
The same rainbands that affected Kauaʻi reached Oʻahu during the morning hours of August 28; rainfall reached 9.81 in (249 mm) in Moanalua. The Kalihi Stream overflowed along the Kamehameha Highway, and the Ala Wai Canal flooded streets in Waikiki. Floodwaters blocked portions of Likelike Highway in Kalihi and Kanehoe. Gusty winds caused minor damage, primarily limited to fallen trees and fences. One home suffered roof damage in Makiki and power outages occurred in Kaimuki. Brush fires ignited on parts of Oʻahu but were not destructive. Prolonged damaging swells from Hurricanes Lane, Olivia, and Norman caused extensive erosion along the north shore of Oʻahu.
## Aftermath
Volunteers from All Hands and Hearts, Team Rubicon, and Southern Baptist Disaster Relief helped residents clean flood damage and remove mold. On August 29, the Central Pacific Bank announced a new disaster loan program that would provide \$1,000–10,000 to eligible applicants. Officials advised residents to stay out of coastal waters between Hāmākua Coast and Laupāhoehoe along the Big Island on September 4 due to runoff and sewage spills in Hilo Bay. President Trump signed a disaster declaration on September 27 for all counties except Honolulu, enabling the distribution of federal funding. FEMA ultimately provided roughly \$10 million in public assistance. Foodland Hawaii and Western Union provided up to \$40,000 to the American Red Cross of Hawaii. Bloodworks Northwest dispatched blood to Hawaii following the storm.
Power restoration was initially complicated by debris-covered roads and burned areas made off-limits. The Maui Electric Company contracted workers from the Hawaiian Electric Company to expedite repairs. Six poles providing electricity to Lahaina needed to be replaced. The Hawaii County Council reallocated \$10 million from its budget toward repairing county facilities. Repair costs for damaged roads and bridges across eastern areas of the island reached an estimated \$35 million. Five sections of embankments along the Belt Road needed to be reinforced with masonry. One landslide near Papaikou prompted the creation of a mechanically stabilized wall. Crews also stabilized the foundation of the Kapue Bridge. Excessive rainfall runoff damaged drainage systems along Route 200. Rehabilitation of damaged roads was completed in April 2019.
In Maui, the fires proved to be the most damaging consequence of the hurricane. On August 30 the Maui County Federal Credit Union opened disaster relief programs to fire victims in Lahaina. The Maui division of Habitat for Humanity assisted residents with rebuilding homes by purchasing appliances and providing vendor discounts, namely with lumber. Several local businesses donated to the agency. Two restaurant groups, Na Hoaloha ‘Ekolu and Old Lahaina Lu’au, donated \$50,0000 and \$10,000, respectively; the former group also held a fundraiser on October 13 during which 20 percent of sales from four restaurants would be donated to Habitat for Humanity. A resident of Honokowai organized a Facebook fundraiser that received more than \$150,000 in donations. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs approved \$35,000 in funds for 20 families—\$2,000 each to 11 families and \$1,000 each for 9 others. However, none of the aid had been distributed one year after the fires. A benefit concert on October 21 raised \$50,000, distributed evenly to ten families who did not have insurance or other means of financial assistance. Of the eleven homes destroyed in Kauaula Valley, only one was rebuilt by August 2019. Other residents remained in the care of relatives or at the Ka Hale A Ke Ola homeless shelter.
The combination of Kīlauea's eruption and Hurricane Lane negatively impacted tourism. Although visitor numbers were up from 2017, continuing a long-term trend, the 1.4 percent increase was the lowest since May 2016. In Maui, hotel occupancy fell 4.1 percent and overall visitor spending fell 2.6 percent during August 2018 compared to August 2017. The island's tourism returned to normal levels by the start of September.
In January 2019, at least 11 people were still homeless on Hawaii's Big Island as a result of Lane. The United States and Hawaii County governments provided \$3,075,000 and \$1,025,000, respectively, in April 2019 for the repair of the Piʻihonua Levee, which was breached by the storm. A water quality buoy offshore Hilo, which had vanished during the storm, was redeployed in July 2019. The United States Congress allocated \$1,195,089.75 to Hawai‘i County on June 11, 2020, for the repair of the Laupahoehoe Gulch Bridge along the Mamalahoa Highway in Hāmākua. Likewise, FEMA granted \$2,246,668.50 in aid on November 24, 2020, for the repair of a damaged section of the Old Mamalahoa Highway. Around \$1.5 million in FEMA funds were allocated for the repair of the Waianuenue Avenue Bridge. The Hawaii County Department of Public Works announced in September 2021 that it would begin the construction of a temporary bridge over the Makea Stream. The bridge was opened to traffic on January 8, 2022. Repair work for the Kolekole Bridge began in September 2021, and is currently ongoing.
Following Hurricane Lane and several other disasters, the city of Honolulu developed a plan to build a new emergency operations center in anticipation of more severe natural disasters. The project's cost is estimated at \$38.6 million and construction is slated to commence in October 2022.
## See also
- Other tropical cyclones with the same name
- Timeline of the 2018 Pacific hurricane season
- List of Hawaii hurricanes
- Hurricane Nina (1957) – A hurricane that threatened to make landfall in Kauai, causing significant damage and four deaths, before turning westward out to sea
- Hurricane Dot (1959) – A hurricane that passed south of the Big Island, before curving to the northwest and making landfall in Kauai
- Hurricane Iniki (1992) – A hurricane that became the most costly to hit Hawaii, making landfall in Kauai as a Category 4
- Hurricane Walaka (2018) – Another Category 5 hurricane that formed a month after Lane
- Hurricane Douglas (2020) – A hurricane that passed just north of the Hawaiian Islands two years after Lane
- 2018 Hawaii floods – A flooding event that had affected Hawaii in April
|
10,825,132 |
Changeling (film)
| 1,173,298,717 |
2008 film by Clint Eastwood
|
[
"2000s American films",
"2000s English-language films",
"2008 crime drama films",
"2008 films",
"2008 thriller films",
"American crime drama films",
"American films based on actual events",
"American thriller films",
"Crime films based on actual events",
"Drama films based on actual events",
"Fictional portrayals of the Los Angeles Police Department",
"Films about capital punishment",
"Films about child abduction in the United States",
"Films about child sexual abuse",
"Films about children",
"Films about death",
"Films about missing people",
"Films about pedophilia",
"Films about psychiatry",
"Films directed by Clint Eastwood",
"Films produced by Brian Grazer",
"Films produced by Clint Eastwood",
"Films produced by Robert Lorenz",
"Films produced by Ron Howard",
"Films scored by Clint Eastwood",
"Films set in 1928",
"Films set in 1935",
"Films set in Los Angeles",
"Films set in Vancouver",
"Films set in psychiatric hospitals",
"Films shot in Los Angeles",
"Films with screenplays by J. Michael Straczynski",
"Imagine Entertainment films",
"Malpaso Productions films",
"Relativity Media films",
"Thriller films based on actual events",
"Universal Pictures films"
] |
Changeling is a 2008 American mystery crime drama film directed, produced, and scored by Clint Eastwood and written by J. Michael Straczynski. The story was based on real-life events, specifically the 1928 Wineville Chicken Coop murders in Mira Loma, California. It stars Angelina Jolie as a woman united with a boy who she realizes is not her missing son. When she tries to demonstrate this to the police and city authorities, she is vilified as delusional, labeled as an unfit mother and confined to a psychiatric ward. The film explores themes of child endangerment, female disempowerment, political corruption, mistreatment of mental health patients and the repercussions of violence.
Working in 1983 as a special correspondent for the now defunct TV-Cable Week magazine, Straczynski first encountered the story of Christine Collins and her son from a Los Angeles City Hall contact. Over the ensuing years he kept researching the story but never felt he was ready to tackle it. Out of television writing for several years and practically blacklisted in the industry because he was considered difficult to work with, he returned to researching and then finally writing the story in 2006. Almost all of the film's script was drawn from thousands of pages of documentation. His first draft became the shooting script; it was his first film screenplay to be produced. Ron Howard had intended to direct the film, but scheduling conflicts led to his replacement by Eastwood. Howard and his Imagine Entertainment partner Brian Grazer produced Changeling alongside Malpaso Productions' Robert Lorenz and Eastwood. Universal Pictures financed and distributed the film.
Several actors campaigned for the leading role; ultimately, Eastwood decided that Jolie's face would suit the 1920s period setting. The film also stars Jeffrey Donovan, Jason Butler Harner, John Malkovich, Michael Kelly and Amy Ryan. While some characters are composites, most are based on actual people. Principal photography, which began on October 15, 2007 and concluded a few weeks later in December, took place in Los Angeles and other locations in southern California. Actors and crew noted that Eastwood's low-key direction resulted in a calm set and short working days. In post production, scenes were supplemented with computer-generated skylines, backgrounds, vehicles and people.
Changeling premiered to critical acclaim at the 61st Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2008. Additional festival screenings preceded a limited release in the United States on October 24, 2008, followed by a general release in North America on October 31, 2008; in the United Kingdom on November 26, 2008; and in Australia on February 5, 2009. Critical reaction was more mixed than at Cannes. While the acting and story were generally praised, the film's "conventional staging" and "lack of nuance" were criticized. Changeling earned \$113 million in box-office revenue worldwide—of which \$35.7 million came from the United States and Canada—and received nominations in three Oscar and eight BAFTA Award categories.
## Plot
In 1928 Los Angeles, single mother Christine Collins returns home to discover that her nine-year-old son, Walter, is missing. The Reverend Gustav Briegleb publicizes Christine's plight and rails against the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for its incompetence, corruption and the extrajudicial punishment meted out by its "Gun Squad," led by Chief James E. Davis. Several months after Walter's disappearance, the LAPD tells Christine that the boy has been found alive. Believing the positive publicity will negate recent criticism of the department, the LAPD organizes a public reunion. Although "Walter" claims he is Christine's son, she says he is not. Captain J.J. Jones, the head of the LAPD's Juvenile Division, insists the boy is Walter and pressures Christine into taking him home "on a trial basis."
After, Christine confronts Jones with physical discrepancies between "Walter" and her son, in particular that her son was several inches taller and uncircumcised. Unconvinced by her statements, Captain Jones arranges for a medical doctor to visit her. The doctor tells Christine that "Walter" is three inches shorter than before his disappearance because trauma has shrunk his spine and that the man who took Walter must have had him circumcised. A newspaper prints a story implying that Christine is an unfit mother; Briegleb tells Christine it was planted by police to discredit her. Both Walter's teacher and his dentist give Christine signed letters asserting that "Walter" is an impostor. Christine tells her story to the press; as a result, Jones sends her to Los Angeles County Hospital's "psychopathic ward". She befriends inmate Carol Dexter, who tells Christine she is one of several women who were sent there for challenging police authority. Dr. Steele diagnoses Christine as delusional and forces her to take mood-regulating pills. Steele says he will release Christine if she admits she was mistaken about "Walter." She refuses.
Detective Ybarra travels to a ranch in Wineville, Riverside County, to arrange the deportation of 15-year-old Sanford Clark to Canada. The boy's uncle named Gordon Stewart Northcott, has fled after a chance encounter with Ybarra, who mentions his business there as being a juvenile matter. Clark tells Ybarra that Northcott forced him to help kidnap and murder around twenty children and he identifies Walter as one of them. Jones tells Briegleb that Christine is in protective custody following a mental breakdown. Jones orders Clark's deportation, but Ybarra takes Clark to the murder site and tells him to dig where the bodies are buried. Clark hesitates, but he soon uncovers body parts. Briegleb secures Christine's release by showing Steele a newspaper story about the Wineville killings that names Walter as a possible victim. Under interrogation by Ybarra, Walter's impostor (whose real name is Arthur Hutchins) reveals that his motive was to secure transport to Los Angeles to see his favorite actor, Tom Mix and says the police told him to lie about being Christine's son. The police capture Northcott in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Meanwhile, Briegleb introduces Christine and her case to famed attorney "S.S." Hahn, who takes the case pro bono and quickly secures a court order for the release of other unjustly imprisoned women whom the police wanted to silence.
On the day of the city council's hearing in the case, Christine, Hahn and Briegleb arrive at Los Angeles City Hall, where they encounter thousands of protesters demanding answers from the city and decrying the LAPD. The hearing is intercut with scenes from Northcott's trial. The council concludes that Jones and Davis should be removed from duty and that extrajudicial internments by police must be stopped. Northcott's jury finds him guilty of murder and the judge sentences him to death by hanging.
Two years later, Christine has still not given up her search for Walter. Northcott sends her a message saying he is willing to admit to killing Walter on condition that Christine meets him before his execution. She visits Northcott, but he refuses to tell her if he killed her son. Northcott is executed the next day.
In 1935 David Clay, one of the boys assumed to have been killed, is found alive in Hesperia, California. He reveals that one of the boys with whom he was imprisoned was Walter and that Walter, another boy, and he escaped but were separated. David does not know whether Walter was recaptured, but he says Walter helped him escape, giving Christine hope that he could still be alive.
In the epilogue, we learn that after the hearing Captain Jones was suspended, Chief Davis was demoted and Los Angeles Mayor George Cryer chose not to run for re-election; that California's state legislature made it illegal to forcibly commit people to psychiatric facilities based solely on the word of authorities; that Rev. Briegleb continued to use his radio show to expose police misconduct and political corruption; that Wineville is said to have changed its name to Mira Loma to escape the stigma of the murders; and that Christine Collins reportedly never stopped searching for her son.
## Cast
## Historical context
In 1926, 13-year-old Sanford Clark was taken from his home in Saskatchewan (with the permission of his mother and reluctant father) by his uncle, 19-year-old Gordon Stewart Northcott. Northcott took Clark to a ranch in Wineville, California, where he regularly beat and sexually abused the boy—until August 1928, when the police took Clark into custody after his sister, 19-year-old Jessie Clark, informed them of the situation. Clark revealed that he was forced to help Northcott and his mother, Sarah Louise Northcott, in killing four young boys after Northcott had kidnapped and molested them. The police found no bodies at the ranch—Clark said they were dumped in the desert. However, Clark told police where the bodies had initially been buried on the Northcott property. Clark pointed out the initial burial location on the property and police discovered body parts, blood-stained axes and personal effects belonging to missing children. The Northcotts fled to Canada, but were arrested and extradited to the United States. Sarah Louise initially confessed to murdering Walter Collins, but she later retracted her statement which was rejected by the Judge; Gordon, who had confessed to killing four boys, did likewise.
Christine Collins (the mother of Walter Collins) was placed in Los Angeles County Hospital by Captain Jones. After her release, she sued the police department twice, winning the second lawsuit. Although Captain Jones was ordered to pay Collins \$10,800, he never did. A city council welfare hearing recommended that Jones and Chief of Police James E. Davis leave their posts, but both were later reinstated. The California State Legislature later made it illegal for the police to commit someone to a psychiatric facility without a warrant. Northcott was convicted of the murders of Lewis Winslow (12), Nelson Winslow (10) and an unidentified Mexican boy; after his conviction, Northcott was reported to have admitted to up to 20 murders, though he later denied the claim. Northcott was executed by hanging in 1930 at the age of 23. Sarah Louise was convicted of Walter Collins' murder and was sentenced to a lifetime in prison, but was later paroled by a judge after 12 years of incarceration. In 1930, the residents of Wineville changed the town's name to Mira Loma to escape the notoriety brought by the case.
## Production
### Development
Several years before writing Changeling, television screenwriter and former journalist J. Michael Straczynski was contacted by a source at Los Angeles City Hall. The source told him that officials were planning to burn numerous archive documents, among them "something [Straczynski] should see". The source had discovered a transcript of the city council welfare hearings concerning Collins and the aftermath of her son's disappearance. Straczynski became fascinated with the case; he carried out some research and wrote a spec script titled The Strange Case of Christine Collins. Several studios and independent producers optioned the script, but it never found a buyer. Straczynski felt he lacked the time needed to devote to making the story work and only returned to the project following the cancellation of his television series Jeremiah in 2004. After 20 years as a screenwriter and producer for television, Straczynski felt he needed a break from the medium, so he spent a year researching the Collins case through archived criminal, county courthouse, city hall and city morgue records. He said he collected around 6,000 pages of documentation on Collins and the Wineville murders, before learning enough to "figure out how to tell it". He wrote the first draft of the new script in 11 days. Straczynski's agent passed the script to producer Jim Whitaker. He forwarded it to Ron Howard, who optioned it immediately.
In June 2006, Universal Studios and Howard's Imagine Entertainment bought the script for Howard to direct. The film was on a short list of projects for Howard after coming off the commercial success of The Da Vinci Code. In March 2007, Universal fast-tracked the production. When Howard chose Frost/Nixon and Angels & Demons as his next two directing projects, it became clear he could not direct Changeling until 2009. After Howard stepped down, it looked as if the film would not be made, despite admiration for the script in the industry. Howard and Imagine partner Brian Grazer began looking for a new director to helm the project; they pitched the film to Eastwood in February 2007, and immediately after reading the script he agreed to direct. Eastwood said his memories of growing up during the Great Depression meant that whenever a project dealing with the era landed in his hands, he "redoubled his attention" to it. Eastwood also cited the script's focus on Collins—rather than the "Freddy Krueger" story of Northcott's crimes—as a factor in deciding to make the film.
### Writing
Straczynski viewed "sitting down and ferreting out [the] story" as a return to his journalistic roots. He also drew on his experience writing crime drama for the procedural elements of the plot. Straczynski said he had gathered so much information about the case that it was difficult to work out how to tell it. To let the story develop at its own pace, he put the project aside to allow himself to forget the less essential elements and bring into focus the parts he wanted to tell. He described what he saw as two overlaid triangles: "the first triangle, with the point up, is Collins' story. You start with her, and her story gets broader and broader and begins having impact from all kinds of places. The overlay on that was an upside down triangle with the base on top, which is the panorama of Los Angeles at that time—1928. And it begins getting narrower and narrower toward the bottom, bearing down on her." Once Straczynski saw this structure, he felt he could write the story. He chose to avoid focusing on the atrocities of the Wineville murders in favor of telling the story from Collins' perspective; Straczynski said she was the only person in the story without a hidden agenda, and it was her tenacity—as well as the legacy the case left throughout California's legal system—that had attracted him to the project. He said, "My intention was very simple: to honor what Christine Collins did."
With Collins as the inspiration, Straczynski said he was left with a strong desire "to get it right"; he approached it more like "an article for cinema" than a regular film. He stuck close to the historical record because he felt the story was bizarre enough that adding too many fictional elements would call into question its integrity. Straczynski claimed that 95% of the script's content came from the historical record; he said there were only two moments at which he had to "figure out what happened", due to the lack of information in the records. One was the sequence set in the psychopathic ward, for which there was only limited after-the-fact testimony. Straczynski originally wrote a shorter account of Collins' incarceration. His agent suggested the sequence needed development, so Straczynski extrapolated events based on standard practice in such institutions at the time. It was at this stage he created composite character Carol Dexter, who was intended to symbolize the women of the era who had been unjustly committed. Straczynski cited his academic background, including majors in psychology and sociology, as beneficial to writing the scenes, specifically one in which Steele distorts Collins' words to make her appear delusional. Straczynski worked at making the dialogue authentic, while avoiding an archaic tone. He cited his experience imagining alien psyches when writing Babylon 5 as good practice for putting himself in the cultural mindset of the 1920s.
Straczynski described specific visual cues in the screenplay, such as in Sanford Clark's confession scene. Clark's flashback to a falling axe is juxtaposed with the crumbling ash from Detective Ybarra's cigarette. The image served two purposes: it was an aesthetic correlation between the axe and the cigarette, and it suggested that Ybarra was so shocked by Clark's confession that he had not moved or even smoked in the 10 minutes Clark took to tell his story. As with most of the cues, Eastwood shot the scene as written. To ensure the veracity of the story, Straczynski incorporated quotes from the historical record, including court testimony, into the dialogue. He also included photocopies of news clippings every 15–20 pages in the script to remind people the story was a true one. So the credits could present the film as "a true story" rather than as "based on" one, Straczynski went through the script with Universal's legal department, providing attribution for every scene. Straczynski believed the only research error he made was in a scene that referenced Scrabble, pre-dating its appearance on the market by two years. He changed the reference to a crossword puzzle. He did not alter the shooting script any further from his first draft; though Straczynski had written two more drafts for Howard, Eastwood insisted the first draft be filmed as he felt it had the clearest voice of the three. Straczynski said, "Clint's funny—if he likes it, he'll do it, that's the end of the discussion. When I met with him to ask, 'Do you want any changes, do you want any things cut, added to, subtracted from, whatever', he said, 'No. The draft is fine. Let's shoot the draft.'"
Among the changes Straczynski made from the historical record was to omit Northcott's mother—who participated in the murders—from the story, as well as the fact that Northcutt had sexually abused his victims. He also depicted Northcott's trial as taking place in Los Angeles, though it was held in Riverside. The title is derived from Western European folklore and refers to a creature—a "changeling"—left by fairies in place of a human child. Due to the word's association with the supernatural, Straczynski intended it only as a temporary title, believing he would be able to change it later on.
### Casting
The filmmakers retained the names of the real-life protagonists, though several supporting characters were composites of people and types of people from the era. Angelina Jolie plays Christine Collins; five actresses campaigned for the role, including Reese Witherspoon and Hilary Swank. Howard and Grazer suggested Jolie; Eastwood agreed, believing that her face fit the period setting. Jolie joined the production in March 2007. She was initially reluctant because, as a mother, she found the subject matter distressing. She said she was persuaded by Eastwood's involvement, and the screenplay's depiction of Collins as someone who recovered from adversity and had the strength to fight the odds. Jolie found playing Collins very emotional. She said the most difficult part was relating to the character, because Collins was relatively passive. Jolie ultimately based her performance on her own mother, who died in 2007. For scenes at the telephone exchange, Jolie learned to roller skate in high heels, a documented practice of the period.
Jeffrey Donovan portrays Captain J. J. Jones, a character Donovan became fascinated with because of the power Jones wielded in the city. The character quotes the real Jones' public statements throughout the film, including the scene in which he has Collins committed. Donovan's decision to play Jones with a slight Irish accent was his own. John Malkovich joined the production in October 2007 as Reverend Gustav Briegleb. Eastwood cast Malkovich against type as he felt this would bring "a different shading" to the character. Jason Butler Harner plays Gordon Stewart Northcott, whom Harner described as "a horrible, horrible, wonderful person". He said Northcott believes he shares a connection with Collins due to their both being in the headlines: "In his eyes, they're kindred spirits." Harner landed the role after one taped audition. Casting director Ellen Chenoweth explained that Eastwood chose Harner over more well-known actors who wanted the part because Harner displayed "more depth and variety" and was able to project "a slight craziness" without evoking Charles Manson. Eastwood was surprised by the resemblance between Northcott and Harner, saying they looked "very much" alike when Harner was in makeup.
As Harner did for the Northcott role, Amy Ryan auditioned via tape for the role of Carol Dexter. She cited the filming of a fight scene during which Eastwood showed her "how to throw a movie punch" as her favorite moment of the production. Michael Kelly portrays Detective Lester Ybarra, who is a composite of several people from the historical record. Kelly was chosen based on a taped audition; he worked around scheduling conflicts with the television series Generation Kill, which he was filming in Africa at the same time. Geoff Pierson plays Sammy Hahn, a defense attorney known for taking high-profile cases. He represents Collins and in doing so plants the seeds for overturning "Code 12" internments, used by police to jail or commit those deemed difficult or an inconvenience. Code 12 was often used to commit women without due process. Colm Feore portrays Chief of Police James E. Davis, whose backstory was changed from that of his historical counterpart. Reed Birney plays Mayor George E. Cryer; Denis O'Hare plays composite character Doctor Jonathan Steele; Gattlin Griffith plays Walter Collins; and Devon Conti plays his supplanter, Arthur Hutchins. Eddie Alderson plays Northcott's nephew and accomplice, Sanford Clark.
### Filming
#### Locations and design
James J. Murakami supervised the production design. Location scouting revealed that many of the older buildings in Los Angeles had been torn down, including the entire neighborhood where Collins lived. Suburban areas in San Dimas, San Bernardino and Pasadena doubled for 1920s Los Angeles instead. The Old Town district of San Dimas stood in for Collins' neighborhood and some adjacent locales. Murakami said Old Town was chosen because very little had changed since the 1920s. It was used for interiors and exteriors; the crew decorated the area with a subdued color palette to evoke feelings of comfort. For some exterior shots they renovated derelict properties in neighborhoods of Los Angeles that still possessed 1920s architecture. The crew staged the third floor of the Park Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles into a replica of the 1920s Los Angeles City Council chambers.
The 1918 Santa Fe Depot in San Bernardino doubled for the site of Collins' reunion with "Walter". The production filmed scenes set at San Quentin in the community. A small farm on the outskirts of Lancaster, California, stood in for the Wineville chicken ranch. The crew recreated the entire ranch, referencing archive newspaper photographs and visits to the original ranch to get a feel for the topography and layout. Steve Lech, president of the Riverside Historical Society, was employed as a consultant and accompanied the crew on its visits.
The production sourced around 150 vintage motor cars, dating from 1918 to 1928, from collectors throughout Southern California. In some cases the cars were in too good a condition, so the crew modified them to make the cars appear like they were in everyday use; they sprayed dust and water onto the bodywork and to "age" some of the cars they applied a coating that simulated rust and scratches. The visual effects team retouched shots of Los Angeles City Hall—on which construction was completed in 1928—to remove weathering and newer surrounding architecture. Costume designer Deborah Hopper researched old Sears department store catalogs, back issues of Life magazine and high-school yearbooks to ensure the costumes were historically accurate. Hopper sourced 1920s clothing for up to 1,000 people; this was difficult because the fabrics of the period were not resilient. She found sharp wool suits for the police officers. The style for women of all classes was to dress to create a boyish silhouette, using dropped waist dresses, cloche hats that complemented bob cut hairstyles, fur-trimmed coats and knitted gloves. Jolie said the costumes her Collins character wore formed an integral part of her approach to the character. Hopper consulted historians and researched archive footage of Collins to replicate her look. Hopper dressed Jolie in austere grays and browns with knitted gloves, wool serge skirts accompanying cotton blouses, Mary Jane shoes, crocheted corsages and Art Deco jewelry. In the 1930s sequences at the end of the film, Jolie's costumes become more shapely and feminine, with a decorative stitching around the waistline that was popular to the era.
#### Principal photography
Principal photography began on October 15, 2007, finishing two days ahead of its 45-day schedule on December 14, 2007. Universal Pictures provided a budget of \$55 million. The film was Eastwood's first for a studio other than Warner Bros. since Absolute Power (1997). Filming mainly took place on the Universal Studios backlot in Los Angeles. The backlot's New York Street and Tenement Street depicted downtown Los Angeles. Tenement Street also stood in for the exterior of Northcott's sister's Vancouver apartment; visual effects added the city to the background. The production also used the Warner Bros. backlot in Burbank, California.
Eastwood had clear childhood memories of 1930s Los Angeles and attempted to recreate several details in the film: the town hall, at the time one of the tallest buildings in the city; the city center, which was one of the busiest in the world; and the "perfectly functioning" Pacific Electric Railway, the distinctive red streetcars of which feature closely in two scenes. The production used two functioning replica streetcars for these shots, with visual effects employed for streetcars in the background.
Eastwood is known for his economical film shoots; his regular camera operator, Steve Campanelli, indicated the rapid pace at which Eastwood films—and his intimate, near-wordless direction—also featured during Changeling's shoot. Eastwood limited rehearsals and takes to garner more authentic performances. Jolie said, "You've got to get your stuff together and get ready because he doesn't linger ... He expects people to come prepared and get on with their work." Campanelli sometimes had to tell Jolie what Eastwood wanted from a scene, as Eastwood talked too softly. To provide verisimilitude to certain scenes, Eastwood sometimes asked Jolie to play them quietly, as if just for him. At the same time he would ask his camera operator to start filming discreetly, without Jolie's seeing it.
Malkovich noted Eastwood's direction as "redefining economical", saying Eastwood was quiet and did not use the phrases "action" and "cut". He said, "Some [directors]—like Clint Eastwood or Woody Allen—don't really like to be tortured by a million questions. They hire you, and they figure you know what to do and you should do it ... And that's fine by me." Ryan also noted the calmness of the set, observing that her experiences working with director Sidney Lumet on 100 Centre Street and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead were useful due to his sharing Eastwood's preference for filming a small number of takes.
Donovan said Eastwood seldom gave him direction other than to "go ahead", and that Eastwood did not even comment on his decision to play Jones with a slight Irish accent: "Actors are insecure and they want praise, but he's not there to praise you or make you feel better ... All he's there to do is tell the story and he hired actors to tell their story." Gaffer Ross Dunkerley said he often had to work on a scene without having seen a rehearsal: "Chances are we'll talk about it for a minute or two and then we're executing it."
The original edit was almost three hours long; to hone it to 141 minutes, Eastwood cut material from the first part of the film to get to Collins' story sooner. To improve the pacing he also cut scenes that focused on Reverend Briegleb. Eastwood deliberately left the ending of the film ambiguous to reflect the uncertain fates of several characters in the history. He said that while some stories aimed to finish at the end of a film, he preferred to leave it open-ended.
#### Cinematography
Changeling was director of photography Tom Stern's sixth film with Eastwood. Despite the muted palette, the film is more colorful than some previous Stern–Eastwood collaborations. Stern referenced a large book of period images. He attempted to evoke Conrad Hall's work on Depression-set film The Day of the Locust, as well as match what he called the "leanness" of Mystic River's look. Stern said the challenge was to make Changeling as simple as possible to shoot. To focus more on Jolie's performance, he tended to avoid the use of fill lighting. Eastwood did not want the flashbacks to Northcott's ranch to be too much like a horror film—he said the focus of the scene was the effect of the crimes on Sanford Clark—so he avoided graphic imagery in favor of casting the murders in shadow.
Stern shot Changeling in anamorphic format on 35mm film using Kodak Vision 500T 5279 film stock. The film was shot on Panavision cameras and C-Series lenses. Due to the large number of sets, the lighting rigs were more extensive than on other Eastwood productions. The crew made several ceilings from bleached muslin tiles. Stern lit the tiles from above to produce a soft, warm light that was intended to evoke the period through tones close to antique and sepia. The crew segregated the tiles using fire safety fabric Duvatyn to prevent light spilling onto neighboring clusters. The key light was generally softer to match the warm tones given off by the toplights. Stern used stronger skypans—more intense than is commonly used for key lighting—to reduce contrasts when applying daytime rain effects, as a single light source tended to produce harder shadows.
Stern lit scenes filmed at the Park Plaza Hotel using dimmable HMI and tungsten lights rigged within balloon lights. This setup allowed him to "dial in" the color he wanted, as the blend of tones from the tungsten fixtures, wooden walls and natural daylight made it difficult to illuminate the scenes using HMIs or daylight exclusively. Stern said the period setting had little effect overall on his lighting choices because the look was mostly applied in the production design and during digital intermediate (DI), the post-production digital manipulation of color and lighting. Technicolor Digital Intermediates carried out the DI. Stern supervised most of the work via e-mailed reference images as he was in Russia shooting another film at the time. He was present at the laboratory for the application of the finishing touches.
### Visual effects
#### Overview
CIS Vancouver and Pac Title created most of the visual effects, under the overall supervision of Michael Owens. CIS' work was headed by Geoff Hancock and Pac Title's by Mark Freund. Each studio created around 90 shots. Pac Title focused primarily on 2D imagery; VICON House of Moves handled the motion capture. The effects work consisted mainly of peripheral additions: architecture, vehicles, crowds and furniture. CIS used 3D modeling package Maya to animate city scenes before rendering them in mental ray; they generated matte paintings in Softimage XSI and Maya and used Digital Fusion for some 2D shots. The team's work began with research into 1928 Los Angeles; they referenced historical photographs and data on the urban core's population density. CIS had to generate mostly new computer models, textures and motion capture because the company's existing effects catalog consisted primarily of modern era elements. CIS supplemented exteriors with skylines and detailed backdrops. They created set extensions digitally and with matte paintings. CIS created city blocks by using shared elements of period architecture that could be combined, rearranged and restacked to make buildings of different widths and heights; that way, the city could look diverse with a minimum of textural variation. CIS referenced vintage aerial photographs of downtown Los Angeles so shots would better reflect the geography of the city, as Hancock felt it important to have a consistency that would allow audiences to understand and become immersed in the environment.
To maintain the rapid shooting pace Eastwood demanded, Owens chose to mostly avoid using bluescreen technology, as the process can be time-consuming and difficult to light. He instead used rotoscoping, the process whereby effects are drawn directly onto live action shots. Rotoscoping is more expensive than bluescreen, but the technique had proved reliable for Eastwood when he made extensive use of it on Flags of Our Fathers (2006) to avoid shooting against bluescreen on a mountaintop. For Owens, the lighting was better, and he considered rotoscoping to be "faster, easier and more natural". Owens used bluescreen in only a few locations, such as at the ends of backlot streets where it would not impact the lighting. The Universal Studios backlot had been used for so many films that Owens thought it important to disguise familiar architecture as much as possible, so some foreground and middle distance buildings were swapped. One of his favorite effects shots was a scene in which Collins exits a taxi in front of the police station. The scene was filmed almost entirely against bluescreen; only Jolie, the sidewalk, the taxi cab and an extra were real. The completed shot features the full range of effects techniques used in the film: digital extras in the foreground, set extensions and computer-generated vehicles.
#### Digital extras
For crowd scenes, CIS supplemented the live-action extras with digital pedestrians created using motion capture. House of Moves captured the movements of five men and four women during a two-day shoot supervised by Hancock. The motion capture performers were coached to make the "small, formal and refined" movements that Owens said reflected the general public's conduct at the time. CIS combined the motion data with the Massive software package to generate the interactions of the digital pedestrians. The use of Massive presented a challenge when it came to blending digital pedestrians with live-action extras who had to move from the foreground into the digital crowd. Massive worked well until this stage, when the effects team had to move the digital pedestrians to avoid taking the live-action extras out of the shot. To allow close-ups of individual Massive extras, the effects team focused on their faces and walking characteristics. Hancock explained, "We wanted to be able to push Massive right up to the camera and see how well it held up. In a couple of shots the characters might be 40 feet away from the camera, about 1⁄5 screen height. The bigger the screen is, the bigger the character. He could be 10 feet tall, so everything, even his hair, better look good!" Typically, a limited number of motion performances are captured and Massive is used to create further variety, such as in height and walking speed. Because the digital extras were required to be close to the foreground, and to integrate them properly with the live action extras, House of Moves captured twice as much motion data than CIS had used on any other project. CIS created nine distinct digital characters. To eliminate inaccuracies that develop when creating a digital extra of different proportions to the motion capture performer, CIS sent nine skeleton rigs to House of Moves before work began. This gave House of Moves time to properly adapt the rigs to its performers, resulting in motion capture data that required very little editing in Massive. CIS wrote shaders for their clothing; displacement maps in the air shader were linked with the motion capture to animate wrinkles in trousers and jackets.
#### Closing sequence
Forgoing the closure favored by its contemporaries, Changeling's final sequence reflects Collins' renewed hope that Walter is alive. The shot is a two-and-a-half-minute sequence showing Collins' walking off to become lost in a crowd. The sequence is representative of the range of effects that feature throughout the film; Los Angeles itself is presented as a major character, brought to life by unobtrusive peripheral imagery that allows the viewer to focus on the story and the emotional cues. The "hustle and bustle" of the sequence was required to convey that downtown Los Angeles in 1935 was a congested urban center. In the closing shot, the camera tilts up to reveal miles of city blocks, pedestrians on the streets, cars going by and streetcars running along their tracks. The version of the film that screened at Cannes did not include this sequence; the scene faded to black as Collins walked away. The new 4,000-frame shot was Owens' idea. He felt the abrupt cut to black pulled the viewer out of the film too quickly, and that it left no room for emotional reflection. Owens said, "There is a legend at the end before the credits. The legend speaks to what happened after the fact, and I think you need to just swallow that for a few moments with the visual still with you." Owens told Eastwood the film should end like Chinatown (1974), in which the camera lifts to take in the scene: "The camera booms up and she walks away from us from a very emotional, poignant scene at the end, walks away into this mass of people and traffic. It's very hopeful and sad at the same time."
Owens did not have time to complete the shot before the Cannes screenings, but afterwards he used cineSync to conduct most of the work from home. The shot includes two blocks of computer-generated buildings that recede into the distance of a downtown set extension. As Collins disappears into the crowd about a minute into the shot, the live footage is gradually joined with more digital work. The streetcars, tracks and power lines were all computer generated. Live-action extras appear for the first minute of the shot before being replaced by digital ones. The shot was made more complicated by the need to add Massive extras. Owens constructed the scene by first building the digital foreground around the live action footage. He then added the background before filling the scene with vehicles and people.
### Music
Eastwood composed Changeling's jazz-influenced score. Featuring lilting guitars and strings, it remains largely low-key throughout. The introduction of brass instruments evokes film noir, playing to the film's setting in a city controlled by corrupt police. The theme shifts from piano to a full orchestra, and as the story develops, the strings become more imposing, with an increasing number of sustains and rises. Eastwood introduces voices reminiscent of those in a horror film score during the child murder flashbacks. The score was orchestrated and conducted by Lennie Niehaus. It was released on CD in North America on November 4, 2008, through record label Varèse Sarabande.
## Themes
### Disempowerment of women
Changeling begins with an abduction, but largely avoids framing the story as a family drama to concentrate on a portrait of a woman whose desire for independence is seen as a threat to male-dominated society. The film depicts 1920s Los Angeles as a city in which the judgment of men takes precedence; women are labeled "hysterical and unreliable" if they dare to question it. Rather than "an expression of feminist awareness", David Denby argues, the film—like Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby—is "a case of awed respect for a woman who was strong and enduring". The portrait of a vulnerable woman whose mental state is manipulated by the authorities was likened to the treatment of Ingrid Bergman's character in Gaslight (1944), who also wondered if she might be insane; Eastwood cited photographs that show Collins smiling with the child she knows is not hers. Like many other women of the period who were deemed disruptive, Collins is forced into the secret custody of a mental institution. The film shows that psychiatry became a tool in the gender politics of the era, only a few years after women's suffrage in the United States was guaranteed by the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. As women ceased to be second-class citizens and began to assert their independence, the male establishment used mental institutions in an effort to disempower them; in common with other unmanageable women, Collins is subjected to medical treatment designed to break her spirit and compel obedience, though some of the treatments, specifically the electroconvulsive therapy depicted in the film, did not exist ca. 1928–1930. The film quotes the testimony of the psychiatrist who treated Collins. Eastwood said the testimony evidenced how women were prejudged and that the behavior of the police reflected how women were seen at the time. He quoted the words of the officer who sent Collins to the mental facility: Something is wrong with you. You're an independent woman.'" Clint Eastwood said, "The period could not accept [it]".
### Corruption in political hierarchies
Romantic notions of the 1920s as a more innocent period are put aside in favor of depicting Los Angeles as ruled by a despotic political infrastructure, steeped in sadistic, systematic corruption throughout the city government, police force and medical establishment. In addition to being a Kafkaesque drama about the search for a missing child, the film also focuses on issues relevant to the modern era. Eastwood noted a correlation between the corruption of 1920s Los Angeles and that of the modern era, manifesting in the egos of a police force that thinks it cannot be wrong and the way in which powerful organizations justify the use of corruption. "[The] Los Angeles police department every so often seems to go into a period of corruption," he said, "It's happened even in recent years ... so it was nice to comment [on that] by going back to real events in 1928." Eastwood said that Los Angeles had always been seen as "glamorous", but he believed there had never been a "golden age" in the city. In Changeling, this dissonance manifests in the actions of Arthur Hutchins, who travels to the city in the hope of meeting his favorite actor. Eastwood said that given the corruption that the story covers, Hutchins' naïvete seemed "bizarre". As a lesson in democratic activism, the film shows what it takes to provoke people to speak against unchecked authority, no matter the consequences. Richard Brody of The New Yorker said this rang as true for 1928 Los Angeles as it did for Poland in 1980 or Pakistan in 2008. The film directly quotes Chief of police James E. Davis: "We will hold trial on gunmen in the streets of Los Angeles. I want them brought in dead, not alive, and I will reprimand any officer who shows the least bit of mercy to a criminal."
### Children and violence
Changeling sits with other late-period Eastwood films in which parenting—and the search for family—is a theme. It makes literal the parental struggle to communicate with children. It can also be seen as a variation of the Eastwood "revenge movie" ethic; in this case, the "avenging grunt" transforms into a courteous woman who only once makes a foul-mouthed outburst. Eastwood dealt with themes of child endangerment in A Perfect World (1993) and Mystic River (2003). Changeling is a thematic companion piece to Mystic River, which also depicted a community contaminated by an isolated, violent act against a child—a comparison with which Eastwood agreed. He said that showing a child in danger was "about the highest form of drama you can have", as crimes against them were to him the most horrible. Eastwood explained that crimes against children represented a theft of lives and innocence. He said, "When [a crime] comes along quite as big as this one, you question humanity. It never ceases to surprise me how cruel humanity can be." Samuel Blumenfeld of Le Monde said the scene featuring Northcott's execution by hanging was "unbearable" due to its attention to detail; he believed it one of the most convincing pleas against the death penalty imaginable. Eastwood noted that for a supporter of capital punishment, Northcott was an ideal candidate and that in a perfect world the death penalty might be an appropriate punishment for such a crime. He said that crimes against children would be at the top of his list for justifications of capital punishment, but that whether one were pro- or anti-capital punishment, the barbarism of public executions must be recognized. Eastwood argued that in putting the guilty party before his victims' families, justice may be done, but after such a spectacle the family would find it hard to find peace. The scene's realism was deliberate: the audience hears Northcott's neck breaking, his body swings and his feet shake. It was Eastwood's intention to make it unbearable to watch.
## Release
### Strategy
Changeling premiered in competition at the 61st Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2008. The film was Eastwood's fifth to enter competition at the festival. Its appearance was not part of the original release plan. Universal executives had been looking forward to the festival without the worry associated with screening a film, until Eastwood made arrangements for Changeling's appearance. He was pleased with the critical and commercial success that followed Mystic River's appearance at the festival in 2003 and wanted to generate the same "positive buzz" for Changeling. The film was still in post-production one week before the start of the festival. It appeared at the 34th Deauville American Film Festival, held September 5–14, 2008, and had its North American premiere on October 4, 2008 as the centerpiece of the 46th New York Film Festival, screening at the Ziegfeld Theatre.
The producers and Universal considered opening Changeling wide in its first weekend to capitalize on Jolie's perceived box office appeal, but they ultimately modeled the release plan after those of other Eastwood-directed films, Mystic River in particular. While the usual strategy is to open films by notable directors in every major city in the United States to ensure a large opening gross, in what the industry calls a "platform release", Eastwood's films generally open in a small number of theaters before opening wide a week later. Changeling was released in 15 theaters in nine markets in the United States on October 24, 2008. The marketing strategy involved trailers that promoted Eastwood's involvement and the more commercial mystery thriller elements of the story. Universal hoped the limited release would capitalize on good word-of-mouth support from "serious movie fans" rather than those in the 18–25-year-old demographic. The film was released across North America on October 31, 2008, playing at 1,850 theaters, expanding to 1,896 theaters by its fourth week. Changeling was released in the United Kingdom on November 26, 2008, in Ireland on November 28, 2008, and in Australia on February 5, 2009.
### Box office
Changeling performed modestly at the box office, grossing more internationally than in North America. The worldwide gross revenue was \$113 million. The film's limited American release saw it take \$502,000—\$33,441 per theater—in its first two days. Exit polling showed strong commercial potential across a range of audiences. CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend revealed the average grade cinemagoers gave Changeling was A− on an A+ to F scale. Audiences were mostly older; 68% were over 30 and 61% were women. Audience evaluations of "excellent" and "definitely recommended" were above average. The main reasons given for seeing the film were its story (65%), Jolie (53%), Eastwood (43%) and that it was based on fact (42%). The film made \$2.3 million in its first day of wide release, going on to take fourth place in the weekend box office chart with \$9.4 million—a per-theater average of \$5,085. This return surpassed Universal's expectations for the weekend. Changeling's link to the Inland Empire—the locale of the Wineville killings—generated additional local interest, causing it to outperform the national box office by 45% in its opening weekend. The film surpassed expectations in its second weekend of wide release, declining 22% to take \$7.3M. By the fourth week, Changeling had dropped to fifth place at the box office, having taken \$27.6M overall. In its sixth week the number of theaters narrowed to 1,010, and Changeling dropped out of the national top ten, though it remained in ninth place on the Inland chart. Changeling completed its theatrical run in North America on January 8, 2009, having earned \$35.7 million overall.
Changeling made its international debut in four European markets on November 12–14, 2008, opening in 727 theaters to strong results. Aided by a positive critical reaction, the film took \$1.6 million in Italy from 299 theaters (a per-location average of \$5,402), and \$209,000 from 33 screens in Belgium. Changeling had a slower start in France, but improved to post \$2.8 million from 417 theaters in its first five days, and finished the weekend in second place at the box office. The second week in France saw the box office drop by just 27%, for a total gross of \$5.4 million. By November 23, 2008, the film had taken \$8.6 million outside North America. The weekend of November 28–30 saw Changeling take \$4.4 million from 1,040 theaters internationally; this included its expansion into the United Kingdom, where it opened in third place at the box office, taking \$1.9 million from 349 theaters. It took \$1.5 million from the three-day weekend, but the total was boosted by the film's opening two days earlier to avoid competition from previews of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. The return marked the best opening of any Eastwood-directed film in the United Kingdom to that point. Its second week of release in the United Kingdom saw a drop of 27% to \$1.1 million. Changeling earned \$7.6 million in Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Changeling's release in other European markets continued throughout December 2008. By December 8, the film had opened in 1,167 theaters in nine markets for an international gross of \$19.1 million. Changeling's next significant international release came in Spain on December 19, 2008, where it opened in first place at the box office with \$2 million from 326 theaters. This figure marked the best opening for an Eastwood-directed film in the country to that point; after six weeks it had earned \$11 million. In January 2009, major markets in which the film opened included Germany, South Korea and Russia. In Germany, it opened in ninth place at the box office with \$675,000 from 194 theaters. South Korea saw a "solid" opening of \$450,000 from 155 theaters. In Russia, it opened in eighth place with \$292,000 from 95 theaters. By January 26, 2009, the film had taken \$47.2 million from 1,352 international theaters. Aided by strong word-of-mouth support, Changeling's Australian release yielded \$3.8M from 74 screens after eight weeks. The film opened in Japan on February 20, 2009, where it topped the chart in its first week with \$2.4 million from 301 screens. After six weeks, it had earned \$12.8 million in the country. The film's last major market release was in Mexico on February 27, 2009, where it earned \$1.4 million. The international gross was \$77.3 million.
### Home media
Changeling was released on Blu-ray Disc, DVD and Video on Demand in North America on February 17, 2009, and in the United Kingdom on March 30, 2009. After its first week of release, Changeling placed fourth in the DVD sales chart with 281,000 units sold for \$4.6 million; by its fourth week of release, the film had dropped out of the top 10, having earned \$10.1 million. As of the latest figures, 762,000 units have been sold, translating to \$12,638,223 in revenue. The DVD release included two featurettes: Partners in Crime: Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie and The Common Thread: Angelina Jolie Becomes Christine Collins. The Blu-ray Disc release included two additional features: Archives and Los Angeles: Then and Now.
## Reception
### Critical response
The film's screening at Cannes met with critical acclaim, prompting speculation it could be awarded the Palme d'Or. The award eventually went to Entre les murs (The Class). Straczynski claimed that Changeling's loss by two votes was due to the judges' not believing the story was based on fact. He said they did not believe the police would treat someone as they had Collins. The loss led to Universal's request that Straczynski annotate the script with sources. Although the positive critical notices from Cannes generated speculation that the film would be a serious contender at the 2009 Academy Awards, the North American theatrical release met with a more mixed response. As of June 2020, the film holds a 62% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 210 critical reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Beautifully shot and well-acted, Changeling is a compelling story that unfortunately gives in to convention too often." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating to reviews from mainstream critics, reported a score of 63 out of 100 based on 38 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The film's reception in several European countries was more favorable, and in the United Kingdom 83% of critics listed by Rotten Tomatoes gave Changeling a positive review.
Todd McCarthy of Variety said Jolie was more affecting than in A Mighty Heart (2007) because she relied less on artifice. He also noted a surfeit of good supporting performances, Michael Kelly's in particular. Oliver Séguret of Libération said the cast was the film's best feature. He praised the supporting actors and said Jolie's performance was forceful yet understated. Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter said Jolie shunned her "movie star" persona to appear vulnerable and resolute. He perceived the supporting characters—Amy Ryan's excepted—as having few shades of gray. David Ansen, writing in Newsweek, echoed the sentiment, but said that "some stories really are about the good guys and the bad". He said that with the distractions of Jolie's celebrity and beauty put aside, she carried the role with restraint and intensity. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times felt that Jolie's celebrity was distracting enough to render her unconvincing, and David Denby of The New Yorker said that, while Jolie showed skill and selflessness, the performance and character were uninteresting; he said Collins was one-dimensional, lacking desires or temperament. He cited similar problems with Malkovich's Briegleb, concluding, "The two of them make a very proper and dull pair of collaborators."
McCarthy admired the "outstanding" script, calling it ambitious and deceptively simple. He said Eastwood respected the script by not playing to the melodramatic aspects and not telegraphing the story's scope from the start. Honeycutt wrote that due to its close adherence to the history the drama sagged at one point, but that the film did not feel as long as its 141 minutes because the filmmakers were "good at cutting to the chase". Ansen said Straczynski's dialogue tended to the obvious, but that while the film lacked the moral nuance of Eastwood's others, the well-researched screenplay was "a model of sturdy architecture", each layer of which built audience disgust into a "fine fury". He said, "when the tale is this gripping, why resist the moral outrage?"
Séguret said the film presented a solid recreation of the era, but that Eastwood did not seem inspired by the challenge. Séguret noted that Eastwood kept the embers of the story alight, but that it seldom burst into flames. He likened the experience to being in a luxury car: comfortable yet boring. Denby and Ansen commented that Eastwood left the worst atrocities to audiences' imaginations. Ansen said this was because Eastwood was less interested in the lurid aspects of the case. McCarthy praised the thoughtful, unsensationalized treatment, while Denby cited problems with the austere approach, saying it left the film "both impressive and monotonous". He said Eastwood was presented with the problem of not wanting to exploit the "gruesome" material because this would contrast poorly with the delicate emotions of a woman's longing for her missing son. Denby said Eastwood and Straczynski should have explored more deeply the story's perverse aspects. Instead, he said, the narrative methodically settled the emotional and dramatic issues—"reverently chronicling Christine's apotheosis"—before "[ambling] on for another forty minutes". Ansen said the classical approach lifted the story to another level and that it embraced horror film conventions only in the process of transcending them. McCarthy said Changeling was one of Eastwood's most vividly realized films, noting Stern's cinematography, the set and costume design, and CGI landscapes that merged seamlessly with location shots. Dargis was not impressed by the production design; she cited the loss of Eastwood's regular collaborator Henry Bumstead—who died in 2006—as a factor in Changeling's "overly pristine" look.
Damon Wise of Empire called Changeling "flawless", and McCarthy said it was "emotionally powerful and stylistically sure-handed". He stated that Changeling was a more complex and wide-ranging work than Eastwood's Mystic River, saying the characters and social commentary were brought into the story with an "almost breathtaking deliberation". He said that as "a sorrowful critique of the city's political culture", Changeling sat in the company of films such as Chinatown and L.A. Confidential. Honeycutt said the film added a "forgotten chapter to the L.A. noir" of those films and that Eastwood's melodic score contributed to an evocation of a city and a period "undergoing galvanic changes". Honeycutt said, "[the] small-town feel to the street and sets ... captures a society resistant to seeing what is really going on". Séguret said that while Changeling had few defects, it was mystifying that other critics had such effusive praise for it. Denby said it was beautifully made, but that it shared the chief fault of other "righteously indignant" films in congratulating the audience for feeling contempt for the "long-discredited" attitudes depicted. Ansen concluded that the story was told in such a sure manner that only a hardened cynic would be left unmoved by the "haunting, sorrowful saga".
### Awards and honors
In addition to the following list of awards and nominations, the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures named Changeling one of the 10 best films of 2008, as did the International Press Academy, which presents the annual Satellite Awards. Several critics included the film on their lists of the top 10 best films of 2008. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker named it second best, Empire magazine named it fourth best and Rene Rodriguez of The Miami Herald named it joint fourth best with Eastwood's Gran Torino. Japanese film critic Shigehiko Hasumi listed the film as one of the best films of 2000–2009.
|
40,004,631 |
Jin–Song Wars
| 1,157,779,513 |
1125–1234 Jurchen campaigns in China
|
[
"1120s in Asia",
"1125 in Asia",
"1130s in Asia",
"1134 in Asia",
"12th century in China",
"13th century in China",
"Jin–Song Wars",
"Wars involving the Song dynasty"
] |
The Jin–Song Wars were a series of conflicts between the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty (1115–1234) and the Han-led Song dynasty (960–1279). In 1115, Jurchen tribes rebelled against their overlords, the Khitan-led Liao dynasty (916–1125), and declared the formation of the Jin. Allying with the Song against their common enemy the Liao dynasty, the Jin promised to cede to the Song the Sixteen Prefectures that had fallen under Liao control since 938. The Song agreed but the Jin's quick defeat of the Liao combined with Song military failures made the Jin reluctant to cede territory. After a series of negotiations that embittered both sides, the Jurchens attacked the Song in 1125, dispatching one army to Taiyuan and the other to Bianjing (modern Kaifeng), the Song capital.
Surprised by news of an invasion, Song general Tong Guan retreated from Taiyuan, which was besieged and later captured. As the second Jin army approached the capital, Song emperor Huizong abdicated and fled south. Qinzong, his eldest son, was enthroned. The Jin dynasty laid siege to Kaifeng in 1126, but Qinzong negotiated their retreat from the capital by agreeing to a large annual indemnity. Qinzong reneged on the deal and ordered Song forces to defend the prefectures instead of fortifying the capital. The Jin resumed war and again besieged Kaifeng in 1127. They captured Qinzong, many members of the imperial family and high officials of the Song imperial court in an event known as the Jingkang Incident. This separated north and south China between Jin and Song. Remnants of the Song imperial family retreated to southern China and, after brief stays in several temporary capitals, eventually relocated to Lin'an (modern Hangzhou). The retreat divided the dynasty into two distinct periods, Northern Song and Southern Song.
The Jurchens tried to conquer southern China in the 1130s but were bogged down by a pro-Song insurgency in the north and a counteroffensive by Song generals, including Yue Fei and Han Shizhong. The Song generals regained some territories but retreated on the orders of Southern Song emperor Gaozong, who supported a peaceful resolution to the war. The Treaty of Shaoxing (1142) set the boundary of the two empires along the Huai River, but conflicts between the two dynasties continued until the fall of Jin in 1234. A war against the Song begun by the 4th Jin emperor, Wanyan Liang, was unsuccessful. He lost the Battle of Caishi (1161) and was later assassinated by his own disaffected officers. An invasion of Jin territory motivated by Song revanchism (1206–1208) was also unsuccessful. A decade later, Jin launched an abortive military campaign against the Song in 1217 to replace territory they had lost to the invading Mongols. The Song allied with the Mongols in 1233, and in the next year jointly captured Caizhou, the last refuge of the Jin emperor. The Jin dynasty collapsed that year. After the demise of Jin, the Song became a target of the Mongols, and collapsed in 1279.
The wars engendered an era of swift technological, cultural, and demographic changes in China. Battles between the Song and Jin brought about the introduction of various gunpowder weapons. The siege of De'an in 1132 was the first recorded use of the fire lance, an early ancestor of firearms. There were also reports of incendiary huopao or the exploding tiehuopao, incendiary arrows, and other related weapons. In northern China, Jurchens were the ruling minority of an empire predominantly inhabited by former subjects of the Song. Jurchen migrants settled in the conquered territories and assimilated with the local culture. Jin, a conquest dynasty, instituted a centralized imperial bureaucracy modeled on previous Chinese dynasties, basing their legitimacy on Confucian philosophy. Song refugees from the north resettled in southern China. The north was the cultural center of China, and its conquest by Jin diminished the regional stature of the Song dynasty. The Southern Song, however, quickly returned to economic prosperity, and trade with Jin was lucrative despite decades of warfare. Lin'an, the Southern Song capital, expanded into a major city for commerce.
## Fragile Song–Jin alliance
The Jurchens were a Tungusic-speaking group of semi-agrarian tribes inhabiting areas of northeast Asia that are now part of Northeast China. Many of the Jurchen tribes were vassals of the Liao dynasty (907–1125), an empire ruled by the nomadic Khitans that included most of modern Mongolia, a portion of North China, Northeast China, northern Korea, and parts of the Russian Far East. To the south of the Liao lay the Han Chinese Song Empire (960–1276). The Song and Liao were at peace, but since a military defeat to the Liao in 1005, the Song paid its northern neighbor an annual indemnity of 200,000 bolts of silk and 100,000 ounces of silver. Before the Jurchens overthrew the Khitan, married Jurchen women and Jurchen girls were raped by Liao Khitan envoys as a custom which caused resentment by the Jurchens against the Khitan. Song princesses committed suicide to avoid rape or were killed for resisting rape by the Jin.
In 1114, the chieftain Wanyan Aguda (1068–1123) united the disparate Jurchen tribes and led a revolt against the Liao. In 1115 he named himself emperor of the Jin "golden" dynasty (1115–1234). Informed by a Liao defector of the success of the Jurchen uprising, the Song emperor Huizong (r. 1100–1127) and his highest military commander the eunuch Tong Guan saw the Liao weakness as an opportunity to recover the Sixteen Prefectures, a line of fortified cities and passes that the Liao had annexed from the Shatuo Turk Later Jin in 938, and that the Song had repeatedly but unsuccessfully tried to reconquer. The Song thus sought an alliance with the Jin against their common enemy the Liao.
Because the land routes between the Song and Jin were controlled by the Liao, diplomatic exchanges had to occur by traveling across the Bohai Sea. Negotiations for an alliance began secretly under the pretense that the Song wanted to acquire horses from the Khitans. Song diplomats traveled to the Jin court to meet Aguda in 1118, while Jurchen envoys arrived in the Song capital Kaifeng the next year. At the beginning, the two sides agreed to keep whatever Liao territory they would seize in combat. In 1120, Aguda agreed to cede the Sixteen Prefectures to the Song in exchange for transfer to the Jin of the annual tributary payments that the Song had been giving the Liao. By the end of 1120, however, the Jurchens had seized the Liao Supreme Capital, and offered the Song only parts of the Sixteen Prefectures. Among other things, Jin would keep the Liao Western Capital of Datong at the western end of the Sixteen Prefectures. The two sides agreed that the Jin would now attack the Liao Central Capital, whereas the Song would seize the Liao Southern Capital, Yanjing (modern-day Beijing).
The joint attack against the Liao had been planned for 1121, but it was rescheduled for 1122. On February 23 of that year, Jin captured the Liao Central Capital as promised. The Song delayed their entry into the war because it diverted resources to fighting the Western Xia in the northwest and suppressing a large popular rebellion led by Fang La in the south. When a Song army under Tong Guan's command finally attacked Yanjing in May 1122, the smaller forces of the weakened Liao repelled the invaders with ease. Another attack failed in the fall. Both times, Tong was forced to retreat back to Kaifeng. After the first attack, Aguda changed the terms of the agreement and only promised Yanjing and six other prefectures to the Song. In early 1123 it was Jurchen forces that easily took the Liao Southern Capital. They sacked it and enslaved its population.
The quick collapse of the Liao led to more negotiations between the Song and Jin. Jurchen military success and their effective control over the Sixteen Prefectures gave them more leverage. Aguda grew increasingly frustrated as he realized that despite their military failures the Song still intended to seize most of the prefectures. In the spring of 1123 the two sides finally set the terms of the first Song–Jin treaty. Only seven prefectures (including Yanjing) would be returned to the Song, and the Song would pay an annual indemnity of 300,000 packs of silk and 200,000 taels of silver to the Jin, as well as a one-time payment of one million strings of copper coins to compensate the Jurchens for the tax revenue they would have earned had they not returned the prefectures. In May 1123 Tong Guan and the Song armies entered the looted Yanjing.
## War against the Northern Song
### Collapse of the Song–Jin alliance
Barely one month after the Song had recovered Yanjing, Zhang Jue (張覺), who had served as military governor of the Liao prefecture of Pingzhou about 200 kilometres (120 mi) east of Yanjing, killed the main Jin official in that city and turned it over to the Song. The Jurchens defeated his armies a few months later and Zhang took refuge in Yanjing. Even though the Song agreed to execute him in late 1123, this incident put tension between the two states, because the 1123 treaty had explicitly forbidden both sides from harboring defectors. In 1124, Song officials further angered Jin by asking for the cession of nine more border prefectures. The new Jin emperor Taizong (r. 1123–1135), Aguda's brother and successor, hesitated, but warrior princes Wanyan Zonghan and Wanyan Zongwang (完颜宗望) vehemently refused to give them any more territory. Taizong eventually granted two prefectures, but by then the Jin leaders were ready to attack their southern neighbor.
Before they could invade the Song, the Jurchens reached a peace agreement with their western neighbors the Tangut Western Xia in 1124. The following year near the Ordos Desert, they captured Tianzuo, the last emperor of the Liao, putting an end to the Liao dynasty for good. Ready to end their alliance with the Song, the Jurchens began preparations for an invasion.
### First campaign
In November 1125 Taizong ordered his armies to attack the Song. The defection of Zhang Jue two years earlier served as the casus belli. Two armies were sent to capture the major cities of the Song.
#### Siege of Taiyuan
The western army, led by Wanyan Zonghan, departed from Datong and headed towards Taiyuan through the mountains of Shanxi, on its way to the Song western capital Luoyang. The Song forces were not expecting an invasion and were caught off guard. The Chinese general Tong Guan was informed of the military expedition by an envoy he had sent to the Jin to obtain the cession of two prefectures. The returning envoy reported that the Jurchens were willing to forgo an invasion if the Song ceded control of Hebei and Shanxi to the Jin. Tong Guan retreated from Taiyuan and left command of his troops to Wang Bing. Jin armies besieged the city in mid January 1126. Under Wang Bing's command, Taiyuan held on long enough to stop the Jurchen troops from advancing to Luoyang.
#### First siege of Kaifeng
Meanwhile, the eastern army, commanded by Wanyan Zongwang, was dispatched towards Yanjing (modern Beijing) and eventually the Song capital Kaifeng. It did not face much armed opposition. Zongwang easily took Yanjing, where Song general and former Liao governor Guo Yaoshi (郭藥師) switched his allegiances to the Jin. When the Song had tried to reclaim the Sixteen Prefectures, they had faced fierce resistance from the Han Chinese population, yet when the Jurchens invaded that area, the Han Chinese did not oppose them at all. By the end of December 1125, the Jin army had seized control of two prefectures and re-established Jurchen rule over the Sixteen Prefectures. The eastern army was nearing Kaifeng by early 1126.
Fearing the approaching Jin army, Song emperor Huizong planned to retreat south. The emperor deserting the capital would have been viewed as an act of capitulation, so court officials convinced him to abdicate. There were few objections. Rescuing an empire in crisis from destruction was more important than preserving the rituals of imperial inheritance. In January 1126, a few days before the New Year, Huizong abdicated in favor of his son and was demoted to the ceremonial role of Retired Emperor. The Jurchen forces reached the Yellow River on January 27, 1126, two days after the New Year. Huizong fled Kaifeng the next day, escaping south and leaving the newly enthroned emperor Qinzong (r. 1126–1127) in charge of the capital.
Kaifeng was besieged on January 31, 1126. The commander of the Jurchen army promised to spare the city if the Song submitted to Jin as a vassal; forfeited the prime minister and an imperial prince as prisoners; ceded the Chinese prefectures of Hejian, Taiyuan, and Zhongshan; and offered an indemnity of 50 million taels of silver, 5 million taels of gold, 1 million packs of silk, 1 million packs of satin, 10,000 horses, 10,000 mules, 10,000 cattle, and 1,000 camels. This indemnity was worth about 180 years of the annual tribute the Song had been paying to the Jin since 1123.
With little prospect of help from afar arriving, infighting broke out in the Song court between the officials who supported the Jin offer and those who opposed it. Opponents of the treaty like Li Gang (李剛; 1083–1140) rallied around the proposal of remaining in defensive positions until reinforcements arrived and Jurchen supplies ran out. They botched an ambush against the Jin that was carried out at night, and were replaced by officials who supported peace negotiations. The failed attack pushed Qinzong into meeting the Jurchen demands, and his officials convinced him to go through with the deal. The Song recognized Jin control over the three prefectures. The Jurchen army ended the siege in March after 33 days.
### Second campaign
Almost as soon as the Jin armies had left Kaifeng, Emperor Qinzong reneged on the deal and dispatched two armies to repel the Jurchen troops attacking Taiyuan and bolster the defenses of Zhongshan and Hejian. An army of 90,000 soldiers and another of 60,000 were defeated by Jin forces by June. A second expedition to rescue Taiyuan was also unsuccessful.
Accusing the Song of violating the agreement and realizing the weakness of the Song, the Jin generals launched a second punitive campaign, again dividing their troops into two armies. Wanyan Zonghan, who had withdrawn from Taiyuan after the Kaifeng agreement and left a small force in charge of the siege, came back with his western army. Overwhelmed, Taiyuan fell in September 1126, after 260 days of siege. When the Song court received news of the fall of Taiyuan, the officials who had advocated defending the empire militarily fell from favor again and were replaced by counselors who favored appeasement. In mid-December the two Jurchen armies converged on Kaifeng for the second time that year.
#### Second siege of Kaifeng
After the defeat of several Song armies in the north, Emperor Qinzong wanted to negotiate a truce with the Jin, but he committed a massive strategic blunder when he commanded his remaining armies to protect prefectural cities instead of Kaifeng. Neglecting the importance of the capital, he left Kaifeng defended with fewer than 100,000 soldiers. The Song forces were dispersed throughout China, powerless to stop the second Jurchen siege of the city.
The Jin assault commenced in mid-December 1126. Even as fighting raged on, Qinzong continued to sue for peace, but Jin demands for territory were enormous: they wanted all provinces north of the Yellow River. After more than twenty days of heavy combat against the besieging forces, Song defenses were decimated and the morale of Song soldiers was on the decline. On January 9, 1127, the Jurchens broke through and started to loot the conquered city. Emperor Qinzong tried to appease the victors by offering the remaining wealth of the capital. The royal treasury was emptied and the belongings of the city's residents were seized. The Song emperor offered his unconditional surrender a few days later.
> On the evening of the twenty-fifth, [Yao] Zhongyou was beaten to death by soldiers in the southern part of the city. His brain and intestines scattered, it was impossible to locate his flesh and bones afterward. Even his home got ransacked. What a shameful end to a good man like him! The spirit of the warrior flowed in Yao’s blood. For three generations, his family served the state loyally and their name was feared among the barbarians. Ever since the defense began, he labored day and night and allowed himself little time to eat and rest. He was the only court official to do this. How ironic that he would meet his tragic end because of it!
Qigong, the former emperor Huizong, and members of the Song court were captured by the Jurchens as hostages. They were taken north to Huining (modern Harbin), where they were stripped of their royal privileges and reduced to commoners. The former emperors were humiliated by their captors. They were mocked with disparaging titles like "Muddled Virtue" and "Double Muddled". In 1128 Jin made them perform a ritual meant for war criminals. The harsh treatment of the Song royalty softened after the death of Huizong in 1135. Titles were granted to the deceased monarch, and his son Qinzong was promoted to Duke, a position with a salary.
### Reasons for Song failure
Many factors contributed to the Song's repeated military blunders and subsequent loss of northern China to the Jurchens. Traditional accounts of Song history held the venality of Huizong's imperial court responsible for the decline of the dynasty. These narratives condemned Huizong and his officials for their moral failures. Early Song emperors were eager to enact political reforms and revive the ethical framework of Confucianism, but the enthusiasm for reforms gradually died after the reformist Wang Anshi's expulsion as chancellor in 1076. Corruption marred the reign of Huizong, who was more skilled as a painter than as a ruler. Huizong was known for his extravagance, and funded the costly construction of gardens and temples while rebellions threatened the state's grip on power.
A modern analysis by Ari Daniel Levine places more of the blame on deficiencies in the military and bureaucratic leadership. The loss of northern China was not inevitable. The military was overextended by a government too assured of its own military prowess. Huizong diverted the state's resources to failed wars against the Western Xia. The Song insistence on a greater share of Liao territory only succeeded in provoking their Jin allies. Song diplomatic oversights underestimated Jin and allowed the unimpeded rise of Jurchen military power. The state had plentiful resources, with the exception of horses, but managed its assets poorly during battles. Unlike the expansive Han and Tang empires that preceded the Song, the Song did not have a significant foothold in Central Asia where a large proportion of its horses could be bred or procured. As Song general Li Gang noted, without a consistent supply of horses the dynasty was at a significant disadvantage against Jurchen cavalry: "Jin were victorious only because they used iron-shielded cavalry, while we opposed them with foot soldiers. It is only to be expected that [our soldiers] were scattered and dispersed."
## Wars with the Southern Song
### Southern retreat of the Song court
#### The enthronement of Emperor Gaozong
The Jin leadership had not expected or desired the fall of the Song dynasty. Their intention was to weaken the Song in order to demand more tribute, and they were unprepared for the magnitude of their victory. The Jurchens were preoccupied with strengthening their rule over the areas once controlled by Liao. Instead of continuing their invasion of the Song, an empire with a military that outnumbered their own, they adopted the strategy of "using Chinese to control the Chinese". The Jin hoped a proxy state would be capable of administering northern China and collecting the annual indemnity without requiring Jurchen interventions to quell anti-Jin uprisings. In 1127, the Jurchens installed a former Song official, Zhang Bangchang (張邦昌; 1081–1127), as puppet emperor of the newly established "Da Chu" (Great Chu) dynasty. The puppet government did not deter the resistance in northern China, but the insurgents were motivated by their anger towards the Jurchens' looting rather than by a sense of loyalty towards the inept Song court. A number of Song commanders, stationed in towns scattered across northern China, retained their allegiance to the Song, and armed volunteers organized militias opposed to the Jurchen military presence. The insurgency hampered the ability of the Jin to exert control over the north.
Meanwhile, one Song prince, Zhao Gou, had escaped capture. He had been held up in Cizhou while on a diplomatic mission, and never made it back to Kaifeng. He was not present in the capital when the city fell to the Jurchens. The future Emperor Gaozong managed to evade the Jurchen troops tailing him by moving from one province to the next, traveling across Hebei, Henan, and Shandong. The Jurchens tried to lure him back to Kaifeng where they could finally capture him, but did not succeed. Zhao Gou finally arrived in the Song Southern Capital at Yingtianfu (應天府; modern Shangqiu) in early June 1127. For Gaozong (r. 1127–1162), Yingtianfu was the first in a series of temporary capitals called xingzai 行在. The court moved to Yingtianfu because of its historical importance to Emperor Taizu of Song, the founder of the dynasty, who had previously served in that city as a military governor. The symbolism of the city was meant to secure the political legitimacy of the new emperor, who was enthroned there on June 12.
After reigning for barely one month, Zhang Bangchang was persuaded by the Song to step down as emperor of the Great Chu and to recognize the legitimacy of the Song imperial line. Li Gang pressured Gaozong to execute Zhang for betraying the Song. The emperor relented and Zhang was coerced into suicide. The killing of Zhang showed that the Song was willing to provoke the Jin, and that the Jin had yet to solidify their control over the newly conquered territories. The submission and abolition of Chu meant that Kaifeng was now back under Song control. Zong Ze (宗澤; 1059–1128), the Song general responsible for fortifying Kaifeng, entreated Gaozong to move the court back to the city, but Gaozong refused and retreated south. The southward move marked the end of the Northern Song and the beginning of the Southern Song era of Chinese history.
The descendant of Confucius at Qufu, the Duke Yansheng Kong Duanyou fled south with the Song Emperor to Quzhou, while the newly established Jin dynasty (1115–1234) in the north appointed Kong Duanyou's brother Kong Duancao who remained in Qufu as Duke Yansheng. Zhang Xuan 張選, a great-grandson of Zhang Zai, also fled south with Gaozong.
#### The move south
The Song disbandment of the Great Chu and execution of Zhang Bangchang antagonized the Jurchens and violated the treaty that the two parties had negotiated. The Jin renewed their attacks on the Song and quickly reconquered much of northern China. In late 1127 Gaozong moved his court further south from Yingtianfu to Yangzhou, south of the Huai River and north of the Yangtze River, by sailing down the Grand Canal. The court spent over a year in the city. When the Jurchens advanced to the Huai River, the court was partially evacuated to Hangzhou in 1129. Days later, Gaozong narrowly escaped on horseback, just a few hours ahead of Jurchen vanguard troops. After a coup in Hangzhou almost dethroned him, in May 1129 he moved his capital back north to Jiankang (modern Nanjing) on the south bank of the Yangtze. One month later, however, Zong Ze's successor Du Chong (杜充) vacated his forces from Kaifeng, exposing Jiankang to attack. The emperor moved back to Hangzhou in September, leaving Jiankang in Du Chong's hands. The Jin eventually captured Kaifeng in early 1130.
From 1127 to 1129, the Song sent thirteen embassies to the Jin to discuss peace terms and to negotiate the release of Gaozong's mother and Huizong, but the Jin court ignored them. In December 1129, the Jin started a new military offensive, dispatching two armies across the Huai River in the east and west. On the western front, an army invaded Jiangxi, the area where the Song dowager empress resided, and captured Hongzhou (洪州, present-day Nanchang). They were ordered to retreat a few months later when the eastern army withdrew.
Meanwhile, on the eastern front, Wuzhu commanded the main Jin army. He crossed the Yangtze southwest of Jiankang and took that city when Du Chong surrendered. Wuzhu set out from Jiankang and advanced rapidly to try to capture Gaozong. The Jin seized Hangzhou (January 22, 1130) and then Shaoxing further south (February 4), but general Zhang Jun's (1086–1154) battle with Wuzhu near Ningbo gave Gaozong time to escape. By the time Wuzhu resumed pursuit, the Song court was fleeing on ships to islands off the coast of Zhejiang, and then further south to Wenzhou. The Jin sent ships to chase after Gaozong, but failed to catch him. They gave up the pursuit and the Jurchens retreated north. After they plundered the undefended cities of Hangzhou and Suzhou, they finally started to face resistance from Song armies led by Yue Fei and Han Shizhong. The latter even inflicted a major defeat on Jurchen forces and tried to prevent Wuzhu from crossing back to the north bank of the Yangtze. The small boats of the Jin army were outmatched by Han Shizhong's fleet of seagoing vessels. Wuzhu eventually managed to cross the river when he had his troops use incendiary arrows to neutralize Han's ships by burning their sails. Wuzhu's troops came back south of the Yangtze one last time to Jiankang, which they pillaged, and then headed north. Yet the Jin had been caught off guard by the strength of the Song navy, and Wuzhu never tried to cross the Yangtze River again. In early 1131, Jin armies between the Huai and the Yangtze were repelled by bandits loyal to the Song. Zhang Rong (張榮), the leader of the bandits, was given a government position for his victory against the Jin.
After the Jin incursion that almost captured Gaozong, the sovereign ordered pacification commissioner Zhang Jun (1097–1164), who was in charge of Shaanxi and Sichuan in the far west, to attack the Jin there to relieve pressure on the court. Zhang put together a large army, but was defeated by Wuzhu near Xi'an in late 1130. Wuzhu advanced further west into Gansu, and drove as far south as Jiezhou (階州, modern Wudu). The most important battles between Jin and Song in 1131 and 1132 took place in Shaanxi, Gansu, and Sichuan. The Jin lost two battles at Heshang Yuan in 1131. After failing to enter Sichuan, Wuzhu retreated to Yanjing. He returned to the western front again from 1132 to 1134. The Jin attacked Hubei and Shaanxi in 1132. Wuzhu captured Heshang Yuan in 1133, but his advance was halted by a defeat at Xianren Pass. He gave up on taking Sichuan, and no more major battles were fought between the Jin and Song for the rest of the decade.
The Song court returned to Hangzhou in 1133, and the city was renamed Lin'an. The imperial ancestral temple was built in Lin'an later that same year, a sign that the court had in practice established Lin'an as the Song capital without a formal declaration. It was treated as a temporary capital. Between 1130 and 1137, the court would sporadically move to Jiankang, and back to Lin'an. There were proposals to make Jiankang the new capital, but Lin'an won out because the court considered it a more secure city. The natural barriers that surrounded Lin'an, including lakes and rice paddies, made it more difficult for the Jurchen cavalry to breach its fortifications. Access to the sea made it easier to retreat from the city. In 1138, Gaozong officially declared Lin'an the capital of the dynasty, but the label of temporary capital would still be in place. Lin'an would remain the capital of the Southern Song for the next 150 years, growing into a major commercial and cultural center.
### Da Qi invades the Song
Qin Hui, an official of the Song court, recommended a peaceful solution to the conflict in 1130, saying that, "If it is desirable that there will be no more conflicts under Heaven, it is necessary for the southerners to stay in the south and the northerners in the north." Gaozong, who considered himself a northerner, initially rejected the proposal. There were gestures toward peace in 1132, when the Jin freed an imprisoned Song diplomat, and in 1133, when the Song offered to become a Jin vassal, but a treaty never materialized. The Jin requirement that the border between the two states be moved south from the Huai River to the Yangtze was too large of a hurdle for the two sides to reach an agreement.
The continuing insurgency of anti-Jin forces in northern China hampered the Jurchen campaigns south of the Yangtze. Reluctant to let the war drag on, the Jin decided to create Da Qi (the "Great Qi"), their second attempt at a puppet state in northern China. The Jurchens believed that this state, nominally ruled by someone of Han Chinese descent, would be able to attract the allegiance of disaffected members of the insurgency. The Jurchens also suffered from a shortage of skilled manpower, and controlling the entirety of northern China was not administratively feasible. In the final months of 1129, Liu Yu (劉豫; 1073–1143) won the favor of the Jin emperor Taizong. Liu was a Song official from Hebei who had been a prefect of Jinan in Shandong before his defection to the Jin in 1128. Da Qi was formed late in 1130, and the Jin enthroned Liu as its emperor. Daming in Hebei was the first capital of Qi, before its move to Kaifeng, former capital of the Northern Song. The Qi government instituted military conscription, made an attempt at reforming the bureaucracy, and enacted laws that enforced the collection of high taxes. It was also responsible for supplying a large portion of the troops that fought the Song in the seven years following its creation.
The Jin granted Qi more autonomy than the first puppet government of Chu, but Liu Yu was obligated to obey the orders of the Jurchen generals. With Jin support, Da Qi invaded the Song in November 1133. Li Cheng, a Song turncoat who had joined the Qi, led the campaign. Xiangyang and nearby prefectures fell to his army. The capture of Xiangyang on the Han River gave the Jurchens a passage into the central valley of the Yangtze River. Their southward push was halted by the general Yue Fei. In 1134, Yue Fei defeated Li and retook Xiangyang and its surrounding prefectures. Later that year, however, Qi and Jin initiated a new offensive further east along the Huai River. For the first time, Gaozong issued an edict officially condemning Da Qi. The armies of Qi and Jin won a series of victories in the Huai valley, but were repelled by Han Shizhong near Yangzhou and by Yue Fei at Luzhou (廬州, modern Hefei). Their sudden withdrawal in 1135 in response to the death of Jin Emperor Taizong gave the Song time to regroup. The war recommenced in late 1136 when Da Qi attacked the Huainan circuits of the Song. Qi lost a battle at Outang (藕塘), in modern Anhui, against a Song army led by Yang Qizhong (楊沂中; 1102–1166). The victory boosted Song morale, and the military commissioner Zhang Jun (1097–1164) convinced Gaozong to begin plans for a counterattack. Gaozong first agreed, but he abandoned the counteroffensive when an officer named Li Qiong (酈瓊) killed his superior official and defected to the Jin with 30,000 soldiers. This rebellion was provoked by Zhang Jun's attempt to reassert government control over the regional military commanders, as the court had previously been forced to tolerate growing military autonomy during the chaos of the Jin invasion. Meanwhile, Emperor Xizong (r. 1135–1150) inherited the Jin throne from Taizong, and pushed for peace. He and his generals were disappointed with Liu Yu's military failures and believed that Liu was secretly conspiring with Yue Fei. In late 1137, the Jin reduced Liu Yu's title to that of a prince and abolished the state of Qi. The Jin and Song renewed the negotiations towards peace.
### Song counteroffensive and the peace process
Gaozong promoted Qin Hui in 1138 and put him in charge of deliberations with the Jin. Yue Fei, Han Shizhong, and a large number of officials at court criticized the peace overtures. Aided by his control of the Censorate, Qin purged his enemies and continued negotiations. In 1138 the Jin and Song agreed to a treaty that designated the Yellow River as border between the two states and recognized Gaozong as a "subject" of the Jin. But because there remained opposition to the treaty in both the courts of the Jin and Song, the treaty never came into effect. A Jurchen army led by Wuzhu invaded in early 1140. The Song counteroffensive that followed achieved large territorial gains. Song general Liu Qi (劉錡) won a battle against Wuzhu at Shunchang (modern Fuyang in Anhui). Yue Fei was assigned to head the Song forces defending the Huainan region. Instead of advancing to Huainan, however, Wuzhu retreated to Kaifeng and Yue's army followed him into Jin territory, disobeying an order by Gaozong that forbade Yue from going on the offensive. Yue captured Zhengzhou and sent soldiers across the Yellow River to stir up a peasant rebellion against the Jin. On July 8, 1140, at the Battle of Yancheng, Wuzhu launched a surprise attack on Song forces with an army of 100,000 infantry and 15,000 horsemen. Yue Fei directed his cavalry to attack the Jurchen soldiers and won a decisive victory. He continued on to Henan, where he recaptured Zhengzhou and Luoyang. Later in 1140, Yue was forced to withdraw after the emperor ordered him to return to the Song court.
Emperor Gaozong supported settling a peace treaty with the Jurchens and sought to rein in the assertiveness of the military. The military expeditions of Yue Fei and other generals were an obstacle to peace negotiations. The government weakened the military by rewarding Yue Fei, Han Shizhong, and Zhang Jun (1086–1154) with titles that relieved them of their command over the Song armies. Han Shizhong, a critic of the treaty, retired. Yue Fei also announced his resignation as an act of protest. In 1141 Qin Hui had him imprisoned for insubordination. Charged with treason, Yue Fei was poisoned in jail on Qin's orders in early 1142. Jurchen diplomatic pressure during the peace talks may have played a role, but Qin Hui's alleged collusion with the Jin has never been proven.
After his execution, Yue Fei's reputation for defending the Southern Song grew to that of a national folk hero. Qin Hui was denigrated by later historians, who accused him of betraying the Song. The real Yue Fei differed from the later myths based on his exploits. Contrary to traditional legends, Yue was only one of many generals who fought against the Jin in northern China. Traditional accounts have also blamed Gaozong for Yue Fei's execution and submitting to the Jin. Qin Hui, in a reply to Gaozong's gratitude for the success of the peace negotiations, told the emperor that "the decision to make peace was entirely Your Majesty's. Your servant only carried it out; what achievement was there in this for me?"
### Treaty of Shaoxing
On October 11, 1142, after about a year of negotiations, the Treaty of Shaoxing was ratified, ending the conflict between the Jin and the Song. By the terms of the treaty, the Huai River, north of the Yangtze, was designated as the boundary between the two states. The Song agreed to pay a yearly tribute of 250,000 taels of silver and 250,000 packs of silk to the Jin.
The treaty reduced the Southern Song dynasty status to that of a Jin vassal. The document designated the Song as the "insignificant state", while the Jin was recognized as the "superior state". The text of the treaty has not survived in Chinese records, a clear sign of its humiliating reputation. The contents of the agreement were recovered from a Jurchen biography. Once the treaty had been settled, the Jurchens retreated north and trade resumed between the two empires. The peace ensured by the Treaty of Shaoxing lasted for the next 70 years, but was interrupted twice. One military campaign was initiated by the Song and the other by the Jin.
### Further campaigns
#### Wanyan Liang's war
Wanyan Liang led a coup against Emperor Xizong and became fourth emperor of the Jin dynasty in 1150. Wanyan Liang presented himself as a Chinese emperor, and planned to unite China by conquering the Song. In 1158, Wanyan Liang provided a casus belli by announcing that the Song had broken the 1142 peace treaty by acquiring horses. He instituted an unpopular draft that was the source of widespread unrest in the empire. Anti-Jin revolts erupted among the Khitans and in Jin provinces bordering the Song. Wanyan Liang did not allow dissent, and opposition to the war was severely punished. The Song had been notified beforehand of Wanyan Liang's plan. They prepared by securing their defenses along the border, mainly near the Yangtze River, but were hampered by Emperor Gaozong's indecisiveness. Gaozong's desire for peace made him averse to provoking the Jin. Wanyan Liang began the invasion in 1161 without formally declaring war. Jurchen armies personally led by Wanyan Liang left Kaifeng on October 15, reached the Huai River border on October 28, and marched in the direction of the Yangtze. The Song lost the Huai to the Jurchens but captured a few Jin prefectures in the west, slowing the Jurchen advance. A group of Jurchen generals were sent to cross the Yangtze near the city of Caishi (south of Ma'anshan in modern Anhui) while Wanyan Liang established a base near Yangzhou.
The Song official Yu Yunwen was in command of the army defending the river. The Jurchen army was defeated while attacking Caishi between November 26 and 27 during the Battle of Caishi. The paddle-wheel ships of the Song navy, armed with trebuchets that fired gunpowder bombs, overwhelmed the light ships of the Jin fleet. Jin ships were unable to compete because they were smaller and hastily constructed. The bombs launched by the Song contained mixtures of gunpowder, lime, scraps of iron, and a poison that was likely arsenic. Traditional Chinese accounts consider this the turning point of the war, characterizing it as a military upset that secured southern China from the northern invaders. The significance of the battle is said to have rivaled a similarly revered victory at the Battle of Fei River in the 4th century. Contemporaneous Song accounts claimed that the 18,000 Song soldiers commanded by Yu Yunwen and tasked with defending Caishi were able to defeat the invading Jurchen army of 400,000 soldiers. Modern historians are more skeptical and consider the Jurchen numbers an exaggeration. Song historians may have confused the number of Jurchen soldiers at the Battle of Caishi with the total number of soldiers under the command of Wanyan Liang. The conflict was not the one-sided battle that traditional accounts imply, and the Song had numerous advantages over the Jin. The Song fleet was larger than the Jin's, and the Jin were unable to use their greatest asset, cavalry, in a naval battle.
> Government troops using the “sea-eels” sailed straight towards the seventeen [enemy] boats, and split them up into two groups. The government troops shouted “The government troops have won,” and struck at the men of Jin. The bottoms of the boats of the Jin were as broad as a box and the boats were unstable. Moreover, their men knew nothing about handling boats and were quite helpless. Only five or seven men [on each boat] could use their bows. So they were all killed in the river.
A modern analysis of the battlefield has shown that it was a minor battle, although the victory did boost Song morale. The Jin lost, but only suffered about 4,000 casualties and the battle was not fatal to the Jurchen war effort. It was Wanyan Liang's poor relationships with the Jurchen generals, who despised him, that doomed the chances of a Jin victory. On December 15, Wanyan Liang was assassinated in his military camp by disaffected officers. He was succeeded by Emperor Shizong (r. 1161–1189), who had long resented Digunai for driving his wife, Lady Wulinda, to suicide. Shizong was pressured into ending the unpopular war with the Song, and ordered the withdrawal of Jin forces in 1162. Emperor Gaozong retired from the throne that same year. His mishandling of the war with Wanyan Liang was one of many reasons for his abdication. Skirmishes between the Song and Jin continued along the border, but subsided in 1165 after the negotiation of a peace treaty. There were no major territorial changes. The treaty dictated that the Song still had to pay the annual indemnity, but the indemnity was renamed from "tribute", which had implied a subordinate relationship, to "payment".
#### Song revanchism
The Jin were weakened by the pressure of the rising Mongols to the north, a series of floods culminating in a Yellow River flood in 1194 that devastated Hebei and Shandong in northern China, and the droughts and swarming locusts that plagued the south near the Huai. The Song were informed of the Jurchen predicament by their ambassadors, who traveled twice a year to the Jin capital, and started provoking their northern neighbor. The hostilities were instigated by chancellor Han Tuozhou. The Song Emperor Ningzong (r. 1194–1224) took little interest in the war effort. Under Han Tuozhou's supervision, preparations for the war proceeded gradually and cautiously. The court venerated the irredentist hero Yue Fei and Han orchestrated the publishing of historical records that justified war with the Jin. From 1204 onwards, Chinese armed groups raided Jurchen settlements. Han Tuozhou was designated the head of national security in 1205. The Song funded insurgents in the north that professed loyalist sympathies. These early clashes continued to escalate, partly abetted by revanchist Song officials, and war against the Jin was officially declared on June 14, 1206. The document that announced the war claimed the Jin lost the Mandate of Heaven, a sign that they were unfit to rule, and called for an insurrection of Han Chinese against the Jin state.
Song armies led by general Bi Zaiyu (畢再遇; d. 1217) captured the barely defended border city of Sizhou 泗州 (on the north bank of the Huai River across from modern Xuyi County) but suffered large losses against the Jurchens in Hebei. The Jin repelled the Song and moved south to besiege the Song town of Chuzhou 楚州 on the Grand Canal just south of the Huai River. Bi defended the town, and the Jurchens withdrew from the siege after three months. By the fall of 1206, however, the Jurchens had captured multiple towns and military bases. The Jin initiated an offensive against Song prefectures in the central front of the war, capturing Zaoyang and Guanghua (光化; on the Han River near modern Laohekou). By the fall of 1206, the Song offensive had already failed disastrously. Soldier morale sank as weather conditions worsened, supplies ran out, and hunger spread, forcing many to desert. The massive defections of Han Chinese in northern China that the Song had expected never materialized.
A notable betrayal did occur on the Song side, however: Wu Xi (吳曦; d. 1207), the governor-general of Sichuan, defected to the Jin in December 1206. The Song had depended on Wu's success in the west to divert Jin soldiers away from the eastern front. He had attacked Jin positions earlier in 1206, but his army of about 50,000 men had been repelled. Wu's defection could have meant the loss of the entire western front of the war, but Song loyalists assassinated Wu on March 29, 1207, before Jin troops could take control of the surrendered territories. An Bing (安丙; d. 1221) was given Wu Xi's position, but the cohesion of Song forces in the west fell apart after Wu's demise and commanders turned on each other in the ensuing infighting.
Fighting continued in 1207, but by the end of that year the war was at a stalemate. The Song was now on the defensive, while the Jin failed to make gains in Song territory it therefore cost both parties much more than it gained them. The failure of Han Tuozhou's aggressive policies against the Jurchens by this time round had depopularised him amongst the common people which situation was exploited by the Empress Yang and Shi Miyuan, his most powerful political rivals to Garner support amongst other Courtiers which led to his demise. On November 24, 1207, Han Touzhou on his way to Court he was intercepted, dragged outside Imperial precincts and bludgeoned to death by the Imperial Palace Guards. His accomplice Su Shidan (蘇師旦) was executed, and other officials connected to Han were dismissed or exiled. Since neither combatant was eager to continue the war, they returned to negotiations. A peace treaty was signed on November 2, 1208, and the Song tribute to the Jin was reinstated. The Song annual indemnity increased by 50,000 taels of silver and 50,000 packs of fabric. The treaty also stipulated that the Song had to present to the Jin the head of Han Tuozhou, who the Jin held responsible for starting the war. The heads of Han and Su were severed from their exhumed corpses, exhibited to the public, then delivered to the Jin.
#### Jin–Song war during the rise of the Mongols
The Mongols, a nomadic confederation, had unified in the middle of the twelfth century. They and other steppe nomads occasionally raided the Jin empire from the northwest. The Jin shied away from punitive expeditions and was content with appeasement, similar to the practices of the Song. The Mongols, formerly a Jin tributary, ended their Jurchen vassalage in 1210 and attacked the Jin in 1211. In light of this event, the Song court debated ending tributary payments to the weakened Jin, but they again chose to avoid antagonizing the Jin. They refused Western Xia's offers of allying against the Jin in 1214 and willingly complied when in 1215 the Jin rejected a request to lower the annual indemnity. Meanwhile, in 1214, the Jin retreated from the besieged capital of Zhongdu to Kaifeng, which became the new capital of the dynasty. As the Mongols expanded, the Jin suffered territorial losses and attacked the Song in 1217 to compensate for their shrinking territory. Periodic Song raids against the Jin were the official justification for the war. Another likely motive was that the conquest of the Song would have given the Jin a place to escape should the Mongols succeed in taking control of the north. Shi Miyuan (史彌遠; 1164–1233), the chancellor of Song Emperor Lizong (r. 1224–1264), was hesitant to fight the Jin and delayed the declaration of war for two months. Song generals were largely autonomous, allowing Shi to evade blame for their military blunders. The Jin advanced across the border from the center and western fronts. Jurchen military successes were limited, and the Jin faced repeated raids from the neighboring state of Western Xia. In 1217, the Song generals Meng Zongzheng (孟宗政) and Hu Zaixing (扈再興) defeated the Jin and prevented them from capturing Zaoyang and Suizhou.
A second Jin campaign in late 1217 did marginally better than the first. In the east, the Jin made little headway in the Huai River valley, but in the west they captured Xihezhou and Dasan Pass (大散關; modern Shaanxi) in late 1217. The Jin tried to captured Suizhou in Jingxi South circuit again in 1218 and 1219, but failed. A Song counteroffensive in early 1218 captured Sizhou and in 1219 the Jin cities of Dengzhou and Tangzhou were pillaged twice by a Song army commanded by Zhao Fang (趙方; d. 1221). In the west, command of the Song forces in Sichuan was given to An Bing, who had previously been dismissed from this position. He successfully defended the western front, but was unable to advance further because of local uprisings in the area. The Jin tried to extort an indemnity from the Song but never received it. In the last of the three campaigns, in early 1221, the Jin captured the city of Qizhou (蘄州; in Huainan West) deep in Song territory. Song armies led by Hu Zaixing and Li Quan (李全; d. 1231) defeated the Jin, who then withdrew. In 1224 both sides agreed on a peace treaty that ended the annual tributes to the Jin. Diplomatic missions between the Jin and Song were also cut off.
#### Mongol–Song alliance
In February 1233, the Mongols took Kaifeng after a siege of more than 10 months and the Jin court retreated to the town of Caizhou. In 1233 Emperor Aizong (r. 1224–1234) of the Jin dispatched diplomats to implore the Song for supplies. Jin envoys reported to the Song that the Mongols would invade the Song after they were done with the Jin—a forecast that would later be proven true—but the Song ignored the warning and rebuffed the request. They instead formed an alliance with the Mongols against the Jin. The Song provided supplies to the Mongols in return for parts of Henan. The Jin dynasty collapsed when Mongol and Song troops defeated the Jurchens at the siege of Caizhou in 1234. General Meng Gong (孟珙) led the Song army against Caizhou. The penultimate emperor of the Jin, Emperor Aizong, took his own life. His short-lived successor, Emperor Mo, was killed in the town a few days later. The Mongols later turned their sights towards the Song. After decades of war, the Song dynasty also fell in 1279, when the remaining Song loyalists lost to the Mongols in a naval battle near Guangdong.
## Historical significance
### Cultural and demographic changes
Jurchen migrants from the northeastern reaches of Jin territory settled in the Jin-controlled lands of northern China. Constituting less than ten percent of the total population, the two to three million ruling Jurchens were a minority in a region that was still dominated by 30 million Han Chinese. The southward expansion of the Jurchens caused the Jin to transition their decentralized government of semi-agrarian tribes to a bureaucratic Chinese-style dynasty.
The Jin government initially promoted an independent Jurchen culture alongside their adoption of the centralized Chinese imperial bureaucracy, but the empire was gradually sinicized over time. The Jurchens became fluent in the Chinese language, and the philosophy of Confucianism was used to legitimize the ruling government. Confucian state rituals were adopted during the reign of Emperor Xizong (1135–1150). The Jin implemented imperial exams on the Confucian Classics, first regionally and then for the entire empire. The Classics and other works of Chinese literature were translated into Jurchen and studied by Jin intellectuals, but very few Jurchens actively contributed to the classical literature of the Jin. The Khitan script, from the Chinese family of scripts, formed the basis of a national writing system for the empire, the Jurchen script. All three scripts were working languages of the government. Jurchen clans adopted Chinese personal names with their Jurchen names. Wanyan Liang (Prince of Hailing; r. 1150–1161) was an enthusiastic proponent of Jurchen sinicization and enacted policies to encourage it. Wanyan Liang had been acculturated by Song diplomats from childhood, and his emulation of Song practices earned him the Jurchen nickname of "aping the Chinese". He studied the Chinese classics, drank tea, and played Chinese chess for recreation. Under his reign, the administrative core of the Jin state was moved south from Huining. He instated Beijing as the Jin main capital in 1153. Palaces were erected in Beijing and Kaifeng, while the original, more northerly residences of Jurchen chieftains were demolished.
The emperor's political reforms were connected with his desire to conquer all of China and to legitimize himself as a Chinese emperor. The prospect of conquering southern China was cut short by Wanyan Liang's assassination. Wanyan Liang's successor, Emperor Shizong, was less enthusiastic about sinicization and reversed several of Wanyan Liang's edicts. He sanctioned new policies with the intent to slow the assimilation of the Jurchens. Shizong's prohibitions were abandoned by Emperor Zhangzong (r. 1189–1208), who promoted reforms that transformed the political structure of the dynasty closer to that of the Song and Tang dynasties. Despite cultural and demographic changes, military hostilities between the Jin and the Song persisted until the fall of the Jin.
In the south, the retreat of the Song dynasty led to major demographic changes. The population of refugees from the north that resettled in Lin'an and Jiankang (modern Hangzhou and Nanjing) eventually grew greater than the population of original residents, whose numbers had dwindled from repeated Jurchen raids. The government encouraged the resettlement of peasant migrants from the southern provinces of the Song to the underpopulated territories between the Yangtze and the Huai rivers.
The new capital Lin'an grew into a major commercial and cultural center. It rose from a middling city of no special importance to one of the world's largest and most prosperous. During his stay in Lin'an in the Yuan dynasty (1260–1368), when the city was not as wealthy as it had been under the Song, Marco Polo remarked that "this city is greater than any in the world". Once retaking northern China became less plausible and Lin'an grew into a significant trading city, the government buildings were extended and renovated to better befit its status as an imperial capital. The modestly sized imperial palace was expanded in 1133 with new roofed alleyways and in 1148 with an extension of the palace walls.
The loss of northern China, the cultural center of Chinese civilization, diminished the regional status of the Song dynasty. After the Jurchen conquest of the north, Korea recognized the Jin, not the Song, as the legitimate dynasty of China. The Song's military failures reduced it to a subordinate of the Jin, turning it into a "China among equals". The Song economy, however, recovered quickly after the move south. Government revenues earned from taxing foreign trade nearly doubled between the closing of the Northern Song era in 1127 and the final years of Gaozong's reign in the early 1160s. The recovery was not uniform, and areas like Huainan and Hubei that had been directly affected by the war took decades to return to their pre-war levels. In spite of multiple wars, the Jin remained one of the main trading partners of the Song. Song demand for foreign products like fur and horses went unabated. Historian Shiba Yoshinobu (斯波義信, b. 1930) believes that Song commerce with the north was profitable enough that it compensated for the silver delivered annually as an indemnity to the Jin.
The Jin–Song Wars were one of several wars in northern China along with the Uprising of the Five Barbarians, An Lushan Rebellion, Huang Chao Rebellion and the wars of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms which caused a mass migration of Han Chinese from northern China to southern China called "衣冠南渡" (pinyin: yì guān nán dù). In 1126–1127 over half a million fled from northern China to southern China including Li Qingzhao. One section of the Confucius family led by Duke Yansheng Kong Duanyou moved south to Quzhou with Southern Song emperor Gaozong while his brother Kong Duancao remained behind in Qufu and became the Duke Yansheng for the Jin dynasty. A section of the Zengzi family also moved south with the Southern Song while the other part of the Zengzi family stayed in the north.
However, there was also a reverse migration when the war was over of Han Chinese from the Southern Song towards Jin ruled northern China leading southern China's population to shrink and northern China's population to grow.
### Gunpowder warfare
The battles between the Song and the Jin spurred the invention and use of gunpowder weapons. There are reports that the fire lance, one of the earliest ancestors of the firearm, was used by the Song against the Jurchens besieging De'an (德安; modern Anlu in eastern Hubei) in 1132, during the Jin invasion of Hubei and Shaanxi. The weapon consisted of a spear attached with a flamethrower capable of firing projectiles from a barrel constructed of bamboo or paper. They were built by soldiers under the command of Chen Gui (陳規), who led the Song army defending De'an. The fire lances with which Song soldiers were equipped at De'an were built for destroying the wooden siege engines of the Jin and not for combat against the Jin infantry. Song soldiers compensated for the limited range and mobility of the weapon by timing their attacks on the Jin siege engines, waiting until they were within range of the fire lances. Later fire lances used metal barrels, fired projectiles farther and with greater force, and could be used against infantry.
Early rudimentary bombs like the huopao fire bomb (火礮) and the huopao (火砲) bombs propelled by trebuchet were also in use as incendiary weapons. The defending Song army used huopao (火礮) during the first Jin siege of Kaifeng in 1126. On the opposing side, the Jin launched incendiary bombs from siege towers down onto the city below. In 1127, huopao (火礮) were employed by the Song troops defending De'an and by the Jin soldiers besieging the city. The government official Lin Zhiping (林之平) proposed to make incendiary bombs and arrows mandatory for all warships in the Song navy. At the battle of Caishi in 1161, Song ships fired pili huoqiu (霹靂火球), also called pili huopao bombs (霹靂火砲), from trebuchets against the ships of the Jin fleet commanded by Wanyan Liang. The gunpowder mixture of the bomb contained powdered lime, which produced blinding smoke once the casing of the bomb shattered. The Song also deployed incendiary weapons at the battle of Tangdao during the same year.
Gunpowder was also applied to arrows in 1206 by a Song army stationed in Xiangyang. The arrows were most likely an incendiary weapon, but its function may also have resembled that of an early rocket. At the Jin siege of Qizhou (蘄州) in 1221, the Jurchens fought the Song with gunpowder bombs and arrows. The Jin tiehuopao (鐵火砲, "iron huopao"), which had cast iron casings, are the first known hard casing bombs. The bomb needed to be capable of detonating in order to penetrate the iron casing. The Song army had a large supply of incendiary bombs, but there are no reports of them having a weapon similar to the Jin's detonating bombs. A participant in the siege recounted in the Xinsi Qi Qi Lu (辛巳泣蘄錄) that the Song army at Qizhou had an arsenal of 3000 huopao (火礮), 7000 incendiary gunpowder arrows for crossbows and 10000 for bows, as well as 20000 pidapao (皮大礮), probably leather bags filled with gunpowder.
## See also
- History of the Song dynasty
- Timeline of the Jin–Song wars
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Peter Warlock
| 1,171,173,476 |
British composer and music critic (1894–1930)
|
[
"1894 births",
"1930 deaths",
"1930 suicides",
"20th-century British male musicians",
"20th-century English composers",
"20th-century classical composers",
"Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford",
"Alumni of University College London",
"English classical composers",
"English folk-song collectors",
"English male classical composers",
"English music critics",
"People educated at Eton College",
"People from Eynsford",
"Suicides by gas",
"Suicides in Chelsea",
"Welsh folk-song collectors"
] |
Philip Arnold Heseltine (30 October 189417 December 1930), known by the pseudonym Peter Warlock, was a British composer and music critic. The Warlock name, which reflects Heseltine's interest in occult practices, was used for all his published musical works. He is best known as a composer of songs and other vocal music; he also achieved notoriety in his lifetime through his unconventional and often scandalous lifestyle.
As a schoolboy at Eton College, Heseltine met the British composer Frederick Delius, with whom he formed a close friendship. After a failed student career in Oxford and London, Heseltine turned to musical journalism, while developing interests in folk-song and Elizabethan music. His first serious compositions date from around 1915. Following a period of inactivity, a positive and lasting influence on his work arose from his meeting in 1916 with the Dutch composer Bernard van Dieren; he also gained creative impetus from a year spent in Ireland, studying Celtic culture and language. On his return to England in 1918, Heseltine began composing songs in a distinctive, original style, while building a reputation as a combative and controversial music critic. During 1920–21 he edited the music magazine The Sackbut. His most prolific period as a composer came in the 1920s, when he was based first in Wales and later at Eynsford in Kent.
Through his critical writings, published under his own name, Heseltine made a pioneering contribution to the scholarship of early music. In addition, he produced a full-length biography of Delius and wrote, edited, or otherwise assisted the production of several other books and pamphlets. Towards the end of his life, Heseltine became depressed by a loss of his creative inspiration. He died in his London flat of coal gas poisoning in 1930, probably by suicide.
## Life
### Early life
#### Childhood and family background
Heseltine was born on 30 October 1894 at the Savoy Hotel, London, which his parents were using at the time as their town residence. The family was wealthy, with strong artistic connections and some background in classical scholarship. Philip's parents were Arnold Heseltine, a solicitor in the family firm, and Bessie Mary Edith, née Covernton. She was the daughter of a country doctor from the Welsh border town of Knighton and was Arnold's second wife. Soon after Philip's birth, the family moved to Chelsea where he attended a nearby kindergarten and received his first piano lessons.
In March 1897 Arnold Heseltine died suddenly at the age of 45. Six years later, Bessie married a Welsh landowner and local magistrate, Walter Buckley Jones, and moved to Jones's estate, Cefn Bryntalch, Llandyssil, near Montgomery, although the London house was retained. The youthful Philip was proud of his Welsh heritage and retained a lifelong interest in Celtic culture; later he would live in Wales during one of his most productive and creative phases.
In 1903 Heseltine entered Stone House Preparatory School in Broadstairs, where he showed precocious academic ability and won several prizes. In January 1908, at a concert in the Royal Albert Hall, he heard a performance of Lebenstanz, composed by Frederick Delius. The work made little impression on him until he discovered that his uncle, Arthur Joseph Heseltine (known as "Joe"), an artist, lived close to Delius's home in Grez-sur-Loing in France. Philip then used the connection to obtain the composer's autograph for Stone House's music teacher, W. E. Brockway.
#### Eton: first meeting with Delius
Heseltine left Stone House in the summer of 1908 and began at Eton College that autumn. His biographer Ian Parrott records that he loathed Eton, "with its hearty adolescent bawling of Victorian hymns in an all-male college chapel". He was equally unhappy with other aspects of school life, such as the Officers' Training Corps, the suggestive homosexuality, and endemic bullying. He found relief in music and, perhaps because of the connection with his uncle, formed an interest in Delius that developed into a near-obsession. He also found a kindred spirit in an Eton music teacher and Delius advocate, the cellist Edward Mason, from whom Heseltine borrowed a copy of the score of Sea Drift. He thought it "heavenly", and was soon requesting funds from his mother to purchase more of Delius's music. According to Cecil Gray, Heseltine's first biographer, "[Heseltine] did not rest until he had procured every work of Delius which was then accessible".
In June 1911 Heseltine learned that Thomas Beecham was to conduct an all-Delius concert at London's Queen's Hall on the 16th of that month, at which the composer would be present, and his Songs of Sunset would be given its first performance. Colin Taylor, a sympathetic Eton piano tutor, secured permission from the school for Heseltine to attend the event. Prior to this, his mother had contrived to meet Delius in her London home; as a consequence, during the concert intermission Heseltine was introduced to the composer. The next day he wrote Delius a long appreciative letter: "I cannot adequately express in words the intense pleasure it was to me to hear such perfect performances of such perfect music". He told his mother that "Friday evening was the most perfectly happy evening I have ever spent, and I shall never forget it". Delius became the first strong formative influence of Heseltine's compositional career, and although the initial adulation was later modified, a friendship began that would largely endure for the remainder of Heseltine's life.
### Cologne, Oxford and London
By the summer of 1911, a year before he was due to leave the school, Heseltine had tired of life at Eton. Without a clear plan for his future, he asked his mother if he could live abroad for a while. His mother wanted him to go to university, and then either into the City or the Civil Service, but she agreed to his request with the proviso that he would resume his education later. In October 1911 he proceeded to Cologne to learn German and to study piano at the conservatory. In Cologne Heseltine produced his first few songs which, like all his earliest works, were highly imitative of Delius. The piano studies went poorly, although Heseltine expanded his musical experiences by attending concerts and operas. He also experimented with general journalism, publishing an article in Railway and Travel Monthly on the subject of a disused Welsh branch line.
In March 1912 Heseltine returned to London and engaged a tutor to prepare for his university entrance examinations. He spent time with Delius at that summer's Birmingham Festival, and published his first music criticism, an article on Arnold Schoenberg that appeared in the Musical Standard in September 1912. Despite his mother's wishes and his lack of formal musical training, he hoped to make a career in music. He consulted Delius, who advised him that, if his mind was set, he should follow his instincts and pursue this objective in the face of all other considerations. Beecham, who knew both men, later sharply criticised this advice, on the grounds of Heseltine's immaturity and instability. "Frederick should never have committed the psychological blunder of preaching the doctrine of relentless determination to someone incapable of receiving it". In the end Heseltine acceded to his mother's wishes. After passing the necessary examinations, he was accepted to study classics at Christ Church, Oxford, and began there in October 1913.
A female acquaintance at Christ Church described the 19-year-old Heseltine as "probably about 22, but he appears to be years older ... 6 feet high, absolutely fit ... brilliant blue eyes ... and the curved lips and highhead carriage of a young Greek God". Although he enjoyed social success, he soon became depressed and unhappy with Oxford life. In April 1914 he spent part of his Easter vacation with Delius at Grez, and worked with the composer on the scores of An Arabesque and Fennimore and Gerda, in the latter case providing an English version of the libretto. He did not return to Oxford after the 1914 summer vacation; with his mother's reluctant consent he moved to Bloomsbury in London, and enrolled at University College London to study language, literature and philosophy. In his spare time he conducted a small amateur orchestra in Windsor, after admitting to Delius that he knew nothing of the art of conducting. However, his life as a student in London was brief; in February 1915, with the help of Lady Emerald Cunard (a mistress of Beecham) he secured a job as a music critic for the Daily Mail at a salary of £100 per year. He promptly abandoned his university studies to begin this new career.
### Unsettled years
#### Music critic
During Heseltine's four months at the Daily Mail, he wrote about 30 notices, mainly short reports of musical events but occasionally with some analysis. His first contribution, dated 9 February 1915, described a performance by Benno Moiseiwitsch of Delius's Piano Concerto in C minor, as "masterly", while Delius was hailed as "the greatest composer England has produced for two centuries". The other work in the programme was "the last great symphony that has been delivered to the world": the Symphony in D minor by Franck. He wrote for other publications; a 5000-word article, "Some notes on Delius and his Music", appeared in the March 1915 issue of The Musical Times, in which Heseltine opined: "There can be no superficial view of Delius's music: either one feels it in the very depths of one's being, or not at all". Only Beecham, Heseltine suggested, was capable of interpreting the music adequately. Heseltine's last notice for the Daily Mail was dated 17 June; later that month he resigned, frustrated by the paper's frequent cutting of his more critical opinions. Unemployed, he spent his days in the British Museum, studying and editing Elizabethan music.
#### New friends and acquaintances
Heseltine spent much of the 1915 summer in a rented holiday cottage in the Vale of Evesham, with a party that included a young artist's model named Minnie Lucie Channing, who was known as "Puma" because of her volatile temperament. She and Heseltine soon entered into a passionate love affair. During this summer break Heseltine shocked neighbours by his uninhibited behaviour, which included riding a motorcycle naked down nearby Crickley Hill. However, his letters show that at this time he was often depressed and insecure, lacking any clear sense of purpose. In November 1915 his life gained some impetus when he met D. H. Lawrence and the pair found an immediate rapport. Heseltine declared Lawrence to be "the greatest literary genius of his generation", and enthusiastically fell in with the writer's plans to found a Utopian colony in America. In late December he followed the Lawrences to Cornwall, where he tried, unavailingly, to set up a publishing company with them. Passions between Heseltine and Puma had meanwhile cooled; when she revealed that she was pregnant, Heseltine confided to Delius that he had little liking for her and had no intention of helping her to raise this unwanted child.
In February 1916 Heseltine returned to London, ostensibly to argue for exemption from military service. However, it became clear that there had been a rift with Lawrence; in a letter to his friend Robert Nichols, Heseltine described Lawrence as "a bloody bore determined to make me wholly his and as boring as he is". The social centre of Heseltine's life now became the Café Royal in Regent Street, where among others he met Cecil Gray, a young Scottish composer. The two decided to share a Battersea studio, where they planned various unfulfilled schemes, including a new music magazine, and, more ambitiously, a London season of operas and concerts. Heseltine declined an offer from Beecham to participate in the latter's English Opera Company, writing to Delius that Beecham's productions and choices of works were increasingly poor and lacking in artistic value; in his own venture there would be "no compromise with the mob". Beecham ridiculed the plan; he said it would "be launched and controlled by persons without the smallest experience of theatrical life".
An event of considerable significance in Heseltine's musical life, late in 1916, was his introduction to the Dutch composer Bernard van Dieren. This friendship considerably influenced Heseltine, who for the rest of his life continued to promote the older composer's music. In November 1916 Heseltine used the pseudonym "Peter Warlock" for the first time, in an article on Eugene Aynsley Goossens' chamber music for The Music Student.
Puma bore a son in July 1916, though there is confusion about the child's exact identity. Most biographers assumed him to be Nigel Heseltine, the future writer who published a memoir of his father in 1992. However, in that memoir Nigel denied that Puma was his mother; he was, he says, the result of a concurrent liaison between Heseltine and an unnamed Swiss girl. Subsequently, he was given to foster-parents, then adopted by Heseltine's mother. Parrott records that the son born to Puma was called Peter, and died in infancy. Smith, however, states that Puma's baby was originally called Peter but was renamed Nigel "for reasons which have not as yet been satisfactorily explained". Whatever the truth of the paternity, and in spite of their mutual misgivings, Heseltine and Puma were married at Chelsea Register Office on 22 December 1916.
#### Ireland
By April 1917 Heseltine had again tired of London life. He returned to Cornwall where he rented a small cottage near the Lawrences, and made a partial peace with the writer. By the summer of 1917, as Allied fortunes in the war stagnated, Heseltine's military exemption came under review; to forestall a possible conscription, in August 1917 he moved to Ireland, taking Puma, with whom he had decided he was, after all, in love.
In Ireland Heseltine combined studies of early music with a fascination for Celtic languages, withdrawing for a two-month period to a remote island where Irish was spoken exclusively. Another preoccupation was an increasing fascination with magical and occult practices, an interest first awakened during his Oxford year and revived in Cornwall. A letter to Robert Nichols indicates that at this time he was "tamper[ing] ... with the science vulgarly known as Black Magic". To his former tutor Colin Taylor, Heseltine enthused about books "full of the most astounding wisdom and illumination"; these works included Eliphas Levi's History of Transcendental Magic, which includes procedures for the invocation of demons. These diversions did not prevent Heseltine from participating in Dublin's cultural life. He met W. B. Yeats, a fellow-enthusiast for the occult, and briefly considered writing an opera based on the 9th-century Celtic folk-tale of Liadain and Curithir. The composer Denis ApIvor has indicated that Heseltine's obsession with the occult was eventually replaced by his studies in religious philosophies, to which he was drawn through membership of a theosophist group in Dublin. Heseltine's interest in this field had originally been aroused by Kaikhosru Sorabji, the composer who had introduced him to the music of Béla Bartók.
On 12 May 1918 Heseltine delivered a well-received illustrated lecture, "What Music Is", at Dublin's Abbey Theatre, which included musical excerpts from Bartók, the French composer Paul Ladmirault, and Van Dieren. Heseltine's championing of Van Dieren's music led in August 1918 to a vituperative war of words with the music publisher Winthrop Rogers, over the latter's rejection of several Van Dieren compositions. This dispute stimulated Heseltine's own creative powers, and in his final two weeks in Ireland he wrote ten songs, which later critics have considered to be among his finest work.
#### Journalism and The Sackbut
When Heseltine returned to London at the end of August 1918 he sent seven of his new songs to Rogers for publication. Because of the recent contretemps over Van Dieren, Heseltine submitted these pieces as "Peter Warlock". They were published under this pseudonym, which he thereafter adopted for all his subsequent musical output, reserving his own name for critical and analytical writings. At around this time the composer Charles Wilfred Orr recalled Heseltine as "a tall fair youth of about my own age", trying without success to convince a sceptical Delius of the merits of Van Dieren's piano works. Orr was particularly struck by Heseltine's whistling abilities which he describes as "flute-like in quality and purity".
For the next few years Heseltine devoted most of his energy to musical criticism and journalism. In May 1919 he delivered a paper to the Musical Association, "The Modern Spirit in Music", that impressed E.J. Dent, the future Cambridge University music professor. However, much of his writing was confrontational and quarrelsome. He made dismissive comments about the current standards of musical criticism ("the average newspaper critic of music ... is either a shipwrecked or worn-out musician, or else a journalist too incompetent for ordinary reporting") which offended senior critics such as Ernest Newman. He wrote provocative articles in the Musical Times, and in July 1919 feuded with the composer-critic Leigh Henry over the music of Igor Stravinsky.
In a letter dated 17 July 1919, Delius advised the younger man to concentrate either on writing or composing: "I ... know how gifted you are and what possibilities are in you". By this time Heseltine's privately expressed opinions on Delius's music were increasingly critical, although in public he continued to sing his former mentor's praises. In The Musical Times he cited Fennimore and Gerda, Delius's final opera, as "one of the most successful experiments in a new direction that the operatic stage has yet seen".
Heseltine had long nurtured a scheme to launch a music magazine, which he intended to start as soon as he found appropriate backing. In April 1920, Rogers decided to replace his semi-moribund magazine The Organist and Choirmaster, with a new music journal, The Sackbut, and invited Heseltine to edit it. Heseltine presided over nine issues, adopting a style that was combative and often controversial. The Sackbut also organised concerts, presenting works by Van Dieren, Sorabji, Ladmirault and others. However, Rogers withdrew his financial backing after five issues. Heseltine then struggled to run it himself for several months; in September 1921 the magazine was taken over by the publisher John Curwen, who promptly replaced Heseltine as editor with Ursula Greville.
### Productive years in Wales
With no regular income, in the autumn of 1921 Heseltine returned to Cefn Bryntalch, which became his base for the next three years. He found the atmosphere there conducive to creative efforts; he told Gray that "Wild Wales holds an enchantment for me stronger than wine or woman". The Welsh years were marked by intense creative compositional and literary activity; some of Heseltine's best-known music, including the song-cycles Lilligay and The Curlew, were completed along with numerous songs, choral settings, and a string serenade composed to honour Delius's 60th birthday in 1922. Heseltine also edited and transcribed a large amount of early English music. His recognition as an emerging composer was marked by the selection of The Curlew as representing contemporary British music at the 1924 Salzburg Festival.
Heseltine's major literary work of this period was a biography of Delius, the first full-length study of the composer, which remained the standard work for many years. On its 1952 reissue, the book was described by music publisher Hubert J. Foss as "a work of art, a charming and penetrating study of a musical poet's mind". Heseltine also worked with Gray on a study of the 16th-century Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo, although disputes between the two men delayed the book's publication until 1926.
While visiting Budapest in April 1921, Heseltine befriended the then little-known Hungarian composer and pianist Béla Bartók. When Bartók visited Wales in March 1922 to perform in a concert, he stayed for a few days at Cefn Bryntalch. Although Heseltine continued to promote Bartók's music, there are no records of further meetings after the Wales visit. Heseltine's on-off friendship with Lawrence finally died, after a thinly disguised and unflattering depiction of Heseltine and Puma ("Halliday" and "Pussum") appeared in Women in Love, published in 1922. Heseltine began legal proceedings for defamation, eventually settling out of court with the publishers, Secker and Warburg. Puma, meanwhile, had disappeared from Heseltine's life. She returned from Ireland before he did, and had lived for a while with the young child Nigel at Cefn Bryntalch where the local gentry considered her "not of the same order of society as we are". There was no resumption of married life, and she left Heseltine sometime in 1922.
In September and October 1923 Heseltine accompanied his fellow-composer Ernest John Moeran on a tour of eastern England, in search of original folk music. Later that year he and Gray visited Delius at Grez. In June 1924 Heseltine left Cefn Bryntalch and lived briefly in a Chelsea flat, a stay marked by wild parties and considerable damage to the property. After spending Christmas 1924 in Majorca he leased a cottage (formerly occupied by Foss) in the Kent village of Eynsford.
### Eynsford
At Eynsford, with Moeran as his co-tenant, Heseltine presided over a bohemian household with a flexible population of artists, musicians and friends. Moeran had studied at the Royal College of Music before and after the First World War; he avidly collected folk music and had admired Delius during his youth. Although they had much in common, he and Heseltine rarely worked together, though they did co-write a song, "Maltworms". The other permanent Eynsford residents were Barbara Peache, Heseltine's long-term girlfriend whom he had known since the early 1920s, and Hal Collins, a New Zealand Māori who acted as a general factotum. Peache was described by Delius's assistant Eric Fenby as "a very quiet, attractive girl, quite different from Phil's usual types". Although not formally trained, Collins was a gifted graphic designer and occasional composer, who sometimes assisted Heseltine. The household was augmented at various times by the composers William Walton and Constant Lambert, the artist Nina Hamnett, and sundry acquaintances of both sexes.
The ambience at Eynsford was one of alcohol (the "Five Bells" public house was conveniently across the road) and uninhibited sexual activity. These years are the primary basis for the Warlock legends of wild living and debauchery. Visitors to the house left accounts of orgies, all-night drunken parties, and rough horseplay that at least once brought police intervention. However, such activities were mainly confined to weekends; within this unconventional setting Heseltine accomplished much work, including settings from the Jacobean dramatist John Webster and the modern poet Hilaire Belloc, and the Capriol Suite in versions for string and full orchestra. Heseltine continued to transcribe early music, wrote articles and criticism, and finished the book on Gesualdo. He attempted to restore the reputation of a neglected Elizabethan composer, Thomas Whythorne, with a long pamphlet which, years later, brought significant amendments to Whythorne's entry in The History of Music in England. He also wrote a general study of Elizabethan music, The English Ayre.
In January 1927, Heseltine's string serenade was recorded for the National Gramophonic Society, by John Barbirolli and an improvised chamber orchestra. A year later, HMV recorded the ballad "Captain Stratton's Fancy", sung by Peter Dawson. These two are the only recordings of Heseltine's music released during his lifetime. His association with the poet and journalist Bruce Blunt led to the popular Christmas anthem "Bethlehem Down", which the pair wrote in 1927 to raise money for their Christmas drinking. By the summer of 1928 his general lifestyle had created severe financial problems, despite his industry. In October he was forced to give up the cottage at Eynsford, and returned to Cefn Bryntalch.
### Final years
By November 1928, Heseltine had tired of Cefn Bryntalch, and returned to London. He sought concert reviewing and cataloguing assignments without much success; his main creative activity was the editing, under the pseudonym "Rab Noolas" ("Saloon Bar" backwards), of Merry-Go-Down, an anthology in praise of drinking. The book, published by The Mandrake Press, was copiously illustrated by Hal Collins.
Early in 1929 Heseltine received two offers from Beecham which temporarily restored his sense of purpose. Beecham had founded the Imperial League of Opera (ILO) in 1927; he now invited Heseltine to edit the ILO journal. Beecham also asked Heseltine to help organise a festival to honour Delius, which the conductor was planning for October 1929. Although Heseltine's enthusiasm for Delius's music had diminished, he accepted the assignment, and travelled to Grez in search of forgotten compositions that could be resurrected for the festival. He declared that he was delighted to discover Cynara, for voice and orchestra, abandoned since 1907. For the festival, Heseltine prepared many of the programme notes for individual concerts and supplied a concise biography of the composer. According to Delius's wife Jelka: "Next to Beecham, he [Heseltine] really was the soul of the thing".
At a Promenade Concert in August 1929, Heseltine conducted a performance of the Capriol Suite, the single public conducting engagement of his life. In an effort to reproduce their success with "Bethlehem Down", he and Blunt proffered a new carol for Christmas 1929, "The Frostbound Wood". Although the work was technically accomplished, it failed to achieve the popularity of its predecessor. Heseltine edited three issues of the ILO journal, but in January 1930, Beecham announced the closure of the venture, and Heseltine was out of work again. His attempt on behalf of Van Dieren to raise financing to mount a performance of the latter's opera The Tailor also failed.
The final summer of Heseltine's life was marked by gloom, depression, and inactivity; ApIvor refers to Heseltine's sense of "crimes against the spirit", and an obsession with imminent death. In July 1930 a fortnight spent with Blunt in Hampshire brought a brief creative revival; Heseltine composed "The Fox" to Blunt's lyrics, and on his return to London he wrote "The Fairest May" for voice and string quartet. These were his final original compositions.
### Death
In September 1930 Heseltine moved with Barbara Peache into a basement flat at 12a Tite Street in Chelsea. With no fresh creative inspiration, he worked in the British Museum to transcribe the music of English composer Cipriani Potter, and made a solo version of "Bethlehem Down" with organ accompaniment. On the evening of 16 December Heseltine met Van Dieren and his wife for a drink and invited them home afterwards. According to Van Dieren, the visitors left at about 12:15 a.m. Neighbours later reported sounds of movement and of a piano in the early morning. When Peache, who had been away, returned early on 17 December, she found the doors and windows bolted, and smelled coal gas. The police broke into the flat and found Heseltine unconscious; he was declared dead shortly afterwards, apparently as the result of coal gas poisoning.
An inquest was held on 22 December; the jury could not determine whether the death was accidental or suicide and an open verdict was returned. Most commentators have considered suicide the more likely cause; Heseltine's close friend Lionel Jellinek and Peache both recalled that he had previously threatened to take his life by gas and the outline of a new will was found among the papers in the flat. Much later, Nigel Heseltine introduced a new theory—that his father had been murdered by Van Dieren, the sole beneficiary of Heseltine's 1920 will, which stood to be revoked by the new one. This theory is not considered tenable by most commentators. The suicide theory is supported (arguably), by the (supposed, accepted) fact that Heseltine/Warlock had put his young cat outside the room before he had turned on the lethal gas.
Philip Heseltine was buried alongside his father at Godalming cemetery on 20 December 1930. In late February 1931, a memorial concert of his music was held at the Wigmore Hall; a second such concert took place in the following December.
In 2011 the art critic Brian Sewell published his memoirs, in which he claimed that he was Heseltine's illegitimate son, born in July 1931 seven months after the composer's death. Sewell's mother, private secretary Mary Jessica Perkins (who subsequently married Robert Sewell in 1936), a Camden publican's daughter, was an intermittent girlfriend, a Roman Catholic who refused Heseltine's offer to pay for an abortion and subsequently blamed herself for his death. Sewell was unaware of his father's identity until 1986.
### Legacy
Heseltine's surviving body of work includes about 150 songs, mostly for solo voice and piano. He also wrote choral pieces, some with instrumental or orchestral accompaniment, and a few purely instrumental works. Among lost or destroyed works the musicologist Ian Copley lists two stage pieces: sketches for the abandoned opera Liadain and Curither, and the draft of a mime-drama Twilight (1926) which Heseltine destroyed on the advice of Delius. Music historian Stephen Banfield described the songs as "polished gems of English art song forming a pinnacle of that genre's brilliant brief revival in the early 20th century ... [works of] intensity, consistency and unfailing excellence". According to Delius's biographer Christopher Palmer, Heseltine influenced the work of fellow-composers Moeran and Orr, and to a lesser extent Lambert and Walton, primarily by bringing them within the Delius orbit. In the case of the latter pair, Palmer argues, "those reminiscences of Delius which crop up from time to time in [their] music ... are more probably Delius filtered through Warlock".
Heseltine biographer Brian Collins considers the composer a prime mover in the 20th-century renaissance of early English music; apart from much writing on the subject, he made well over 500 transcriptions of early works. He also wrote or contributed to ten books, and wrote dozens of general music articles and reviews. Many years later, Gray wrote of Heseltine: "In the memory of his friends, he is as alive now as he ever was when he trod the earth, and so he will continue to be until the last of us are dead". During his Eynsford years, Heseltine had provided his own epitaph:
> ` Here lies Warlock the composer`
> ` Who lived next door to Munn the grocer.`
> ` He died of drink and copulation,`
> ` A sad discredit to the nation.`
## Music
### Influences
In the early 20th century the German-influenced 19th-century song-writing traditions generally followed by Hubert Parry, Charles Villiers Stanford, Edward Elgar and Roger Quilter, were in a process of eclipse. For composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams and George Butterworth, English folk-song became a dominant feature of their work; at the same time, songwriters were seeking to extend their art by moving beyond the piano to develop richer forms of vocal accompaniment. Thus, as Copley observes, at the outset of his career as a composer Heseltine found in song-writing a dynamic ambience, "within which he could express himself, or against which he could react".
By the time Heseltine began composing seriously, around 1915–16, he had started to shake off the overwhelming influence of Delius. He had discovered English folk-song in 1913, his Oxford year, and had begun to study Elizabethan and Jacobean music. In 1916 he came under the spell of Van Dieren, whose influence soon exceeded that of Delius and led to a significant development in compositional technique, first evident in the Saudades song cycle of 1916–17. Gray writes that from Van Dieren, Heseltine "learned to purify and organise his harmonic texture ... and the thick, muddy chords which characterised the early songs gave place to clear and vigorous part-writing". "In 1917–18 Heseltine's passion for Celtic culture, stimulated by his stay in Ireland, brought a new element to his music, and in 1921 he discovered Bartók. A late passion was the music of John Dowland, the Elizabethan lutenist, one of whose dances he arranged for brass band. These constituent parts contributed to the individual style of Heseltine's music. Gray summarised this style thus;
> They [the differing elements] are fused together in a curiously personal way: the separate ingredients can be analysed and defined, but not the ultimate product, which is not Dowland plus Van Dieren or Elizabethan plus modern, but simply something wholly individual and unanalysable—Peter Warlock. No one else could have written it.
Apart from those within his circle, Heseltine drew inspiration from other composers whose work he respected: Franz Liszt, Gabriel Fauré, and Claude Debussy. He had, however, a particular dislike for the works of his fellow song-writer Hugo Wolf. Heseltine's songs demonstrate moods of both darkness and warm good humour, a dichotomy that helped to fuel the idea of a split Warlock/Heseltine personality. This theory was rejected by the composer's friends and associates, who tended to see the division in terms of "Philip drunk or Philip sober".
### General character
In a summary of the Warlock oeuvre, Copley asserts that Heseltine was a natural melodist in the Schubert mould: "With very few exceptions his melodies will stand on their own ... they can be sung by themselves with no accompaniment, as complete and satisfying as folk-songs". Copley identifies certain characteristic motifs or "fingerprints", which recur throughout the works and which are used to depict differences of mood and atmosphere: anguish, resignation but also warmth, tenderness and amorous dalliance. The music critic Ernest Bradbury comments that Heseltine's songs "serve both singer and poet, the one in their memorably tuneful vocal lines, the other in a scrupulous regard for correct accentuation free from any suggestion of pedantry".
In musical parlance Heseltine was a miniaturist, a title which he was happy to accept in disregard of the sometimes derogatory implications of the label: "I have neither the impulse nor the ability to erect monuments before which a new generation will bow down". He was almost entirely self-taught, avoiding through his lack of a formal conservatory training the "teutonic shadow"—the influence of the German masters. To the charge that his technique was "amateurish", he responded by arguing that a composer should express himself in his own terms, not by "string[ing] together a number of tags and clichés culled from the work of others". His compositions were themselves part of a learning process; The Curlew song cycle originated in 1915 with the setting of a Yeats poem, but did not reach completion until 1922. Brian Collins characterises this work as "a chronicle of [the composer's] progress and development".
### Critical appraisal
Heseltine's music was generally well received by public and critics. The first Warlock compositions to attract critical attention were three of the Dublin songs which Rogers published in 1918. William Child in The Musical Times thought these "first rate", and singled out "As Ever I Saw" as having particular distinction. In 1922, in the same magazine, the short song cycle Mr Belloc's Fancy was likewise praised, especially "Warlock's rattling good tunes and appropriately full-blooded accompaniment". Ralph Vaughan Williams was delighted with the reception accorded to the Three Carols, when he conducted the Bach Choir at the Queen's Hall in December 1923. Early in 1925 the BBC broadcast a performance of the Serenade for string orchestra written to honour Delius, a sign, says Smith, that the music establishment was beginning to take Warlock seriously. Heseltine himself noted the warmth of the Prom audience's reaction to his conducting of the Capriol Suite in 1929: "I was recalled four times".
After Heseltine's death, assessments of his musical stature were generous. Newman considered some of Heseltine's choral compositions "among the finest music written for massed voices by a modern Englishman." Constant Lambert hailed him as "one of the greatest song-writers that music has ever known", a view echoed by Copley. In a tribute published in The Musical Times, Van Dieren referred to Heseltine's music as "a national treasure" that would long survive all that was currently being said or written about it. In subsequent years his standing as a composer diminished; Brian Collins records how public perceptions of Warlock were distorted by the scandalous reports of his private life, so that his musical importance in the inter-war years became obscured. However, when the Peter Warlock Society was created in 1963, interest in his music began to increase. Collins acknowledges that the Warlock output includes much that can be dismissed as mere programme-fillers and encore items, but these do not detract from numerous works of the highest quality, "frequently thrilling and passionate and, occasionally, innovative to the point of being revolutionary".
## Writings
As well as a large output of musical journalism and criticism, Heseltine wrote or was significantly involved in the production of 10 books or long pamphlets:
- Frederick Delius (1923). John Lane, London
- Thomas Whythorne: An unknown Elizabethan composer (1925). Oxford University Press, London (pamphlet)
- (Editor) Songs of the Gardens (1925). Nonesuch Press, London (anthology of 18th-century popular songs)
- (Preface) Orchésography by Thoinot Arbeau, tr. C.W. Beaumont (1925). Beaumont, London
- The English Ayre (1926). Oxford University Press, London
- (with Cecil Gray) Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa: Musician and Murderer (1926). Kegan Paul, London
- Miniature Essays: E.J. Moeran (1926). J.& W. Chester, London (pamphlet, issued anonymously)
- (with Jack Lindsay) Loving Mad Tom: Bedlamite verses of the 16th and 17th centuries (1927). Fanfrolico Press, London (musical transcriptions by Peter Warlock)
- (Editor, joint with Jack Lindsay) The Metamorphosis of Ajax (1927). Fanfrolico Press, London
- (Editor under the name "Rab Noolas") Merry-Go-Down, A Gallery of Gorgeous Drunkards through the ages (1929) (anthology)
At the time of his death Heseltine was planning to write a life of John Dowland.
## See also
- Voices (1995 film), loosely based on Warlock
- List of composers in literature ('Peter Warlock')
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189,596 |
USS Indiana (BB-1)
| 1,167,095,048 |
Battleship of the United States Navy
|
[
"1893 ships",
"Indiana-class battleships",
"Maritime incidents in 1920",
"Ships built by William Cramp & Sons",
"Ships sunk as targets",
"Shipwrecks in the Chesapeake Bay",
"Spanish–American War battleships of the United States",
"World War I battleships of the United States"
] |
USS Indiana was the lead ship of her class and the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to foreign battleships of the time. Authorized in 1890 and commissioned five years later, she was a small battleship, though with heavy armor and ordnance. The ship also pioneered the use of an intermediate battery. She was designed for coastal defense and as a result, her decks were not safe from high waves on the open ocean.
Indiana served in the Spanish–American War (1898) as part of the North Atlantic Squadron. She took part in both the blockade of Santiago de Cuba and the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, which occurred when the Spanish fleet attempted to break through the blockade. Although unable to join the chase of the escaping Spanish cruisers, she was partly responsible for the destruction of the Spanish destroyers Plutón and Furor. After the war, she quickly became obsolete—despite several modernizations—and spent most of her time in commission as a training ship or in the reserve fleet, with her last commission during World War I as a training ship for gun crews. She was decommissioned for the third and final time in January 1919 and was shortly after reclassified Coast Battleship Number 1 so that the name Indiana could be reused. She was sunk in shallow water as a target in aerial bombing tests in 1920, and her hull was sold for scrap in 1924.
## Design
Indiana was constructed from a modified version of a design drawn up by a US Navy policy board in 1889 for a short-range battleship. The original design was part of an ambitious naval construction plan to build 33 battleships and 167 smaller ships. The United States Congress saw the plan as an attempt to end the U.S. policy of isolationism and did not approve it, but a year later, the United States House of Representatives approved funding for three coast defense battleships, which would become Indiana and her sister ships Massachusetts and Oregon. The "coast defense" designation was reflected in Indiana's moderate endurance, relatively small displacement and low freeboard, which limited seagoing capability. The ships proved to be disappointments in service, as they were badly overweight upon completion, their low freeboard hampered operations at sea, and they handled poorly. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships describes her design as "attempting too much on a very limited displacement." They were nevertheless the first modern battleships for the American fleet.
Indiana was 351 feet 2 inches (107.04 m) long overall and had a beam of 69 ft 3 in (21.11 m) and a draft of 24 ft (7.3 m). She displaced 10,288 long tons (10,453 t) as designed and up to 11,688 long tons (11,876 t) at full load. The ship was powered by two-shaft triple-expansion steam engines rated at 9,000 indicated horsepower (6,700 kW) and four coal-fired fire-tube boilers, generating a top speed of 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph). She had a cruising radius of 5,640 nautical miles (10,450 km; 6,490 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). As built, she was fitted with a heavy military mast, which was later supplemented by a stern cage mast in 1910–1911. She had a crew of 32 officers and 441 enlisted men, which increased to a total of 586–636 officers and enlisted.
The ship was armed with a main battery of four 13 in (330 mm) /35 caliber guns in two twin gun turrets on the centerline, one forward and aft. The secondary battery consisted of eight 8-inch (203 mm) /35 cal. guns, which were placed in four twin wing turrets. These were supported by a battery of six 6 in (150 mm) /40 cal. guns in a casemate battery amidships. For close-range defense against torpedo boats, she carried twenty 6-pounder guns and six 1-pounder guns in individual mounts. As was standard for capital ships of the period, Indiana carried 18 in (457 mm) torpedo tubes in above-water mounts, though the number is unclear. According to Conway's, she was fitted with six tubes, though the naval historian Norman Friedman states she was ordered with seven but completed with five.
Indiana's main armored belt was 18 in (457 mm) thick over the magazines and the machinery spaces and was reduced to 4 in (102 mm) at the bow and stern. The main battery gun turrets had 17-inch (432 mm) thick sides, and the supporting barbettes had the same thickness of armor plate on their exposed sides. The 8 in turrets had 6 in of armor plating, and the casemate battery had 5 in (127 mm). The conning tower had 10 in (254 mm) thick sides.
## Service history
### Construction and early career
Construction of the ships was authorized on 30 June 1890, and the contract for Indiana—not including guns and armor—was awarded to William Cramp & Sons in Philadelphia, who offered to build it for \$3,020,000. The ship's total cost was almost twice as high, approximately \$6,000,000. The contract specified the ship had to be built in three years, but slow delivery of armor plates caused a two-year delay. Indiana'''s keel was laid down on 7 May 1891 and she was launched on 28 February 1893, attended by around 10,000 people, including President Benjamin Harrison, several members of his cabinet and the two senators from Indiana. During her fitting-out in early March 1894, the ship undertook a preliminary sea trial to test her speed and machinery. At this point, her side armor, guns, turrets, and conning tower had not yet been fitted, and her official trials would not take place until October 1895 due to the delays in armor deliveries.
Indiana was commissioned on 20 November 1895 under the command of Captain Robley D. Evans. After further trials, the ship joined the North Atlantic Squadron under the command of Rear Admiral Francis M. Bunce, which conducted training exercises along the East Coast of the United States. In late 1896, both main turrets broke loose from their clamps in heavy seas. Because the turrets were not centrally balanced, they swung from side to side with the ship's motion, until they were secured with heavy ropes. Heavier clamps were installed, but in February 1896, while conducting fleet maneuvers with the North Atlantic squadron, the Indiana encountered more bad weather and started rolling heavily. Her new captain, Henry Clay Taylor, promptly ordered her back to port for fear the clamps would break again. This convinced the navy that bilge keels—omitted during construction because, with them, the ship could not fit in most American dry docks—were necessary to reduce the rolling, and they were installed on all three ships of the Indiana-class.
### Spanish–American War
At the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in April 1898, Indiana was at Key West with the rest of the North Atlantic Squadron, at the time commanded by Rear Admiral William T. Sampson. His squadron was ordered to the Spanish port of San Juan in an attempt to intercept and destroy Admiral Cervera's Spanish squadron, which was en route to the Caribbean from Spain. The harbor was empty, but Indiana and the rest of the squadron bombarded it for two hours on 12 May 1898 before realizing their mistake. The squadron returned to Key West, where news arrived three weeks later that Commodore Schley's Flying Squadron had found Cervera and was now blockading him in the port of Santiago de Cuba. Sampson reinforced Schley on 1 June and assumed overall command.
In an attempt to break the stalemate, it was decided to attack Santiago from land. A transport convoy was assembled in Key West, and Indiana was sent back to lead it. The expeditionary force, under the command of Major General William Rufus Shafter, landed east of the city and attacked it on 1 July. Cervera saw that his situation was desperate and attempted to break through the blockade on 3 July 1898, resulting in the battle of Santiago de Cuba. The cruisers New Orleans and Newark and battleship Massachusetts had left the day before to load coal in Guantanamo Bay. Admiral Sampson's flagship, the cruiser New York, had also sailed east earlier that morning for a meeting with General Shafter, leaving Commodore Schley in command. This left the blockade weakened and unbalanced on the day of the battle, as three modern battleships (Indiana, Oregon and Iowa) and the armed yacht Gloucester guarded the east, while the west was only defended by the second-class battleship Texas, cruiser Brooklyn and armed yacht Vixen.
Occupying the extreme eastern position of the blockade, Indiana fired at the cruisers Infanta María Teresa and Almirante Oquendo as they left the harbor, but, due to engine problems, was unable to keep up with the Spanish cruisers as they fled to the west. When the Spanish destroyers Plutón and Furor emerged, Indiana was near the harbor entrance and, together with Iowa, she supported the armed yacht Gloucester in the destruction of the lightly armored enemy ships. She was then ordered to keep up the blockade of the harbor in case more Spanish ships came out and so played no role in the chase and sinking of the two remaining Spanish cruisers, Vizcaya and Cristóbal Colón.
### Post Spanish–American War
After the war, Indiana returned to training exercises with the North Atlantic Squadron. In May 1900, she and Massachusetts were placed in reserve as the navy had an acute officer shortage and needed to put the new Kearsarge-class and Illinois-class battleship into commission. The battleships were reactivated the following month as an experiment in how quickly this could be achieved, but Indiana was placed in the reserve fleet again that winter. In March 1901, it was decided to use her that summer for a midshipman practice cruise, and this would be her regular summer job for the next few years, while the rest of the time she would serve as a training ship. During her time as a training vessel, her crew beat the 1903 world record with eight-inch guns, four bullseyes with four shots. She was decommissioned on 29 December 1903 to be overhauled and modernized. The obsolete battleship received several upgrades: new Babcock & Wilcox boilers, counterweights to balance her main turrets, and electric traversing mechanisms for her turrets. She was recommissioned on 9 January 1906 and manned by the former crew of her sister ship Massachusetts, including Captain Edward D. Taussig, commanding. Massachusetts had been decommissioned the day before to receive similar modernization.
During her second commission, Indiana spent most of her time laid up in the reserve fleet, occasionally participating in practice cruises. In January 1907, she helped provide relief in the aftermath of the 1907 Kingston earthquake. In 1908, the 6-inch (152 mm)/40 caliber guns and most of the lighter guns were removed to compensate for the counterweights added to the main battery turrets and because the ammunition supply for the guns was considered problematic. A year later, twelve 3-inch (76 mm)/50 caliber single-purpose guns were added midships and in the fighting tops. At the same time, a cage mast was added. In early 1910, she was fitted with an experimental Lacoste speed brake, which would be deployed from the side of the hull to act as an emergency brake; the trials were inconclusive. By 1913 it was speculated that the ship might soon be used for target practice, but instead, the ship was decommissioned on 23 May 1914. After the United States entered World War I, Indiana was commissioned for the third time and served as a training ship for gun crews near Tompkinsville, Staten Island, and in the York River, and placed under the command of George Landenberger.
On 31 January 1919, she was decommissioned for the final time, and two months later, she was renamed Coast Battleship Number 1 so that the name Indiana could be assigned to the newly authorized—but never completed—battleship Indiana (BB-50). The old battleship was brought to shallow waters in the Chesapeake Bay near the wreck of the target ship San Marcos (ex-Battleship Texas). Here she was subjected to aerial bombing tests conducted by the navy. She was hit with dummy bombs from aircraft, and explosive charges were set off at the positions where the bombs hit. The tests were a response to claims from Billy Mitchell—at the time assistant to Chief of Air Service Charles T. Menoher—who stated to Congress that the Air Service could sink any battleship. The conclusions drawn by the navy from the experiments conducted on Indiana were very different, as Captain William D. Leahy stated in his report: "The entire experiment pointed to the improbability of a modern battleship being either destroyed or completely put out of action by aerial bombs." The subject remained a matter of dispute between Mitchell and the Navy, and several more bombing tests were conducted with other decommissioned battleships, culminating in the sinking of SMS Ostfriesland. Despite the navy's conclusions, Indiana sank during the test and settled in the shallow water, where she remained until her wreck was sold for scrap on 19 March 1924. When the US Navy adopted hull numbers in 1920, Indiana'' was retroactively assigned the number "BB-1".
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