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3,144,242 | NASA Astronaut Group 4 | 1,173,904,984 | Group of six astronauts selected by NASA in June 1965 | [
"1965 establishments in the United States",
"1965 in spaceflight",
"Harrison Schmitt",
"Lists of astronauts",
"NASA Astronaut Corps"
]
| NASA Astronaut Group 4 ("The Scientists") was a group of six astronauts selected by NASA in June 1965. While the astronauts of the first two groups were required to have an undergraduate degree or the professional equivalent in engineering or the sciences (with several holding advanced degrees), they were chosen for their experience as test pilots. Test pilot experience was waived as a requirement for the third group, and military jet fighter aircraft experience could be substituted. Group 4 was the first chosen on the basis of research and academic experience (an M.D. or Ph.D. in the natural sciences or engineering was a prerequisite for selection), with NASA providing pilot training as necessary. Initial screening of applicants was conducted by the National Academy of Sciences.
Of the six ultimately chosen, four had military experience. Schmitt, a geologist, walked on the Moon, while Garriott, Gibson and Kerwin all flew to Skylab. Garriott also flew on the Space Shuttle. Graveline and Michel left NASA without flying in space.
## Background
The launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, started a Cold War technological and ideological competition with the United States known as the Space Race. The demonstration of American technological inferiority came as a profound shock to the American public. In response to the Sputnik crisis, although he did not see Sputnik as a grave threat, the President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, created a new civilian agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to oversee an American space program. In doing so, he sought to emphasise the scientific nature of the American space program and downplay its military aspects.
In response to pressure from Congress to match and surpass Soviet achievements in space, NASA created an American crewed spaceflight project called Project Mercury. Project Mercury attracted criticism from the scientific community, who preferred a more methodical approach to space science. With the replacement of Eisenhower by John F. Kennedy in 1961, a President's Science Advisory Committee panel headed by Donald Hornig was charged with reporting on Project Mercury. NASA feared that space exploration would be turned over to the Department of Defense, but found support for an expanded scientific space program from the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). At its meeting on February 10–11, 1961, the Space Science Board adopted a formal resolution to support crewed space exploration.
Confidence that the United States was catching up with the Soviet Union was shattered on April 12, 1961, when the Soviet Union launched Vostok 1, and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth. In response, Kennedy announced a far more ambitious goal on May 25, 1961: to put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. This already had a name: Project Apollo. Over the next few years, space science would constitute up to 20 percent of NASA's budget, but it would be dwarfed by spending on Project Apollo. NASA asked the Space Board to conduct a review of the space program, and this was done at the State University of Iowa between June 17 and July 31, 1962. The study recommended that scientists be included in the astronaut program, and that a scientist be included in the first mission to the Moon.
Robert B. Voas, NASA's Assistant Director for Human Factors, drew up a proposal for the selection and training of scientists as astronauts, which he submitted in draft form on May 6, 1963. He pointed out the value in getting the support of the scientific community at a time when NASA's budget faced opposition in Congress. NASA officially announced an intention to recruit scientists as astronauts on June 5, 1963. On October 1, 1964, NASA announced that it was recruiting scientist astronauts as well as another intake of pilot astronauts.
## Selection
Key selection criteria were that candidates:
- Be a United States citizen;
- Born on or after August 1, 1930;
- 6 feet 0 inches (1.83 m) or less in height;
- With a doctorate in the natural sciences, medicine or engineering, or the equivalent.
The height requirement was firm, an artifact of the size of the Apollo spacecraft. Candidates had to have copies of their academic transcripts from each university they had attended, along with Educational Testing Service scores and medical history were sent directly to the Astronaut Selection Board of the NAS by December 31, 1964, along with medical examination results. In addition, they could send supporting materials, which might include papers they had written, research they had conducted, or simply their thoughts about space science. They also had to be able to pass a Class I Military Flight Status Physical. This required 20/20 uncorrected vision. The helmets astronauts wore could not accommodate glasses, and contact lenses were considered to be unsuitable in space.
A total of 1,351 applications were received by the deadline. About 200 of these were rejected for failing to meet the basic age, citizenship, height or vision criteria. The names of 400 applicants (four of whom were women) were forwarded to NAS to review their academic qualifications. The NAS selection board consisted of Allan H. Brown, Loren D. Carlson, Frederick L. Ferris, Thomas Gold, H. Keffer, Clifford Morgan, Eugene Shoemaker, Robert Speed and Aaron Waters. The NAS boards reduced the number of candidates to just fifteen. On May 2, 1965, they were sent to the United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base, near San Antonio, Texas, for medical examinations. The final step, on May 12, 1965, was an interview by the NASA selection panel, which consisted of Charles A. Berry, John F. Clark, Maxime Faget, Warren J. North and Mercury Seven astronauts Alan B. Shepard and Donald K. Slayton. The names of the six successful candidates were publicly announced at a press conference on June 29, 1965. They were the first astronauts chosen on the basis of research and academic experience.
## Group members
## Training
Two of the six were qualified pilots: Michel with the Air Force, and Kerwin with the Navy. They were given jobs related to space suits and Apollo experiments, respectively, while the rest were sent to Williams Air Force Base in Arizona for 55 weeks of pilot training. Graveline resigned on August 18, 1965, after his first wife, Carole Jane née Tollerton, filed for divorce, in which she accused him of "violent and ungovernable outbursts of temper." To avoid a scandal, and to send a message to other astronauts, NASA demanded his resignation. Apart from Michel, who worked at nearby Rice University, they found that they were unable to continue their previous research. When the pilot training was complete, all joined Alan Bean's Apollo Applications Branch.
Along with the nineteen pilot astronauts of NASA Astronaut Group 5, the group commenced astronaut training. Training was conducted on Monday to Wednesday, with Thursday and Friday for field trips. They were given classroom instruction in astronomy (154 hours), aerodynamics (8 hours), rocket propulsion (8 hours), communications (10 hours), space medicine (17 hours), meteorology (4 hours), upper atmospheric physics (12 hours), navigation (34 hours), orbital mechanics (23 hours), computers (8 hours) and geology (112 hours). The training in geology included field trips to the Grand Canyon and the Meteor Crater in Arizona, Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, Horse Lava Tube System in Bend, Oregon, and the ash flow in the Marathon Uplift in Texas, and other locations, including Alaska and Hawaii. There was also jungle survival training for the scientists in Panama, and desert survival training around Reno, Nevada. Water survival training was conducted at Naval Air Station Pensacola using the Dilbert Dunker. Some 30 hours of briefings were conducted on the Apollo spacecraft, and twelve on the lunar module.
## Operations
The scientists had various assignments. Schmitt, the only geologist in the group, spent most of his time on lunar landing site selection. By 1967, it looked as if many fewer missions would be flown than originally planned, and the astronauts were risking their careers. Provision was made to allow the pilot astronauts to keep their pilot skills honed, but there was no such concession for the scientists. Gibson became the first of the six scientists to be named to a crew when he was selected as a member of the support crew for Apollo 12 in April 1969, but the announcement of prime and backups crews for Apollo 13 and Apollo 14 in August 1969 was the last straw for many. The prime and backup crews included eight members of the 1966 group of pilots, and Apollo 14 would be commanded by Mercury Seven astronaut Alan Shepard. Michel resigned to return to teaching at Rice in September, and there were resignations by NASA scientists Donald U. Wise, Elbert A. King Jr, Wilmot N. Hess and Eugene Shoemaker. All had their reasons for leaving, but all were highly critical of NASA. The calls for more participation by scientists did not go unheeded, and NASA Deputy Administrator George Mueller wrote to the director of the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), Robert R. Gilruth, in September 1969, and asked him to give the matter his personal attention.
The MSC took steps to improve relations with the scientific community. On March 26, 1970, Slayton announced that Schmitt would be backup lunar module pilot of Apollo 15; Richard F. Gordon, the command module pilot of Apollo 12, was named as backup commander, and Vance Brand as command module pilot. Under the prevailing rotation system, this set Schmitt up to walk on the Moon on Apollo 18. However, in September 1970, two more Apollo missions were cancelled; Apollo 17 would be the last Apollo mission to the Moon. Once again, frustration boiled over. Associate Administrator Homer E. Newell Jr. spoke with the scientist astronauts, and took their case to NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher. Newell recommended that a scientist astronaut be assigned to the next Moon mission, and that two be assigned to each Skylab mission. Although Slayton insisted on two trained pilot astronauts for each Skylab mission, on August 13, 1971, Schmitt was named as part of the prime crew of Apollo 17. He would become the last man to step onto the lunar surface. The remaining three flew on Skylab missions, but only one per mission, as the "science pilot". |
12,541,839 | Yunnan hare | 1,153,707,001 | Species of mammal | [
"Fauna of Yunnan",
"Lepus",
"Mammals described in 1927",
"Mammals of China",
"Taxa named by Glover Morrill Allen",
"Taxonomy articles created by Polbot"
]
| The Yunnan hare (Lepus comus) is a medium-sized species of mammal in the family Leporidae. It has soft, flat, and long dorsal pelage which is grayish brown or dark gray in color, and whitish ventral pelage. It was considered endemic to China (mainly in Yunnan), but its presence was recorded in northern Myanmar in 2000. It is a herbivore, and forages on shrubs and forbs. It is rated as a species of least concern on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Endangered Species. The Red List of China's Vertebrates has listed the Yunnan hare as near threatened, almost meeting the criteria to be listed as vulnerable.
## Taxonomy
The Yunnan hare was first described by the American zoologist Glover Morrill Allen in 1927. According to Hoffmann and Smith, there are no recognized subspecies, but according to Mammals of China, there are three recognized subspecies:
- L. c. comus Allen, 1927
- L. c. peni Wang and Luo, 1985
- L. c. pygmaeus Wang and Feng, 1985
It was formerly considered a subspecies of the woolly hare (Lepus oiostolus), but is now treated as a separate species. Cai and Feng (1982) and Wang (1985) elevated it to species status based on morphological and ecological differences from the woolly hare. In 2005, it was found that molecular phylogenetics indicated the Yunnan hare and the woolly hare to be sister taxa, and they may exhibit allopatric speciation or parapatric speciation. It might also be related to the Indian hare (Lepus nigricollis) and probably be its northern form.
## Description
The Yunnan hare is a medium-sized hare, measuring 32.2 to 48 cm (12.7 to 18.9 in) in length, and weighing 1.8 to 2.5 kg (4.0 to 5.5 lb). It has a 9.5 to 11 cm (3.7 to 4.3 in) long light gray tail, tinged-yellow below, which is brownish on the upper surface. The skull is thin, measuring 8.4 to 9.5 cm (3.3 to 3.7 in) in length. It has soft, flat, and long dorsal pelage which is grayish brown or dark gray in color, and whitish ventral pelage—its back of the hip and rump are grayish, and ochraceous buff extending up to the forelegs, latus, and outer side of hindlegs. The short ears measure 9.7 to 13.5 cm (3.8 to 5.3 in) in length, are pale gray at the inner surface, and black at the top. A whitish band runs from the base of the ear to the snout, including an arch over the eye. It has short nasal cavities, broad at the back side. At normal unworn state, the upper incisors are Y-shaped, and become V-shaped when worn out. The hindfeet are 9.8 to 13 cm (3.9 to 5.1 in) long.
L. c. comus is the largest subspecies. The total length of the skull is more than 8.8 centimetres (3.5 in), and the height of the cheek bone is less than 7 millimetres (0.28 in). The nose protrudes forward, and reaches up to the front of the upper incisor. L. c. pygmaeus is the smallest subspecies, with the narrowest frontal aspects and the longest latus.
The Yunnan hare is smaller than the woolly hare; the supraorbitals are flat and small, and the toothrow and diastema (space between two teeth) are of different proportions. It also has a characteristic brighter pelage than the woolly hare, although, according to Gao Yaoting, the Yunnan hare's gray rump is also a characteristic of the woolly hare.
## Distribution and habitat
The species is found across the western Yungui Plateau and southern Hengduan Mountains in the provinces of Yunnan (except southwest of Mekong River), southern Sichuan, and western Guizhou, in Southwest China, and has also been recorded to occur in northern Myanmar. The subspecies L. c. comus occurs in western Yunnan. L. c. peni occurs from central Yunnan, to western Guizhou (Guiyang City, Bijie, Loudian) in the east, to Muli in the north, and to southwestern Sichuan (Huidong) in the south. L. c. pygmaeus occurs from near the Yangtse River in the north, to central Yunnan.
It is a mountainous species, and prefers warm, wet habitat. Although not much is known about its habitat, it is thought to occur in high montane shrubs and meadows throughout its distribution, similar to the Tibetan habitat of the woolly hare (Lepus oiostolus). It may also occur in open forests or forest edges. It is found at medium elevations of 1,300 to 3,200 m (4,300 to 10,500 ft) above sea level.
## Behavior and ecology
The Yunnan hare is a diurnal species, but is also active during the night to forage. It is an herbivore, and forages on shrubs and forbs. According to reports by hunters, the adult Yunnan hare has three burrows; those of the male are shallower, smaller, and straighter than those of the female that are oval and larger in shape. Breeding usually commences in April. There are one to four, usually two, young in a litter, and in May, the female gives two or three litters.
## Status and conservation
Since 1996, the Yunnan hare is rated as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species. This is because it is a widespread species, and it has been reported by residents to be commonly found. Although the current state of its population trend is unclear, the Yunnan hare population is likely to be secure as it occurs in remote areas in southwestern China. However, agricultural activities on mountainous regions may pose a threat to the species by isolating its mountain populations. The Red List of China's Vertebrates has listed the Yunnan hare as near threatened, nearly meeting the criteria to be listed as vulnerable. It occurs in protected areas and also in the Changshanerhai, Daweishan, Gaoligongshan, Jinpingfenshuiling, Nujiang, Shilin, and Tongbiguan Nature Reserves. |
35,482,077 | Angry Andy | 1,051,970,332 | null | [
"2012 American television episodes",
"The Office (American season 8) episodes"
]
| "Angry Andy" is the twenty-first episode of the eighth season of the American comedy television series The Office. It was written by Justin Spitzer and directed by Claire Scanlon. The episode aired on NBC in the United States on April 19, 2012.
The series—presented as if it were a real documentary—depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. In this episode, Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) returns to the office to find Nellie Bertram (Catherine Tate) in the manager's chair. After throwing an extreme tantrum and punching a hole in the wall, Andy is fired. Meanwhile, Kelly is forced to choose between Ryan Howard (B. J. Novak) and a new man, Ravi (Sendhil Ramamurthy).
The episode received a lukewarm response from critics. According to Nielsen Media Research, "Angry Andy" was viewed by an estimated 4.35 million viewers and received a 2.2 rating/6% share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49, making it, at the time, the lowest-rated episode of The Office to air. The episode ranked second in its timeslot and was also the highest-rated NBC series of the night.
## Plot
Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) returns to Dunder Mifflin with Erin Hannon (Ellie Kemper) to find Nellie Bertram (Catherine Tate) in the manager's chair. Andy enlists Robert California (James Spader) to give Andy his job back, but Nellie refuses to relinquish the job. Robert backs out of the situation, due to his sexual desire for Nellie. Nellie further asserts her authority when she orders Angela Lipton (Angela Kinsey) to dock Andy's paycheck twice, and she complies. This causes Andy to have sexual performance difficulties with Erin. Erin asks Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) if he had similar problems after his loss of the manager position, which he denies. After Dwight tells Nellie that she has affected Andy's sex life, she begins to feel guilty. She holds a meeting where the office workers share advice on how to sexually perform with Andy, when it is revealed the meeting is about him. After the meeting, when Nellie makes another innuendo about Andy's problems, Erin loses her temper by yelling at Nellie to shut up, throwing her office phone to the ground, followed by Nellie's memo forms, pens, and her caramel. This gives Andy, filled with anger, the freedom to vent by throwing his desk chair at Robert, smashing Nellie's picture frame to the ground, and finally punching his hand through the wall (as he has done once before). When Robert then chooses Nellie as regional manager, Andy refuses to accept a demotion by saying "no" too many times in a calm way, and a surprised Robert fires him. Though he now has no job, Andy regains his sense of self-confidence and is once again able to perform.
Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling) is forced to choose between Ryan Howard (B. J. Novak) and a new man, Ravi (Sendhil Ramamurthy). Pam Halpert (Jenna Fischer) set up Kelly and Ravi, her daughter Cece's pediatrician, in hopes of Kelly finally moving on from Ryan. Ryan makes several attempts to get back with Kelly, though everyone finds the attempts pathetic because he can not even say he truly loves her and wants to be with her always (he keeps qualifying all of his feelings for her) and even admits he would prefer she not be with anyone else if she is not going to be with him. Warehouse worker Nate (Mark Proksch) even states that he prefers Ravi to Ryan, despite having never met Ravi and only knowing Ryan (whom he calls Brian) from their brief interaction. Pam eventually says that he is not a nice person, and Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nunez) says he is not boyfriend material. Ryan tells the office he has a love poem for her, which Kelly has no interest in reading. As the staff are heading outside the building to go home, they see Ryan sitting on a steed professing his love (again, in insultingly hedging terms) to Kelly. She responds by saying she is in love with Ravi and hopes to stay friends with Ryan. They hug goodbye, which turns into a make-out session. The episode closes with Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) and Pam finding and reading Ryan's love poem. Initially scoffing, they are both noticeably moved by it. Tearing up, Jim informs the camera crew that Ryan can never know of the incident.
## Production
"Angry Andy" was written by Justin Spitzer, his second writing credit for the season after "Garden Party". The episode was directed by Claire Scanlon, her first credit for the series. The episode guest stars Sendhil Ramamurthy as Ravi, Pam and Jim's pediatrician. Before the premiere of the episode, it was revealed that Ramamurthy would be introduced as a new romantic interest for Mindy Kaling's character Kelly Kapoor. Writer B. J. Novak explained that Ryan and Kelly "go through a heart-wrenching break-up [and the two] end up becoming bitter enemies in the office when she falls in love with an Indian doctor. He's very handsome and a much, much better match for Kelly than Ryan is." TV Fanatic predicted that Ramamurthy's appearance in the show was done so that Kaling could exit the program, due to her commitment to her Fox series The Mindy Project.
## Reception
### Ratings
"Angry Andy" originally aired on NBC in the United States on April 26, 2012. The episode was viewed by an estimated 4.35 million viewers and received a 2.2 rating/6% share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49. This means that it was seen by 2.2% of all 18- to 49-year-olds, and 6% of all 18- to 49-year-olds watching television at the time of the broadcast. In addition, the episode was, at the time, the lowest-rated episode of the series to air, beating the previous episode, "Welcome Party", which gathered 4.39 million viewers. The episode finished second in its time slot, being beaten by Grey's Anatomy which received a 3.3 rating/9%. The episode beat the Fox series Touch and The CW drama series The Secret Circle, as well as a re-run of the CBS drama Person of Interest. Despite this, "Angry Andy" was the highest-rated NBC television episode of the night.
### Reviews
Critical reception to the episode was largely mixed. Myles McNutt of The A.V. Club awarded the entry a "C" and thoroughly criticized Nellie's "hostile takeover" of the Scranton branch, calling it "utterly ridiculous". McNutt also called most of the humorous moments in the episode "too familiar", noting that Andy's punching of a wall had already happened on the show. Cindy White of IGN gave the episode a 7.5 out of 10, denoting a "good" episode, but noted that the show's need to feature a direct flash back to "The Return" only "highlights the lack of [Andy's] character continuity" and concluded that the scene came out "a bit contrived."
M. Giant from Television Without Pity awarded the episode a "C+". Joseph Kratzer of WhatCulture! gave the episode a largely negative review and awarded it two stars out of five. He criticized the plot invoking Nellie taking the manager position away, as well as Erin's outburst, saying "it was warranted but disingenuous". Dan Forcella of TV Fanatic awarded the episode three-and-a-half-stars out of five and noted that the return of Andy's anger issues was a "pleasant change of pace". He concluded that the episode's physical comedy elevated it, ultimately making it "certainly an improvement on last week's episode ['Welcome Party']". Screencrave reviewer Jeffrey Hyatt awarded the episode a seven out ten but noted that Andy's return and his meltdown "didn't wow me", but that his increased ego was impressive.
Critical reception to the episode's subplot involving Kelly and Ryan was largely positive. McNutt called Novak's acting "some of [his] best work in a long time". He called the plot’s conclusion "the sort of screwed up situation that The Office'' does well". White wrote that "If it weren't for [Kelly and Ravi's] story ... I might have written this clumsy episode off entirely." Forcella enjoyed the plot, praising the ending due to the fact that it concluded with "boos and hisses". However, he was confused with the casting, noting that "why bring Sendhil Ramamurthy in for one scene? ... He seems more like someone you bring in for a multi-episode arc." Hyatt lauded the scenes, and wrote "the Ryan-Kelly stuff I give a 10/10." |
22,334,989 | Peter's Progress | 1,165,398,480 | null | [
"2009 American television episodes",
"Cultural depictions of Jack the Ripper",
"Family Guy (season 7) episodes",
"Works set in the 17th century"
]
| "Peter's Progress" is the 16th and final episode in the seventh season of the American animated television series Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on May 17, 2009. In the episode, a psychic reads Peter's palms and discovers he led a fascinating past life as Griffin Peterson, a dignified gentleman in 17th-century England, who was the original founder of Quahog.
The episode was written by Wellesley Wild and directed by Brian Iles. It received mixed reviews from critics for its storyline and many cultural references. According to Nielsen ratings, it was viewed in 7.33 million homes in its original airing. The episode featured guest performances by John Ross Bowie, Neil Patrick Harris, Brody Hutzler, Derwin Jordan, Keri Lynn Pratt, David Pressman, Josh Radnor, Martin Savage, Jason Segel, Alexander Siddig and Erik von Detten, along with several recurring guest voice actors for the series. This episode marks Cleveland Brown's final regular appearance on Family Guy until the episode "He's Bla-ack!" in season 12 where he made his official return to the show.
## Plot
Cleveland introduces his Jamaican cousin Madame Claude to Peter, Joe, and Quagmire saying she is a psychic. Cleveland offers to have her read their palms and determine past lives they have had. Madame Claude then determines that Joe was once an octopus whose tentacles were bitten off by a shark, and Quagmire was Jack the Ripper. After Peter suggests that he was a strawberry in a past life, Claude reads Peter's palm, she discovers that he was Griffin Peterson, the supposed founder of Quahog where the previously mentioned history of Quahog was a myth. Most of the episode follows the story of this past life, the main characters therein having the appearance of regular Family Guy characters.
In 17th-century England, Griffin Peterson proposes to the love of his life Lady Redbush (Lois) upon getting the approval from Carter Redbush. The ruthless King Stewart III (Stewie) has the court jester (Brian) tell him some jokes after "deleting" How I Met Your Mother from his "TiVo" (represented as archers killing Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, and Neil Patrick Harris). While being carried around in his litter, King Stewart spots Lady Redbush strolling through town with Griffin Peterson and decides that she should marry him instead. While Griffin Peterson is on the way to his wedding, Stewart secretly kidnaps him, exiling him to the New World on one of the outgoing ships. As Lady Redbush waits in growing angst, King Stewart walks into the church. He tells Lady Redbush that Griffin Peterson is dead and proceed to marry her himself.
At sea, Griffin Peterson meets fellow exiles Joe (exiled for pleasuring himself in front of a carving), Quagmire (exiled for having sex with an underage girl), and Seamus. Upon reaching the New World, Griffin Peterson establishes the colony of Quahog, which eventually grows into a thriving settlement. Griffin Peterson moves on with his life, even marrying another woman (Meg).
Back in London, Later Redbush suffers a dull sexless marriage with King Stewart since they're never available to each other. Lady Redbush continues to lament Griffin's supposed death until the jester reveals the truth by showing her the newspaper article about Quahog's founding. The jester stated that he was to keep quiet about this under threat of execution. Lady Redbush and the jester immediately depart for the New World on one of the slave ships. In Quahog, Griffin Peterson has grown irritated with his current wife until Lady Redbush arrives. Griffin Peterson and Lady Rebush are reunited and Griffin "divorces" his current wife by killing her with a blunderbuss.
Six months later, King Stewart learns that Redbush is gone and he makes his way to Quahog to reclaim his wife and kill Griffin Peterson. King Stewart's army arrives in Quahog where they terrorise the colony (similar to a scene from Blazing Saddles). King Stewart orders Cockney First Lieutenant (Chris) to search every house for them. Upon being discovered by the First Lieutenant, Griffin Peterson and Lady Redbush are confronted by King Stewart. Griffin Peterson threatens to kill the officer, while King Stewart threatens to kill Redbush. After exchanging threats without getting anywhere, Griffin and Stewart decide to settle their dispute with a talent show, with the winner winning Lady Redbush's hand in marriage, and ownership of the town of Quahog. For his act, King Stewart steals his jester's mostly unfunny jokes about his Aunt Frieda. However, Griffin, Quagmire, Joe, Cleveland, Mort, and Seamus effectively steal the show with a techno-rock number from Revenge of the Nerds. This was enough to defeat King Stewart in the talent show. After King Stewart and his army leaves for England, Griffin and Redbush remain in Quahog to live happily ever after.
After the story is told, Peter, Quagmire, Cleveland, Joe, and Madame Claude see a promo ad for Cross-Armed Opposites.
## Production
The episode was written by Wellesley Wild and directed by Brian Iles. The live action sequences used throughout the episode to promote supposed shows on Fox was directed by Bones director Steve Beers. The night the episode aired, the "Animation Domination" block was co-hosted by an animated version of rapper Eminem and Stewie Griffin. Eminem, who provided his own voice, said that it was a "thrill to work with Stewie" and that he is a "big fan of talking babies and their humor".
In addition to the main cast, Josh Radnor, Jason Segel and Neil Patrick Harris guest starred in the episode as their characters from the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Family Guy writer John Viener was the voice of Cleveland's cousin, Madame Claude. Recurring guest voice actor John G. Brennan and writers Alec Sulkin, Danny Smith, Tom Devanney and Mark Hentemann made minor appearances in the episode. Alexander Siddig, Martin Savage, John Ross Bowie, Brody Hutzler, Derwin Jordan, Keri Lynn Pratt, David Pressman and Erik von Detten guest-starred as well.
## Cultural references
The title is a reference to The Pilgrim's Progress. The episode begins with a cutaway gag featuring Alan Rickman's answering machine. When Madame Claude tells everyone who they were in a past life, she reveals that Quagmire was Jack the Ripper. Also, when Madame Claude first speaks, Peter says that she sounds like Sebastian the crab from Disney's The Little Mermaid King Stewart III orders to kill the cast of How I Met Your Mother after he is displeased with their performance. Griffin Peterson's act in the talent show is a reference to the act the Lambda Lambda Lambdas perform at the homecoming in the 1984 film Revenge of the Nerds. As a running gag throughout the episode, Fox promos appear on the bottom of the screen for made-up shows including Shovin' Buddies, Slowly Rotating Black Man, and Cross-Armed Opposites, parodying stereotypical types of Fox mid-show advertising. Griffin Peterson says that he is the happiest guy in the world because he's on his way to get married and there are "290 years separating me from the films of Kevin Smith." A clip is shown of Madonna celebrating her 16th birthday, suggesting she is over 300 years old. During King Stewart's invasion of the settlement the music and lyrics are identical to that of Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles, with Rock Ridge changed to Quahog. A lady says of King Stewart, "I didn't vote for him," alluding to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Harry MacAfee from the film Bye Bye Birdie makes an appearance.
Parts of the narrative also show similarity to Captain Blood, a novel by Rafael Sabatini, and to the film Restoration. In Captain Blood, the protagonist is transported as a prisoner to a new world colony for false crimes against the king. In Restoration, the king attempts to steal the affections of the protagonist's love interest. Both works are set within the general time period featured in the episode.
## Reception
In its original airing in the United States, "Peter's Progress" was watched by 7.33 million homes, which was up from the previous episode, and was the most watched show in the "Animation Domination" block, beating the season finales of The Simpsons, American Dad! and King of the Hill. It acquired a 3.7 rating in the 18–49 demographic, finishing third in its timeslot after the season finales of Survivor: Tocantins and Desperate Housewives.
The episode received mixed reviews from critics. Ahsan Haque of IGN said that "Family Guy has never really done anything particularly special for the last episode of any season [...] and despite the obvious efforts to increase the animation quality and try to tell a complete story in this episode, it didn't turn out to be the winning effort that will keep fans eagerly awaiting the show's return next season". Emily St. James of The A.V. Club gave the episode a D, and called it an "unfortunate and unfunny flashback [...] with lots of incest gags [that] was genuinely queasy-making, but not in a way that made anyone laugh from the shock of recognition or anything like that", but said that Family Guy can be "damn funny when it wants to be", referring to the Fox promos that take up the bottom quarter of the screen. Robin Pierson of The TV Critic gave the episode a positive review, stating: "Good fun story, good fun jokes", but said that the end "felt flat" because of the Revenge of the Nerds music sequence. |
73,492,960 | Maggie Savoy | 1,164,705,322 | American newspaper editor (1917–1970) | [
"1917 births",
"1970 deaths",
"American women journalists",
"People from Des Moines, Iowa",
"University of Southern California alumni",
"Women's page journalists"
]
| Margaret Ann Savoy Pitts Bellows (née Case; February 14, 1917 – December 19, 1970) was an American newspaper editor. She was the women's editor for the Phoenix Gazette between 1947 and 1959, and then spent five years at The Arizona Republic. She moved to New York City in 1964 following her third marriage, to fellow journalist Jim Bellows, and wrote for the Associated Press, before joining United Press International to write on its urban beat. After moving to Los Angeles in 1967, she became the women's editor for the Los Angeles Times, writing for Section IV until it was renamed as the View in July 1970, where she profiled women including Joan Didion, Maya Angelou and Nancy Reagan.
Savoy worked to expand the focus of the women's page of newspapers, writing about social and environmental issues at a time when this was uncommon. She wrote columns on rape helplines, domestic violence, the death penalty and welfare. In 1963, she worked with Marie Anderson to survey editors nationally on the content of women's pages and the conditions for women's editors, finding that women's editors received less pay and support. She was an outspoken feminist, often profiling leaders of the women's liberation movement, including Elizabeth Duncan Koontz and Aileen Hernandez. Fellow editor Dorothy Roe described Savoy as "one of the two or three ablest women's editors in the country".
## Early life
Savoy was born Margaret Ann Case on February 14, 1917, in Des Moines, Iowa. Her father was Andrew Case, her mother was a teacher and encyclopedia salesperson and she had one brother, Robert. Her family were relatively well-off and she attended Fillmore Elementary School in Cedar Rapids before the family moved to Des Moines, Omaha, Nebraska, and Phoenix, Arizona. She often visited her uncle in New York by herself while growing up. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Southern California with an honors degree in journalism in 1940, where she had been a member of Phi Beta Kappa. The day after graduation, she married her classmate William Savoy. Her first job was in publicity for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, before working for comedian Red Skelton and then opening a public relations company in Phoenix.
## Career
Savoy began working as the women's editor for the Phoenix Gazette in 1947, where she wrote the column 'Around Town'. The newspaper owner, Eugene C. Pulliam, was famously conservative but he respected Savoy's liberal views. She spent ten years at the paper before joining The Arizona Republic in 1959 as the women's editor, which had a daily circulation over 100,000. She was at the Republic until 1964, writing the daily 'Savoy Faire' column. At the time, the women's page of newspapers were focused on society and the home, primarily featuring social events, wedding announcements and fashion, but there was a push to cover the women's liberation movement and other political issues. As the women's editor, Savoy often also served as a fashion reporter, covering local seamstresses and designer fashion shows. However, throughout her career, Savoy wrote about social issues such as racism, sexism and economic inequality. Pulliam, who also owned the Republic, hired J. Edward Murray as the paper's managing editor in 1960 and he shared Savoy's liberal views, providing friendship and support. Murray wrote that she used her column to "stir a social conscience in the movers and shakers", which won her the first award granted by the Arizona Newspaper Association for best women's section.
Savoy pressed for the wedding announcements of African-Americans to be included in the paper at a time when this was rare and wrote stories on rape helplines, domestic violence and pay disparities. She was also interested in environmental issues, working with local leaders to establish the Valley Beautiful Committee in early 1963 after the response to one of her columns, which raised money for subterranean power lines and to protect green spaces, and advocated for Camelback Mountain to remain clear of proposed housing. She also wrote columns about poverty, women's labor issues, health, finance and fashion for career women. In 1959, an interview she conducted with Casey Stengel, manager for the New York Yankees, received national coverage through an Associated Press (AP) wire report after he protested at her taking down his words verbatim. This attention led to her being awarded "Arizona Newspaper Woman of the Year" by the Arizona Federation of Press Women and a Penney-Missouri Award. She also received an award from the National Federation of Press Women and the Catherine L. O'Brien journalism award.
She became involved with national industry organizations, attending the first meeting of women's editors held by the American Press Institute in 1959. Working with the Associated Press Managing Editors (APME) and Marie Anderson, a women's editor at the Miami Herald, she surveyed women's editors and their managing editors in 1963 on the content of women's pages in newspapers, discovering that women's issues received fewer column inches and that women's editors were lower paid and often excluded from meetings. The report was presented to the APME through a talk entitled "What Does Your Women's Editor Think of You?", which included eleven areas for improvement including training and support. Savoy replicated the presentation at the Penney-Missouri awards workshops in March 1963. A follow-up survey six years later, titled "How is it going in the women's departments? Or what has happened since Anderson-Savoy?" showed little progress had been made.
In 1964, she moved to New York City to be with Jim Bellows and began writing for the AP, although issues with her supervisor led to her leaving in November 1965. She began working for United Press International (UPI), focusing on cities; the appointment was announced in a full page article in Editor & Publisher as "the first woman at a wire service to cover an urban beat". Savoy relocated to Los Angeles in 1967, when Bellows was hired by the Los Angeles Times as associate editor for soft news, but continued writing for UPI, travelling around the country for her stories and giving speeches to local societies about urban development. She was quickly approached by the L.A. Times about joining the paper to reform their women's section as the society editor. She wrote memos to the editor-in-chief, Nick Boddie Williams, explaining that she intended the women's section, referred to as Section IV, to cover issues such as abortion, welfare, public housing and capital punishment. Williams had told her husband that he hoped to cover controversial topics and Savoy was hired, although she eventually convinced them to change her title to women's editor. As couples were unable to work together at the paper, a typical rule at the time, Savoy's hiring was seen to be controversial.
While at the L.A. Times, Savoy wrote personal columns, news stories and profiles on women including Marilyn Lewis, Adela Rogers St. Johns, Joan Didion, Clare Boothe Luce, Maya Angelou and Nancy Reagan. Her news stories covered topics such as the death penalty, women on welfare, drug addiction and inner-city schools. At the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, she was one of the reporters to be tear-gassed by the police. In 1969 and 1970, she wrote about the women's liberation movement in a number of profiles on Elizabeth Duncan Koontz, director of the United States Women's Bureau, Jo Ann Evansgardner, an activist of the National Organization for Women (NOW), and Aileen Hernandez, president of NOW. Savoy was a strong supporter of the women's movement, describing herself as "a bra-wearing, dues paying member of women's liberation". She wrote an article for the Bulletin of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1970 where she criticized editors for their coverage of women's liberation and declared that "women are second-class citizens". She was listed as one of the "Reporters You Can Trust" published by the feminist organization KNOW, Inc.
In July 1970, her section of the L.A. Times was renamed as View, which was intended to expand the coverage to features about the LA region. She wrote her final newspaper column on November 29, 1970. Following her death, Jean Sharley Taylor took over as the editor of the section.
## Personal life
Savoy was married to her first husband for a decade and the couple had one son together, William, before their divorce in 1950. The following year she married J. W. Pitts III, a vice president of Valley National Bank, until his death in a car accident in May 1963. She had met Bellows, then an editor at the New York Herald Tribune, in January 1961 while covering a fashion show in New York City. The two began an affair shortly before her second husband's death and a few months later, he left his pregnant wife and two children for Savoy. His wife initially refused a divorce but when it was finalized, they married in May 1964 with Jimmy Breslin serving as the best man. The judge who officiated the wedding commented on her surnames, as there were more than would fit on the marriage form.
## Death and legacy
Savoy was diagnosed with uterine cancer seven months after her marriage to Bellows, which went into remission following chemotherapy. She was then diagnosed with esophageal cancer on July 28, 1970, and told that she had only months to live. She wrote a draft of a book about her experiences of cancer, composed primarily of her diary entries, which was published as a column with UPI. She died on December 19, 1970, at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. She left \$30,000 to the Salvation Army's Youth and Family Center in South Phoenix, which was increased to \$100,000 through a fundraiser by her friends and colleagues. On February 10, 1971, the Arizona Senate passed a unanimous resolution to honor Savoy, sponsored by Cloves Campbell Sr., Howard S. Baldwin, James A. Mack and Bob Stump.
An award in her honor was created by the Los Angeles Women in Communication following her death, given for community service. She was described by fellow editor Dorothy Roe as "one of the two or three ablest women's editors in the country" and by Pulliam as "one of the greatest". Despite this, she is not mentioned in the history of The Arizona Republic or in Privileged Son, Dennis McDougal's history of the L.A. Times. Bellows wrote a book about her in 1971 titled, Anyone Who Enters Here Must Celebrate Maggie, which included her columns and writing, as well as messages from her friends and colleagues. Among those who contributed letters were Luce, Angelou, and Ray Bradbury. |
64,748,259 | Morgan Barron | 1,158,601,986 | Canadian ice hockey player | [
"1998 births",
"AHCA Division I men's ice hockey All-Americans",
"Canadian ice hockey centres",
"Cornell Big Red men's ice hockey players",
"Cornell University alumni",
"Hartford Wolf Pack players",
"Ice hockey people from Halifax, Nova Scotia",
"Living people",
"Manitoba Moose players",
"New York Rangers draft picks",
"New York Rangers players",
"Sioux City Musketeers players",
"Winnipeg Jets players"
]
| Morgan Andrew Barron (born December 2, 1998) is a Canadian professional ice hockey centre playing for the Winnipeg Jets of the National Hockey League (NHL).
Born and raised in Nova Scotia, Barron played two seasons of minor ice hockey with the Newbridge Academy Gladiators of the Nova Scotia Major Midget Hockey League (NSMMHL) before enrolling at St. Andrew's College in Ontario. Upon graduating, he enrolled and graduated from Cornell University to play collegiate ice hockey and was picked 174th overall by the New York Rangers in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft.
Barron played three seasons at Cornell before starting his professional career with the Rangers. He received numerous accolades including an AHCA All-America, All-Ivy League, and All-ECAC Hockey First Team selection and was named ECAC Hockey Player of the Year for 2020.
## Early life
Barron was born on December 2, 1998, in Halifax, Nova Scotia to parents Gerard and Jenny Barron. His father works for Nova Scotia Power and his mother is a nurse. His younger brother Justin also plays hockey and they often played mini sticks street hockey with neighbourhood kids. Barron grew up as a fan of all Toronto and New York sports teams.
## Playing career
### Youth
Growing up in Nova Scotia, Barron played two seasons of minor ice hockey with the Newbridge Academy Gladiators of the Nova Scotia Major Midget Hockey League before enrolling at St. Andrew's College in Ontario. While with the Gladiators, Barron helped lead them to the Telus Cup by recording 42 points in 34 regular season games and 24 points in 16 playoff games. He was subsequently drafted by the Saint John Sea Dogs in the 2014 Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) Draft. He had gone undrafted in his first year of eligibility but experienced a growth spurt during the summer and earned more attention from teams. Opting to return to the NSMMHL for the 2014–15 season, Barron helped the team defeat the Moncton Flyers 4–3 to win the 2015 Major Midget Atlantic Championships. He was invited to participate in the Sea Dogs' training camp but was cut from their roster on August 12, 2015.
Barron played three seasons of hockey and soccer for the St. Andrew's College Saints, serving as the team captain for their hockey team in his last two years. In 2016, as a Grade 11 student, Barron committed to playing NCAA Division 1 collegiate ice hockey at Cornell University. At the time of his commitment, he had recorded 28 goals, 18 assists, and 46 points over 40 games and maintained a 90% average in school. He had not been given an athletic scholarship and paid to enroll at Cornell, which head coach Mike Schafer explained was because "he wanted to combine that excellence in academics with a team where he felt he could get to the NHL and further his career." Standing at 6-foot-2, 200 pounds, Barron was often one of the bigger players on the ice as he recorded 34 goals and 60 points in 57 games. The following year, Barron was drafted 174th overall by the New York Rangers in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft after ranking 98th among North American skaters by the NHL Central Scouting Bureau. Barron described his style of play as a power forward who tries to "bring pucks to the net and protect pucks." While captaining the Saints hockey team, Barron also played soccer where he was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) at the CAIS National Soccer Championship. Barron also played five games in the United States Hockey League (USHL) with the Sioux City Musketeers.
### Collegiate
Barron played for the Cornell Big Red men's ice hockey at Cornell University from 2017 until 2020 where he was enrolled in their College of Arts and Sciences program. He made his collegiate debut with the team on October 27, 2017, against the Alabama-Huntsville Chargers, recording one goal in 5–1 win. Barron continued his point streak in the next seven consecutive games, setting a new program record and ranking third in team scoring. Barron ended the season leading all Big Red players who were playing their first seasons in the league with 18 points and received the Greg Ratushny Award as the team's most promising rookie.
Prior to the start of his sophomore campaign, Barron attended the New York Rangers' development camp. He returned to the Red for the 2018–19 season where he was entrusted with more responsibility from coach Mike Schafer. He took face-offs with a 58.1 percent success rate and played on their penalty-killing unit. He ended the season leading the team with both 15 goals and 34 points. His point total was the highest in team history since the 2009–10 season. Barron was named ECAC Hockey Player of the Month for January after leading the league in scoring with 13 points in eight games. At the conclusion of the season, Barron was named to the All-ECAC Hockey first-team and All-Ivy League first team. His dominating season also earned him a finalist position for ECAC Hockey Best Defensive Forward and the team's Nicky Bawlf Award as MVP. During the offseason, he returned home to Halifax where he trained with fellow Nova Scotians Sidney Crosby, Nathan McKinnon, and Brad Marchand.
As a result of his sophomore season, Barron was voted by ECAC Hockey coaches to the preseason all-league team prior to the 2019–20 season. In September, he was named one of three captains for the Red alongside seniors Yanni Kaldis and Jeff Malott. Barron started his first season as captain by recording his first collegiate hat trick in the opening frame of a 6–2 win over the Yale Bulldogs, earning him Player of the Week accolades. Although the 2019–20 season was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he recorded 32 points in 29 games as the team finished with a 23-2-4 record and first place in the Eastern College Athletic Conference. He thus set a new program record by becoming the first player to average more than a point per game in the shortened season. At the time of the pause, the Red were gearing up to play in their first Frozen Four since 2003 after winning nine straight games. Barron was subsequently named ECAC Hockey Player of the Year for 2020 and to the All-ECAC Hockey and All-Ivy League, and AHCA First-Team All-American first teams. When reflecting on his junior season, Barron admitted that he felt more confident in his ability to compete at the NHL level. He was also named one of 10 finalists for the Hobey Baker Memorial Award, given annually to the nation's top overall college hockey player, and selected for the 2019-2020 CoSIDA Academic All-America Division I Men's At-Large team.
### Professional
Barron concluded his collegiate career by signing a three-year entry level contract with the New York Rangers on July 31, 2020. He was unable to join the Rangers during their post-season competition as his contract began during the 2020–21 season but was expected to join the team for their 2020 training camp. After spending most of the 2020–21 with the Hartford Wolf Pack, Barron made his NHL debut for the Rangers on May 1, 2021, in a game against the New York Islanders. He scored his first career NHL goal four days later against the Washington Capitals.
Morgan was traded to the Winnipeg Jets at the trade deadline on March 21, 2022 along with a fifth round draft pick and 2 conditional second round draft picks in exchange for Andrew Copp and a sixth round draft pick.
During the first period of the Jets first game of the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, Barron fell onto Golden Knights goalie Laurent Brossoit's skate during a scrum in the crease, which led to 75 stitches above and to the side of his right eye. Barron returned to continue playing in the second period with a full cage on his helmet.
## Career statistics |
28,019,118 | French ironclad Reine Blanche | 1,068,161,866 | French Alma-class ironclad | [
"1868 ships",
"Alma-class ironclads",
"Maritime incidents in July 1877",
"Ships built in France"
]
| The French ironclad Reine Blanche was a wooden-hulled armored corvette built for the French Navy in the late 1860s as an improvement over the armored corvette Belliqueuse. She played a minor role in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 and was accidentally rammed by one of her sister ships in 1877. The ship bombarded the port of Sfax during the French occupation of Tunisia in 1881 before being sent to the Pacific in 1884. She quickly returned to port with worn-out boilers and was condemned later that year.
## Design and description
The Alma-class ironclads were designed as improved versions of the armored corvette Belliqueuse, suited for foreign deployments. Unlike their predecessor, the Alma-class ships were true central battery ironclads as they were fitted with armored transverse bulkheads. Like most ironclads of their era, they were equipped with a metal-reinforced ram.
Reine Blanche measured 69.02 meters (226 ft 5 in) between perpendiculars, with a beam of 13.94 meters (45 ft 9 in). She had a mean draft of 6.48 meters (21 ft 3 in) and displaced 3,768 metric tons (3,708 long tons). Her crew numbered 316 officers and men.
### Propulsion
The ship had a single horizontal return connecting-rod steam engine driving a single propeller. Her engine was powered by four oval boilers. On sea trials the engine produced 1,860 indicated horsepower (1,390 kW) and the ship reached 11.72 knots (21.71 km/h; 13.49 mph). Reine Blanche carried 250 metric tons (250 long tons) of coal, allowing the ship to steam for 1,610 nautical miles (2,980 km; 1,850 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). She was barque-rigged and had a sail area of 1,454 square meters (15,650 sq ft).
### Armament
Reine Blanche mounted her four 194-millimeter (7.6 in) Modèle 1864 breech-loading guns in the central battery on the battery deck. The other two 194-millimeter guns were mounted in barbettes on the upper deck, sponsoned out over the sides of the ship. The four 120-millimeter (4.7 in) guns were also mounted on the upper deck. She may have exchanged her Mle 1864 guns for Mle 1870 guns. The armor-piercing shell of the 20-caliber Mle 1870 gun weighed 165.3 pounds (75 kg) while the gun itself weighed 7.83 long tons (7.96 t). The gun fired its shell at a muzzle velocity of 1,739 ft/s (530 m/s) and was credited with the ability to penetrate a nominal 12.5 inches (320 mm) of wrought iron armour at the muzzle. The guns could fire both solid shot and explosive shells.
### Armor
Reine Blanche had a complete 150-millimeter (5.9 in) wrought iron waterline belt, approximately 2.4 meters (7.9 ft) high. The sides of the battery itself were armored with 120 millimeters (4.7 in) of wrought iron and the ends of the battery were closed by bulkheads of the same thickness. The barbette armor was 100 millimeters (3.9 in) thick, backed by 240 millimeters (9.4 in) of wood. The unarmored portions of her sides were protected by 15-millimeter (0.6 in) iron plates.
## Service
Reine Blanche was laid down at Lorient in 1865 and launched on 10 March 1868. The ship began her sea trials on 15 April 1869 and was put into reserve at Brest after they were completed. She was commissioned on 20 July 1870 and made one cruise to the Shetland Islands during the Franco-Prussian War before she was placed in reserve again on 20 September. Reine Blanche was recommissioned in July 1871 as flagship of the second division of the Evolutionary Squadron. During the Cantonal Revolution Reine Blanche and her sister Thétis spent much of September–October 1873 in the port of Cartagena, Spain, where they could protect French citizens. She was reduced to reserve on 1 February 1876 and recommissioned in April 1877.
On 3 July 1877, she was accidentally rammed by Thétis off the Îles d'Hyères, Var and had to be run ashore to prevent her from sinking. Reine Blanche was placed back into reserve in 1878. She was recommissioned on 15 April 1879 for service with the Levant Squadron. From 5–16 July 1881 Reine Blanche bombarded the Tunisian port of Sfax as part of the French occupation of Tunisia. The ship was named as the flagship of the Pacific Squadron on 20 January 1884 under command of Rear Admiral Franquet, but she returned to Cherbourg on 22 May 1884 with worn-out boilers and her hull in poor shape. Reine Blanche was paid off and condemned on 12 November 1884. |
142,450 | Senate of the Roman Republic | 1,162,461,311 | Governing and advisory assembly of the aristocracy | [
"Government of the Roman Republic",
"Historical legislatures",
"Roman Senate"
]
| The Senate was the governing and advisory assembly of the aristocracy in the ancient Roman Republic. It was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a Roman magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic appointment to the Senate. According to the Greek historian Polybius, the principal source on the Constitution of the Roman Republic, the Roman Senate was the predominant branch of government. Polybius noted that it was the consuls (the highest-ranking of the regular magistrates) who led the armies and the civil government in Rome, and it was the Roman assemblies which had the ultimate authority over elections, legislation, and criminal trials. However, since the Senate controlled money, administration, and the details of foreign policy, it had the most control over day-to-day life. The power and authority of the Senate derived from precedent, the high caliber and prestige of the senators, and the Senate's unbroken lineage, which dated back to the founding of the Republic in 509 BC. It developed from the Senate of the Roman Kingdom, and became the Senate of the Roman Empire.
Originally the chief magistrates, the consuls, appointed all new senators. They also had the power to remove individuals from the Senate. Around the year 318 BC, the "Ovinian Plebiscite" (plebiscitum Ovinium) gave this power to another Roman magistrate, the censor, who retained this power until the end of the Roman Republic. This law also required the censors to appoint any newly elected magistrate to the Senate. Thus, after this point in time, election to magisterial office resulted in automatic Senate membership. The appointment was for life, although the censor could impeach any senator.
The Senate directed the magistrates, especially the consuls, in their prosecution of military conflicts. The Senate also had an enormous degree of power over the civil government in Rome. This was especially the case with regard to its management of state finances, as only it could authorize the disbursal of public monies from the treasury. In addition, the Senate passed decrees called senatus consulta, which were official "advice" from the Senate to a magistrate. While technically these decrees did not have to be obeyed, in practice, they usually were. During an emergency, the Senate (and only the Senate) could authorize the appointment of a dictator. The last ordinary dictator, however, was appointed in 202 BC. After 202 BC, the Senate responded to emergencies by passing the senatus consultum ultimum ("Ultimate Decree of the Senate"), which suspended civil government and declared something analogous to martial law.
## Venue and ethical standards
The rules and procedures of the Roman Senate were both complex and ancient. Many of these rules and procedures originated in the early years of the Republic, and were upheld over the centuries under the principle of mos maiorum ("customs of the ancestors"). While Senate meetings could take place either inside or outside of the formal boundary of the city (the pomerium), no meeting could take place more than a mile outside of the pomerium. Senate meetings might take place outside of the formal boundary of the city for several reasons. For example, the Senate might wish to meet with an individual, such as a foreign ambassador, whom they did not wish to allow inside the city.
At the beginning of the year, the first Senate meeting always took place at the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Other venues could include the Temple of Fides or the Temple of Concord, or, if the meeting was outside of the formal boundary of the city, at the Temple of Apollo or (if a war meeting) at the Temple of Bellona. In addition, the Senate operated while under various religious restrictions. For example, before any meeting could begin, a sacrifice to the gods was made, and a search for divine omens (the auspices) was taken. The auspices were taken in order to determine whether that particular Senate meeting held favor with the gods. The Senate was only allowed to meet in a building of religious significance, such as the Curia Hostilia.
The ethical requirements of senators were significant. Senators could not engage in banking or any form of public contract without legal approval. They could not own a ship that was large enough to participate in foreign commerce without legal approval, and they could not leave Italy without permission from the Senate. In addition, since they were not paid, individuals usually sought to become a senator only if they were independently wealthy.
The censors were the magistrates who enforced the ethical standards of the Senate. Whenever a censor punished a senator, they had to allege some specific failing. Possible reasons for punishing a member included corruption, abuse of capital punishment, or the disregard of a colleague's veto, constitutional precedent, or the auspices. Senators who failed to obey various laws could also be punished. While punishment could include impeachment (expulsion) from the Senate, often a punishment was less severe than outright expulsion. While the standard was high for expelling a member from the Senate, it was easier to deny a citizen the right to join the Senate. Various moral failings could result in one not being allowed to join the Senate, including bankruptcy, prostitution, or a prior history of having been a gladiator. One law (the Lex repetundarum of 123 BC) made it illegal for a citizen to become a senator if they had been convicted of a criminal offense. Many of these laws were enacted in the last century of the Republic, as public corruption began reaching unprecedented levels.
## Debates
Meetings usually began at dawn, although occasionally certain events (such as festivals) might delay the beginning of a meeting. A magistrate who wished to summon the Senate had to issue a compulsory order (a cogere), and senators could be punished if they failed to appear without reasonable cause. In 44 BC for example, consul Mark Antony threatened to demolish the house of the former consul Cicero for this very reason. The Senate meetings were technically public because the doors were usually left open, which allowed people to look in, but only senators could speak. The Senate was directed by a presiding magistrate, who was usually either a consul (the highest-ranking magistrate) or, if the consul was unavailable, a Praetor (the second-highest ranking magistrate), usually the urban praetor. By the late Republic, another type of magistrate, a plebeian tribune, would sometimes preside.
While in session, the Senate had the power to act on its own, and even against the will of the presiding magistrate if it wished. The presiding magistrate began each meeting with a speech (the verba fecit), which was usually brief, but was sometimes a lengthy oration. The presiding magistrate would then begin a discussion by referring an issue to the senators, who would discuss the issue, one at a time, by order of seniority, with the first to speak, the most senior senator, known as the princeps senatus (leader of the Senate), who was then followed by ex-consuls (consulares), and then the praetors and ex-praetors (praetorii). This continued, until the most junior senators had spoken. Senators who had held magisterial office always spoke before those who had not, and if a patrician was of equal seniority as a plebeian, the patrician would always speak first.
A senator could make a brief statement, discuss the matter in detail, or talk about an unrelated topic. All senators had to speak before a vote could be held, and since all meetings had to end by nightfall, a senator could talk a proposal to death (a filibuster or diem consumere) if they could keep the debate going until nightfall. It is known, for example, that the senator Cato the Younger once filibustered in an attempt to prevent the Senate from granting Julius Caesar a law that would have given land to the veterans of Pompey.
## Delaying and obstructive tactics
Senators had several ways in which they could influence (or frustrate) a presiding magistrate. When a presiding magistrate was proposing a motion, for example, the senators could call "consult" (consule), which required the magistrate to ask for the opinions of the senators. Any senator could demand a quorum call (with the cry of numera), which required a count of the senators present. Like modern quorum calls, this was usually a delaying tactic. Senators could also demand that a motion be divided into smaller motions. Acts such as applause, booing, or heckling often played a major role in a debate, and, in part because all senators had an absolute right to free speech, any senator could respond at any point if he was attacked personally. Once debates were underway, they were usually difficult for the presiding magistrate to control. The presiding magistrate typically only regained some control once the debating had ended, and a vote was about to be taken.
In the later years of the Republic, attempts were made by the aristocracy to limit the increasing level of chaos associated with the obstructive tendencies and democratic impulses of some of the senators. Laws were enacted to prevent the inclusion of extraneous material in bills before the Senate. Other laws were enacted to outlaw the so-called omnibus bills, which are bills, usually enacted by a single vote, that contain a large volume of often unrelated material.
Laws were also enacted to strengthen the requirement that three days pass between the proposal of a bill, and the vote on that bill. During his term as dictator, Julius Caesar enacted laws that required the publication of Senate resolutions. This publication, called the acta diurna, or "daily proceedings", was meant to increase transparency and minimize the potential for abuse. This publication was posted in the Roman Forum, and then sent by messengers throughout the provinces.
## Votes and the Tribune's vote
When it was time to call a vote, the presiding magistrate could bring up whatever proposals (in whatever order) he wished, and every vote was between a proposal and its negative. Quorums were required for votes to be held, and it is known that in 67 BC the size of a quorum was set at 200 senators (by the lex Cornelia de privilegiis). At any point before a motion passed, the proposed motion could be vetoed. Usually, vetoes were handed down by plebeian tribunes. If the Senate proposed a bill that the plebeian tribune (the magistrate who was the chief representative of the people) did not agree with, he issued a veto, which was backed by the promise to literally "interpose the sacrosanctity of his person" (or intercessio) if the Senate did not comply. If the Senate did not comply, he could physically prevent the Senate from acting, and any resistance could be criminally prosecuted as constituting a violation of his sacrosanctity. If the vetoed motion was proposed the next day, and the plebeian tribune who had vetoed it the day before was not present to interpose himself, the motion could be passed. In general, the plebeian tribune had to physically be present at the Senate meeting, otherwise his physical threat of interposing his person had no meaning. Ultimately, the plebeian tribune's veto was based in a promise of physical force.
Once a vote occurred, and a measure passed, he could do nothing, since his promise to physically interpose his person against the senators was now meaningless. In addition, during a couple of instances between the end of the Second Punic War in 201 BC and the beginning of the Social War in 91 BC, although they had no legal power to do so, several Consuls were known to have vetoed acts of the Senate. Ultimately, if there was no veto, and the matter was of minor importance, it could be voted on by a voice vote or by a show of hands. If there was no veto, and the matter was of a significant nature, there was usually a physical division of the house, where senators voted by taking a place on either side of the chamber.
Any motion that had the support of the Senate but was vetoed was recorded in the annals as a senatus auctoritas, while any motion that was passed and not vetoed was recorded as a senatus consultum. After the vote, each senatus consultum and each senatus auctoritas was transcribed into a final document by the presiding magistrate. This document included the name of the presiding magistrate, the place of the assembly, the dates involved, the number of senators who were present at time the motion was passed, the names of witnesses to the drafting of the motion, and the substance of the act. In addition, if the motion was a senatus consultum, a capital letter "C" was stamped on the document, to verify that the motion had been approved by the Senate.
The document was then deposited in the temple that housed the Treasury (the aerarium). While a senatus auctoritas (vetoed Senate motion) had no legal value, it did serve to show the opinion of the Senate. If a senatus consultum conflicted with a law (lex) that was passed by a Roman Assembly, the law overrode the senatus consultum, because the senatus consultum had its authority based in precedent, and not in law. A senatus consultum, however, could serve to interpret a law.
## See also |
36,584,679 | Gangnam Style | 1,173,022,425 | 2012 single by Psy | [
"2010s fads and trends",
"2012 YouTube videos",
"2012 singles",
"2012 songs",
"Articles containing video clips",
"Billboard Korea K-Pop number-one singles",
"Canadian Hot 100 number-one singles",
"Gangnam District",
"Gangnam Style",
"Gaon Digital Chart number-one singles",
"Internet memes introduced in 2012",
"Internet memes introduced in the 2010s",
"Korean-language songs",
"Monitor Latino Top General number-one singles",
"Novelty and fad dances",
"Novelty songs",
"Number-one singles in Australia",
"Number-one singles in Austria",
"Number-one singles in Denmark",
"Number-one singles in Finland",
"Number-one singles in Germany",
"Number-one singles in Greece",
"Number-one singles in Honduras",
"Number-one singles in Israel",
"Number-one singles in Lebanon",
"Number-one singles in New Zealand",
"Number-one singles in Norway",
"Number-one singles in Scotland",
"Number-one singles in Spain",
"Psy songs",
"Schoolboy Records singles",
"Songs about South Korea",
"Songs about cities",
"Songs about dancing",
"Songs written by Psy",
"Songs written by Yoo Gun-hyung",
"South Korean dance",
"South Korean songs",
"UK Singles Chart number-one singles",
"Ultratop 50 Singles (Flanders) number-one singles",
"Universal Republic Records singles",
"Viral videos",
"Works about Seoul",
"YG Entertainment singles"
]
| "Gangnam Style" (Korean: 강남스타일, ) is a K-pop song by South Korean rapper Psy, released on July 15, 2012, by YG Entertainment as the lead single of his sixth studio album, Psy 6 (Six Rules), Part 1 (Ssai Yukgap Part 1). The term "Gangnam Style" is a neologism that refers to the nouveau riche lifestyles associated with the Gangnam region of Seoul.
On July 15, 2012, "Gangnam Style" debuted at number one on South Korea's Gaon Chart, receiving mixed to positive reviews, with praise for its catchy beat and Psy's amusing dancing during live performances and in various locations around the world in its music video. The song and its music video went viral in August 2012 and have influenced popular culture worldwide. In the United States, "Gangnam Style" peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. By the end of 2012, "Gangnam Style" had topped the music charts of more than 30 countries including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Psy's dance in the music video itself became a cultural phenomenon.
It subsequently won Best Video at the MTV Europe Music Awards held that year. It became a source of parodies and reaction videos by many different individuals, groups, and organizations. On December 21, 2012, "Gangnam Style" became the first YouTube video to reach a billion views. As of May 7, 2023, the song's music video has more than 4.78 billion views, and was the most viewed video on YouTube from November 24, 2012, when it surpassed the music video for "Baby" by Justin Bieber featuring Ludacris, to July 10, 2017, when it was itself surpassed by the music video for "See You Again" by Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth.
Its dance was attempted by political leaders such as British Prime Minister David Cameron and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who hailed it as "a force for world peace". On May 7, 2013, at a bilateral meeting with South Korea's President Park Geun-hye at the White House, US President Barack Obama cited the success of "Gangnam Style" as an example of how people around the world are being "swept up" by the Korean Wave of culture.
## Background and release
"Gangnam Style" is a South Korean neologism that refers to a lifestyle associated with the Gangnam region of Seoul, where people are trendy, hip, and exude a certain supposed class. The term was defined in Time's weekly vocabulary list as "a manner associated with lavish lifestyles in Seoul's Gangnam district". Psy likened Gangnam to Beverly Hills, California, and said in an interview that he intended the title as a joke, claiming that he has "Gangnam Style" when everything about the song, dance, looks, and music video is far from high class:
> People who are actually from Gangnam never proclaim that they are—it's only the posers and wannabes that put on these airs and say that they are "Gangnam Style"—so this song is actually poking fun at those kinds of people who are trying very hard to be something that they're not.
The song talks about "the perfect girlfriend who knows when to be refined and when to get wild." The song's refrain "오빤 강남 스타일 (Oppan Gangnam style)" has been translated as "Big brother is Gangnam style," with Psy referring to himself. During an interview with The New York Times, Psy revealed that South Korean fans have high expectations about his dancing, so he felt a lot of pressure. In order to keep up with those expectations, he studied hard to find something new and stayed up late for about 30 nights to come up with the "Gangnam Style" dance. Along the way, he had tested various "cheesy" animal-inspired dance moves with his choreographer Lee Ju-sun, including panda and kangaroo moves, before settling for the horse trot, which involves pretending to ride a horse, alternately holding the reins and spinning a lasso, and moving into a legs-shuffling side gallop.
During an interview with Reuters, Psy said that "Gangnam Style" was originally produced only for local K-pop fans. On July 11, 2012, Psy and his music label YG Entertainment started releasing several promotional teasers for "Gangnam Style" to their subscribers on YouTube. On July 15, 2012, the full music video of "Gangnam Style" was uploaded onto YouTube and was immediately a sensation, receiving about 500,000 views on its first day. However, at the time of its release in Germany, a dispute between YouTube and the GEMA (the country's performance rights organization) regarding copyright issues led to thousands of music videos including "Gangnam Style" being blocked in the country. The music video, along with other music videos from GEMA-protected artists released on YouTube, were unblocked in Germany on October 31, 2016, after YouTube reached an agreement with GEMA on copyrights and royalties.
According to the news agency Agence France-Presse, the success of "Gangnam Style" could be considered as part of the Korean Wave, a term coined by Chinese journalists to refer to the significant increase in the popularity of South Korean entertainment and culture since the late 1990s.
Korean popular music (K-pop), considered by some to be the most important aspect of the Korean Wave, is a music genre that relies on cultural technology to adapt to the tastes of foreign audiences and has now grown into a popular subculture among teenagers and young adults in many places around the world. Although it has spread to the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and parts of South America, its reception in the Western world was initially lukewarm. However, booming social media networks such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter made it easier for K-pop musicians to reach a wider audience in the West, and the song and video soon became a global phenomenon.
## Reception
The song has received mixed to positive ratings from music critics. Music journalist Bill Lamb from About.com praised the song for "spreading smiles and pure fun around the world in record time." He then writes, "take one part LMFAO's synth-based party music, another part Ricky Martin's Latin dance party and the rest a powerfully charismatic South Korean showman and you have the first worldwide K-Pop smash hit." Billboard K-Town columnist Jeff Benjamin became one of the first music critics to review the song when he published an article and reported that "Gangnam Style" has gone viral on the Internet. In his article, Benjamin introduced the reader to a couple of popular K-pop songs and wrote that "'Gangnam Style' in particular, plays all the right moves sonically while "borrowing from LMFAO along the way."
Hallie Sekoff of The Huffington Post quoted from the video's official YouTube video description that the song is characterized by its "strongly addictive beats," and wrote that this is not too far-fetched, considering "how obsessed we've found ourselves." London's mayor Boris Johnson considered the song to be the greatest cultural masterpiece of 2012.
Despite its popularity, a few music critics including Robert Copsey from Digital Spy criticized the song for being monotonous. Cospey wrote that "you could slap an LMFAO tag on the cover and few would know the difference", and Paul Lester of The Guardian similarly labeled it as "generic ravey Euro dance with guitars." Lester described the song as "Pump Up the Jam meets the Macarena with a dash of Cotton Eye Joe," while Robert Myers of The Village Voice dismissed "Gangnam Style" as an "inspired piece of silliness."
Cha Woo-jin, a South Korean music critic, told The Chosun Ilbo that "Gangnam Style"'s sophisticated rendering and arrangement has made it very appealing to the general public. Choe Kwang-shik, the South Korean Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, told reporters that "Gangnam Style" had played an important role in introducing the Korean culture, language, and lifestyle to the rest of the world. However, some have criticized the song for failing to accurately represent South Korean culture. Oh Young-Jin, managing editor of The Korea Times, wrote that the dance has more to do with Americans than Koreans.
In Japan, the song was met with considerable criticism. When "Gangnam Style" first appeared in Japanese TV shows in July, the reaction from viewers was negative. As a result, Psy's Japanese record label YGEX canceled a previously planned Japanese-language re-release of "Gangnam Style." According to The Dong-a Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper, the song's lukewarm reception in Japan could have been caused by a diplomatic conflict between the two countries, and the newspaper accused the Japanese media of keeping its people "in the dark." However, Jun Takaku of the Japanese daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun explained that "Gangnam Style" had caused "barely a ripple in Japan" because Psy does not conform to the image of other "traditionally polished" K-pop acts popular in Japan such as Girls' Generation and TVXQ. Erica Ho from Time magazine similarly noted that, despite the K-pop musical genre being very popular in Japan, the country seemed to be "immune to PSY Mania", and she advised her readers who dislike the song to "pack your bags for Japan."
Immediately after its release, "Gangnam Style" was mentioned by various English-language websites providing coverage of Korean pop culture for international fans, including Allkpop and Soompi. Simon and Martina Stawski, a Canadian couple living in Seoul who were among the first to parody "Gangnam Style" in late July, wrote that the song has the potential to become "one of the biggest songs of the year." However, during an interview with Al Jazeera a few weeks later, Martina Stawski claimed that the worldwide popularity of "Gangnam Style" has been viewed negatively by some K-pop fans, because "they [the fans] didn't want K-pop being liked by other people who don't understand K-Pop."
### Music video
The music video of "Gangnam Style" has been met with positive responses from the music industry and commentators, who drew attention to its tone and dance moves, though some found them vulgar. Another notable aspect that helped popularise the video was its comical dance moves that can be easily copied, such as the pelvic thrust during the elevator scene. The United Nations hailed Psy as an "international sensation" because of the popularity of his "satirical" video clip and its "horse-riding-like dance moves." As such, the music video has spawned a dance craze unseen since the Macarena of the mid-1990s.
The World Bank's lead economist David McKenzie remarked that some of Psy's dance moves "kind of look like a regression discontinuity," while the space agency NASA called "Gangnam Style" a dance-filled music video that has forever entered the hearts and minds of millions of people. Melissa Locker of Time noted that "it's hard not to watch again ... and again ... and again," while CNN reporter Shanon Cook told the audience that she had watched "Gangnam Style" about 15 times.
The German news magazine Der Spiegel attributed the popularity of "Gangnam Style" to its daring dance moves, a sentiment similarly voiced by Maura Judkis of The Washington Post, who wrote, "'Gangnam Style' has made an extraordinarily stupid-looking dance move suddenly cool." The video was also positively reviewed by Steve Knopper from Rolling Stone, who called "Gangnam Style" an astoundingly great K-pop video that has all the best elements of hypnotically weird one-hit wonders and hopes that "PSY gets filthy rich from this."
Mesfin Fekadu of the Associated Press wrote that Psy's dance moves are "somewhat bizarre" but the music video is full of colorful, lively outfits. Matt Buchanan and Scott Ellis of The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that the video "makes no sense at all to most Western eyes" and it "makes you wonder if you have accidentally taken someone else's medication" whereas Deborah Netburn of the Los Angeles Times called it "one of the greatest videos ever to be uploaded to YouTube." Kim Alessi from Common Sense Media considered the music video for "Gangnam Style" worth seeing for its caricature of contemporary Asian and American urban lifestyles, but also warned that "Gangnam Style" contains sexually suggestive images and "degrading messages" which could be inappropriate for children and teenagers.
## Music video
The video begins with Psy, who is lounging at what looks like a sandy beach, under a sun umbrella and holding a cold drink, but the camera zooms out to reveal he is actually at a playground. The video then alternates between the playground, where a boy (Hwang Min-woo) dances next to him; and a row of horses, who are in stalls, where Psy performs his signature "invisible horse dance." As Psy (and two women) walk through a parking garage, they are pelted by pieces of newspaper, trash, and snow. At a sauna, he rests his head on a man's shoulder, dressed in blue, while another man covered in tattoos is stretching. He then sings in front of two men (then labelmates under YG Entertainment, Big Bang's Daesung and Seungri, dressed as older men) playing Janggi (Korean chess), dances with a woman at a tennis court, and bounces around on a tour bus of seniors. The scenes alternate quickly until there is an explosion near the chess players, causing them to dive off the bench. Psy immediately walks toward the camera, pointing and shouting "Oppa Gangnam Style." The chorus starts as he and some dancers perform at a horse stable. He dances as two women walk backwards. He dances at the tennis court, a carousel, and the tour bus. He shuffles into an outdoor yoga session and on a boat. The camera zooms in on a woman's butt, then shows Psy "yelling" at it.
The chorus ends and he is seen in a parking garage, where Psy is approached by a man (Yoo Jae-suk) in a yellow suit who steps out of a red Mercedes-Benz SLK 200; they have a dance duel. Psy then appears in an elevator underneath a man (Noh Hong-Chul) who is straddling him and thrusting his pelvis. The man in the yellow suit then gets in his car and leaves. The camera pans and it shows Psy in the subway station, where he boards the train and notices Hyuna (who would have her own version of the song) dancing. At one of the train stops, he approaches the girl in slow motion, and she approaches him. They start to embrace. He then tells the girl "Oppa Gangnam Style," and they horse dance along with some other dancers at the train stop, commencing the second chorus. He also surfaces from a spa hot tub. In the Rolling Stone interview, Psy says he copied the spa surfacing scene from Lady Gaga's video ("Poker Face").
Psy sings to the girl at a night club as people in various costumes walk behind them. He raps in a serious tone in an enclosed space, but when he says "You know what I'm saying" the camera zooms out, and it is revealed that he is actually sitting on a toilet with his pants down.
### Production
The music video is directed by Cho Soo-hyun, who later directed the video for Psy's follow-up single "Gentleman" and the video for "This Love" by Shinhwa. It shows Psy performing a comical horse-riding dance and appearing in unexpected locations around the Gangnam District, such as an outdoor yoga session and a hot tub. He wears several distinctive suits and black sunglasses with a mindset of "dress classy and dance cheesy." It features a "skewering [of] the Gangnam image" by the "non-Gangnam Psy"; this parody would be recognizable to viewers familiar with Korean culture. Although there are more than ten different locations featured, only two of the scenes are filmed in the Gangnam district proper. The sauna scene, elevator scene, and bathroom scene were filmed elsewhere in the greater Seoul region, and some shots were filmed in World Trade Center Seoul and the Songdo International Business District, which includes Songdo Central Park and International Business District Station. The video was shot over 48 hours in July 2012.
In K-pop, it is routine to have cameos by celebrities in a music video, such as in the dance scenes in the elevator and the parking garage. Guest appearances in the music video include:
- 4Minute member Hyuna, who dances in the subway car and attracts Psy's attention.
- Hwang Min-woo, a 7-year-old boy who dances at the beginning of the video. During an interview with CNN, Psy stated that "the night before the music video shoot, I was watching Korea's Got Talent and saw him dance to Michael Jackson. His moves were ridiculous. So we called him up and asked him to be in the music video, which was shooting the very next day, and he came and it all worked out." He has been praised for his eye-catching dance moves that have received a lot of attention from viewers.
- Comedian/television personality Korea's Nation MC Yoo Jae-suk, who engages in a dance duel with Psy.
- Comedian/television personality Noh Hongchul, who does his trademark pelvis-thrusting dance in an elevator while Psy raps underneath him.
## Viral spread
Following its July 15 release, "Gangnam Style" overtook Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" to reach the number one position on the YouTube Top 100 Music Videos during the week of August 28, 2012. On September 1, 2012, it overtook Girls' Generation's "Gee" to become the most viewed K-pop video on YouTube. Although "Call Me Maybe" had unusually strong staying power, averaging over 1.5 million views each day, "Gangnam Style" increased to an average of over nine million views per day within just two months. This was mainly because "Call Me Maybe" remained largely a North American trend, whereas the popularity of "Gangnam Style" was not confined to the United States. 61.6 percent of viewers were male, and those aged between 13 and 17 represented the biggest group.
According to The Wall Street Journal, T-Pain was among the first to have "sent [the video] to the stratosphere" when he tweeted about it on July 29, 2012. It was then picked up by Neetzan Zimmerman from the social blog Gawker, who asked "Did this underground Hip Hop artist from South Korea just release the Best Music Video of the Year?" on July 30. This was soon followed by Robbie Williams, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Tom Cruise, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and William Gibson.
The earliest video to catch the attention of media networks outside South Korea was "Psy Gangnam Style MV Reaction," which was uploaded by Katie and Mindy Anderson on July 18, 2012. The Andersons were subsequently interviewed by Evan Ramstad from The Wall Street Journal a few weeks later. In his article published on August 6, 2012, Ramstad also included "Kpop Music Mondays : PSY Gangnam Style," a review and parody of "Gangnam Style" uploaded on July 23 by K-pop video bloggers Simon and Martina Stawski, a Canadian couple living in Seoul. This makes the Stawskis' video the earliest parody featured in an American newspaper. On August 8, 2012, Ramstad appeared on WSJ Live, and he mentioned the Andersons and the Stawskis again, before claiming that "a lot of Koreans are also making their own parodies of 'Gangnam Style.'"
On September 3, 2012, the number of daily views generated by "Gangnam Style" went past the 5-million mark. By the end of September, it had topped the iTunes charts in 31 countries.
"Gangnam Style" reached the unprecedented milestone of 1 billion YouTube views on December 21, 2012. YouTube specially marked the video's accomplishments with a cartoon dancing Psy animated icon, added first by the site logo, and later next to the video's view counter when it exceeded 1 billion views. On April 6, 2013, the video on YouTube reached 1.5 billion views.
As of August 2023, the video is the eleventh most viewed video on YouTube, having reached over 4.8 billion views.
## Cultural impact
After the release of "Gangnam Style," the American talent manager Scooter Braun, who discovered Justin Bieber on YouTube, asked on Twitter "How did I not sign this guy [Psy]?" Soon afterward, it was reported that Psy had left for Los Angeles to meet with representatives of Justin Bieber, to explore collaboration opportunities. On September 3, 2012, Braun made a public announcement that was later uploaded onto YouTube, saying that he and Psy have decided to "make some history together. [To] be the first Korean artist to break a big record in the United States." On September 4, it was confirmed that Psy was signed to Braun's School Boy Records.
The music video for the song went viral and became an Internet meme. Although Psy attributed the song's popularity to YouTube and his fans while at the same time insisted that he is not responsible for the song's success, the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism recognized the singer for "increasing the world's interest in Korea" and announced its decision to award Psy with a 4th Class Order of Cultural Merit.
The phrase "Oppan Gangnam Style" was entered into The Yale Book of Quotations as one of the most famous quotes of 2012.
### Social
As the song's popularity continued to rise, it caused the share price of the song's music label YG Entertainment to gain as much as 50% on the Korea Exchange. DI Corporation, whose executive chairman Park Won-ho is Psy's father, saw its share price increase by 568.8% within a few months of the song's release despite making a year-over-year loss. Soon, "Gangnam Style" began to attract the attention of several business and political leaders, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who recognized the song as a "force for world peace." During his meeting with Psy at the United Nations Headquarters, he commented, "We have tough negotiations in the United Nations. In such a case I was also thinking of playing Gangnam Style-dance so that everybody would stop and dance. Maybe you can bring UN style."
Through social networks like Facebook, many small, unofficial fan-organized flash mobs have been held in universities and colleges throughout the world. The earliest flash mobs were held in Pasadena, California, and Sydney, Australia. On September 12, 2012, Times Square in Manhattan was filled with a dance mob dancing to the music of "Gangnam Style" during ABC's Good Morning America. Major flash mobs (those with more than 1,000 participants) were also held in Seoul (South Korea), South Sulawesi (Indonesia), Palermo (Italy), Milan (Italy), and Paris (France).
The song has been mentioned in tweets by the United Nations, the United Nations Children's Fund, and the American space agency NASA; by a reporter during a U.S. State Department briefing; and referenced by the president of the International Criminal Court Song Sang-Hyun during his speech in front of the UN Security Council. On October 9, the mayor of London Boris Johnson held a speech at the 2012 Conservative Party Conference where he told the audience that he and the British Prime Minister David Cameron have danced "Gangnam Style." During a Google Earnings call, Larry Page, the CEO and co-founder of Google, hailed the song as a glimpse of the future of worldwide distribution through YouTube.
The American Council on Exercise estimated that dancing "Gangnam Style" will burn 150–200 calories per half-hour. Swype, an input method for Android operating systems, included "Gangnam Style" in its list of recognized words and phrases.
U.S. President Barack Obama revealed possible plans to privately perform "Gangnam Style" for his spouse Michelle Obama.
In November 2012, a Māori cultural group from Rotorua performed a version of the Gangnam Style dance mixed with a traditional Māori haka in Seoul, celebrating 50 years of diplomatic relations between South Korea and New Zealand.
In Thailand, officials from the Dan Sai municipality in Loei Province shot a video of people wearing masks and performing "Gangnam Style" during the Phi Ta Khon "ghost" festival. According to the Thai newspaper The Nation, villagers and spiritual leaders from Loei province felt "uneasy" and also "greatly offended" about this "Gangnam Style" performance which tarnishes the image of a 400-year-old tradition. Another controversial incident was sparked by a "Gangnam Style" parody by officers from the Royal Thai Navy, which was not well received by some high-ranking commanders. Although Vice Admiral Tharathorn Kajitsuwan from the Third Naval Area Command insisted that "we had no intention to insult or make fun of navy officers in uniform," some senior officers called it "improper." Kajitsuwan claimed that his subordinates had the right to upload the video to YouTube, although he did not expect them to do so. On October 1, 2012, he issued an apology to his colleagues. Commander Surasak Rounroengrom believed an investigation was unnecessary because the video caused no damage to the navy, but he admitted that there was some impropriety about military officers doing their "fancy stepping in uniform."
### Political and environmental activism
On September 18, 2012, the North Korean government became the first to use "Gangnam Style" for political activism when it uploaded a parody with the title "I'm Yushin style!" onto the government website Uriminzokkiri. The parody mocks the South Korean ruling conservative party president-elect Park Geun-hye. It shows a Photoshopped image of the presidential candidate performing the dance moves of "Gangnam Style" and labels her as a devoted admirer of the Yushin system of autocratic rule set up by her father, Park Chung-hee. A few weeks later, " style" (literally, "Grass Mud Horse Style"; the Chinese characters are a homonym for a vulgar slur) was uploaded onto YouTube and other Chinese websites by the political activist and dissident Ai Weiwei. In his parody, Ai Weiwei dances "Gangnam Style" with a pair of handcuffs as a symbol of his arrest by Chinese authorities in 2011. According to the Associated Press, government authorities had removed the video from almost all Chinese websites the next day.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye took office on February 25, 2013. At her inauguration, Psy performed "Gangnam Style" and "Champion", one of his first hits in his native country.
In order to show his solidarity with Ai Weiwei and to advocate freedom of expression, the British sculptor Anish Kapoor produced the video Gangnam for Freedom, which features other prominent British artists as well as human rights activists from various international organisations including Index on Censorship and Amnesty International. A few days prior, the global grassroots network Students for a Free Tibet had uploaded a parody of "Gangnam Style" to show its support for the Tibetan independence movement. According to Max Fisher from The Washington Post, this parody of "Gangnam Style" was likely filmed in Dharamshala, the home of Tibet's government-in-exile in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.
Greenpeace announced that it was "Going Gangnam, Greenpeace Style" in order to raise public awareness about illegal and unsustainable fishing practices off the coast of Mozambique. Activists from Greenpeace had parodied "Gangnam Style" on board the organization's excursion yacht Rainbow Warrior.
Songdo, a ubiquitous city 40 miles (65 km) west of Gangnam, was among five cities vying for the right to host the Green Climate Fund (GCF), a project developed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to channel \$100 billion a year from developed countries to help developing countries combat climate change. During its campaign to win the right to host the GCF, the country's Presidential Committee on Green Growth produced a promotional video entitled "GCF Songdo Style by Psy" in which Psy recommends Songdo as the host city for the GCF. He announces that a "new paradigm" will begin at Songdo with the GCF and the video heralds "The beginning of Songdo Style" while "Gangnam Style" plays in the background. On October 20, 2012, the board of the GCF announced that Songdo had won the right to host the fund.
In December 2012, the Department of Health in the Philippines launched a "Gangnam Style" dance campaign against the use of firecrackers to celebrate the New Year. Janine Tugonon, 2012 Miss Universe first runner-up, joined and danced in one of their campaigns at Pandacan, Manila. According to the department's assistant secretary, Dr. Eric Tayag, the popularity of the song will attract people especially children to use safer means of celebration such as dancing to "Gangnam Style". In contrast, the Philippine National Police was confirming intelligence reports about a firecracker named "Gangnam bomb," which supposedly produced by illegal firecracker makers in Bocaue, Bulacan and apparently riding on the popularity of the song. According to Chief Superintendent Raul Petrasanta, director of the Firearms and Explosives Office of the Philippine National Police, he did not know what the possibly dangerous "Gangnam bomb" looks like.
Muhammad Rahim al Afghani, a close associate of Osama bin Laden currently held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, had also used the song to demonstrate his ability to gain access to popular cultural trends despite being confined within a top secret prison. In a letter to his lawyer, Muhammad wrote, "I like this new song Gangnam Style. I want to do the dance for you but cannot because of my shackles."
### Other parodies and covers
Reaction videos and parodies have been made for or with the music respectively. Some of these user generated videos have received international media recognition. "Gangnam Style"-related videos have also been uploaded by the CPDRC Dancing Inmates, Cody Simpson, Seungri, Latino, Fine Brothers, WAVEYA Dance Group, Barely Political, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Cheerleaders.
Numerous parodies have been spawned on college campuses. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's version ("MIT Gangnam Style") featured Donald Sadoway, recognized in Time magazine as one of 2012 "Top 100 Most Influential People in the World"; Eric Lander, who is co-chairman of President Barack Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology; and linguistics pioneer Noam Chomsky. The Maccabeats, an a cappella group from Yeshiva University, parodied the song as "What's Next? Sukkos Style?" with group members waving the four species. In addition, there have been parodies from The Ohio University Marching 110, York University, McMaster University, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Boston University, Dartmouth College, Stanford University Eton College, and the University of Michigan.
The American space agency NASA uploaded an educational parody shot by its students at its Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas. The video features cameo appearances by astronauts Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Mike Massimino, Michael Coats, Ellen Ochoa, and the International Space Station's Expedition 15 flight engineer Clayton Anderson, who dances "Gangnam Style" halfway through the video. Shortly after its upload, the parody was retweeted by the European Space Agency and the SETI Institute.
The song was also parodied by cadets from the United States Military Academy, United States Merchant Marine Academy, United States Naval Academy, United States Air Force Academy, and the Royal Military College of Canada; soldiers from the 210th Fires Brigade, the 2nd Infantry Division, service members from an undisclosed unit and location in Afghanistan, and service members from the China Coast Guard's Jiangsu division, as well as high-ranking officers from the Royal Thai Navy. CollegeHumor uploaded "Mitt Romney Style," while What's Trending uploaded "Obama Style." During the two weeks before August 7, 2012, nearly 1,000 videos with the word "Gangnam" in the title were uploaded onto YouTube.
The Portuguese public broadcaster RTP1 spoofed the song in its late-night show 5 Para A Meia-Noite as Gamar com Style, sung by the comedian Pedro "Pacheco" Fernandes, criticizing the Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, the European Union, the IMF, and the 2010–13 Portuguese financial crisis.
There are many "Gangnam Style" parodies used for education. One such parody includes "Conjugation Style," a parody used to teach students about the conjugation of -er verbs in the French language.
YouTube comedian cs188 uploaded a YouTube Poop of the song's iconic video, called "[PSYTP] OPPA GODDAMN STYLE." The video has received more than 15 million views since its upload on October 11, 2012.
On June 6, 2017, the Kyrgyz songwriter Sezdbek Iskenaliev made a parody on the song named "Мына Минтип" (Mina Mintip) in Kyrgyz.
## Live performances
### Asia
Following the release of "Gangnam Style," Psy made several performances on television and at concerts in Korea. Early performances included his appearance on the weekly South Korean music program, The Music Trend. Psy also performed at several concerts prior to his departure to the United States, including during "The Heumbbeok Show" and the Summer Stand Concert in Seoul. After returning to South Korea, Psy performed "Gangnam Style" during a free concert that he held outside the Seoul City Hall. More than 80,000 fans attended the event, leading to the closure of part of the city center and an increase in subway operations. While Psy was in the US, it was announced that he, as ambassador of the Formula One Korean Grand Prix, would perform "Gangnam Style" at the event during the 2012 edition. At the event Psy taught Formula One drivers Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel how to perform the dance.
On November 28, 2012, Psy visited Thailand and held his concert "Gangnam Style Thailand Extra Live" at the SCG Stadium in Muang Thong Thani, Bangkok. At the show, a part of celebration for the 85th birthday of Thai's King Bhumibol Adulyadej, he performed the song along with his other hits. During the 2012 Mnet Asian Music Awards held in Hong Kong on November 30, he performed the song on stage, joined by the video's co-star Hyuna and Yoo Jae-Seok look-alikes in yellow suits. The track was one of three-song setlist on Psy's free showcase, held at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore on December 1, 2012.
On February 11, 2013, Psy arrived at the Malaysian state of Penang and performed "Gangnam Style" at a concert in front of more than 100,000 guests, including the Prime Minister of Malaysia Mohd Najib Abdul Razak as well as other high-ranking politicians from the country's ruling Barisan Nasional party.
### Australia
In early October 2012, Psy travelled to Sydney, Australia, and performed "Gangnam Style" on The X Factor, a reality TV music competition, where Melanie Brown joined him in performing the "horse dance" on stage. The following day, he performed on breakfast TV show Sunrise in Martin Place, Sydney.
### Europe
Psy's first public performance in Europe was on November 5, 2012, in France, where he and 20,000 fans danced "Gangnam Style" in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris during a flashmob organized by NRJ Radio. Then, he traveled to Oxford and performed a short rendition of "Gangnam Style" with students from the Oxford Union, before moving on to the Yalding House in London where he danced "Gangnam Style" with the BBC's radio DJ Scott Mills. Shortly afterward, Psy left for Cologne and met up with the German comedian and television host Stefan Raab during the popular late-night show TV total, where Psy gave an interview and performed "Gangnam Style" for Raab. During the 2012 MTV Europe Music Awards held in Frankfurt on November 11, Psy delivered a performance of "Gangnam Style" which featured a David Hasselhoff appearance and backup dancing of Psy look-alikes.
In early 2013, Psy returned to France for the 2013 NRJ Music Awards at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, where he began performing "Gangnam Style" on the red carpet before finishing the rest of the choreography on stage and leaving the ceremony with three awards.
### North America
Following the viral success of his music video, Psy left for the United States and performed "Gangnam Style" in various locations. On August 20, 2012, Psy posted on Twitter "Bringing \#GangnamStyle to the Dodgers–Giants game this evening." Dodger Stadium presented a segment called "Psy Dance Cam" where they showed clips of the music video, followed by live shots of baseball fans dancing, and then Psy, who waves and does the dance. Two days later, Psy appeared on VH1's Big Morning Buzz Live show, and taught television hosts Carrie Keagan and Jason Dundas how to dance "Gangnam Style."
On September 6, Psy appeared at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards performing his "Gangnam Style" dance alongside comedian Kevin Hart. After the event, he made several more appearances on US TV programs. On September 10, he appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in Burbank, California, introducing himself as "Psy from Korea" before teaching Britney Spears the dance. He described the dance as "pretending to bounce like riding on an invisible horse" and when DeGeneres told Spears she would have to remove her high-heeled shoes to perform the dance, Psy protested that no, the point was "to dress classy, and dance cheesy." On September 14, he appeared on NBC's morning program Today in New York City for its Toyota Concert Series, where he performed the song and also taught the anchors the dance. The September 15, 2012, season premiere episode of Saturday Night Live featured a sketch based on the song and its video. Bobby Moynihan portrayed Psy, but was joined mid-sketch by Psy himself. He also made his second appearance on The Ellen Show's September 19 episode to perform the song along with his backup dancers. On September 22, Psy made an appearance at the iHeartRadio Music Festival to perform "Gangnam Style."
On November 13, he joined the Amerisingertist Madonna on stage during her concert at Madison Square Garden in New York , where and they performed a mashup of the song and her 2008 hit "Give It .Me." Psy later told reporters that his gig with Madonna had "topped his list of accomplishments." On November 18, Psy, who rocked out in traditional Hammer pants, closed out the 40th American Music Awards show with a performance of "Gangnam Style" joined by surprise guest MC Hammer, who brought in his own moves and Psy's horse-riding dance as the song mashed into his 1990s hit "2 Legit 2 u.it." Jason Lipshutz of Billboard comme:that "Psy's feverish rendition of 'Gangnam Style' accomplished what so few award show performances can: a palpable sense of excitement. The combination of the K-pop star and MC Hammer ... was a stroke of genius that very few could have seen coming," and chose it as the best performance of the night. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno did a special Thanksgiving broadcast with an all-military audience on November 22, and appearedd by as the musical guest. The singer sang the song and danced alongside the soldiers, going into the crowd for part of his performance.
Psy performed "Gangnam Style" during the second night of KIIS-FM Jingle Ball concert at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on December 3, 2012. Wearing an all-red outfit including a sparkling, sequined top, he sang the song at TNT's Christmas in Washington special, attended by the US President Barack Obama and his family, and held at the National Building Museum On December 9. On December 16, he performed the song at the halftime show of the NFL game between the Buffalo Bills and Seattle Seahawks in Toronto. During the Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve event at Times Square in Manhattan on December 31, 2012, more than a million people witnessed a live "Gangnam Style" performance by Psy as he was joined on stage by characters (Yoo Jae-Seok, Noh Hong-chul) from the song's video for the first part of the performance, before MC Hammer appeared to perform a mash-up of the song and "2 Legit 2 Quit".
### South America
During the five-day Carnival in Rio attended by more than five million people, Psy performed "Gangnam Style" with singers Claudia Leitte and Gilberto Gil to mark the 50th anniversary of the start of Korean immigration to Brazil.
## Legacy
The success of "Gangnam Style" was a result of the build-up of South Korea's music industry that had been in the works for more than 20 years, and it led to other K-pop artists positioning themselves for similar breakthroughs in the U.S. music industry. Frances Moore, chief executive of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, brought up Gangnam Style as an example of how South Korea became one of the "most successful exporters of repertoire".
According to the news agency Agence France-Presse, the success of "Gangnam Style" has led to the further rise and spread of the Korean Wave to other countries. As the song continued to attract worldwide media attention, it also led to various broadcasting networks and national newspapers focusing its attention on K-pop and other aspects of Korean culture. For example, The Daily Telegraph published an article recommending its readers to try out everything from K-Pop to "K-Cars", "K-Phones" and "K-Cuisine". Kim Byoung-gi, the Korean Ambassador to Lebanon, wrote that "Gangnam Style" had helped bridge Lebanese and Korean cultures. The French-born political commentator Tim Soutphommasane, a research fellow at Monash University, agreed that the "Gangnam phenomenon" was "something worth studying". According to Soutphommasane, the world was only beginning to appreciate Gangnam Style as "part of a broader hallyu cultural wave coming out of the country [South Korea]".
In 2012, the South Korean government announced that "Gangnam Style" had brought in \$13.4 million to the country's audio sector, and it subsequently launched a campaign to further expand the K-Pop music industry overseas. According to the Bank of Korea, the country's services account recorded a surplus of US\$2.3 billion in the first nine months of this year, compared to a deficit of US\$4.5 billion last year. This was mainly due to the growing influence and popularity of K-pop songs such as "Gangnam Style." However, American journalist John Seabrook noted that by "satirizing standard K-pop tropes in Gangnam Style", Psy may have subverted the music genre's chances of making it big in the West.
Record executives in the music industry believe that music charts will increasingly be filled with YouTube-driven globalised acts from foreign countries. Sean Carey, a research fellow in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Roehampton, wrote that the flow of popular music will no longer be a single traffic route from North America and Europe to other parts of the globe, but will also move the other way as well. According to Adam Sherwin from The Independent, the global web demand for Gangnam Style had short-circuited the "traditional reluctance" of radio stations to play foreign-language songs. The song is also underlining a shift in how money is being made in the music business. Although Psy earned more than US\$60,000 from music sales of "Gangnam Style" in South Korea alone, he and his music label YG Entertainment have raked in almost US\$1 million from advertisements which appear on YouTube videos identified for using "Gangnam Style" in its content. The Harvard Business Review published an article written by Kevin Evers, who explained how "Gangnam Style" had changed Billboards ranking methodology of its music charts. Instead of relying solely on radio plays and paid purchases, Billboard started to place a heavier emphasis on digital sales and YouTube views. As a result of the change, "Gangnam Style" moved up to the top position of Billboard's Hot Rap Songs music chart. According to the British Phonographic Industry's report based on Official Charts Company sales data, thanks to "Gangnam Style" and Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe", pop had become the UK's favourite musical genre of the year, taking the lion's share of the singles market (38.5%) in 2012.
## Track listing
## Accolades and records
### Awards and nominations
### Records attained
The song and its accompanying music video currently hold, or have attained, the following records:
- Most viewed K-pop video on YouTube – On September 1, 2012, it overtook "Gee" by the 9-member K-Pop idol-group Girls' Generation with 89 million views.
- Most liked video on YouTube – On September 13, 2012, it overtook "Party Rock Anthem" by the American electro recording duo LMFAO upon receiving 1.57 million "likes", and subsequently won its first Guinness World Record one week later.
- First K-pop song to top the UK Singles Chart – On October 6, 2012, the song reached number one of the UK singles chart and Psy became the first South Korean musician to achieve that feat.
- Most viewed video on YouTube – On November 24, 2012, it overtook "Baby" by the Canadian singer-songwriter Justin Bieber after receiving more than 803 million views.
- First video in Internet history to be viewed more than a billion times – On December 21, 2012, it acquired its billionth view at around 15:50 UTC.
- First video in Internet history to be viewed more than two billion times''' – On May 31, 2014, it acquired its 2 billionth view. A second dance animation was added next to the view counter. They were removed in July 2014.
### Year-end media picks
"Gangnam Style" was ranked No. 25 on the Rolling Stone's 50 best songs of 2012 list and No. 8 on SPIN's 40 best songs of the year. The song also took the No. 8 spot on the 2012 Billboard 20 best K-Pop songs list by Jeff Benjamin and Jessica Oak, who commented "[the song] stands out not only for its slick, electronic production but also for its deeper critique on high-class society." According to MTV's list of the 2012 best songs, the song was ranked No. 8 with MTV news staff James Montgomery's comment: "'Gangnam' is either the track we, as a culture needed right now, or the track we, as a culture, deserved." Time magazine chose it as the second best song of 2012 after Usher's "Climax," writing "The YouTube meme, a good-natured, mind-bendingly catchy lampoon [...] turned into a global obsession." The song was one of the best songs of the year on The New York Times pop critics' list and E! Online's No. 1 pick on the top 10 pop songs of 2012 list. Digital Spy ranked the song No. 20 among the 20 best singles of the year. It was voted the 12th best single of 2012 by The Village Voice's 40th annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll. Music critic Robert Christgau placed "Gangnam Style" as the No. 2 single on his 2012 Dean's List.
The music video for "Gangnam Style" was chosen as the best music video of 2012 by Time. Melissa Locker of the magazine wrote "The catchy song paired with social satire and tongue-in-cheek vibe has spread so quickly it reminds us why videos are called viral. The video has sparked an International dance craze and catapulted Psy to international super stardom." Rolling Stone also ranked the video No. 1 on its "The Best Music Videos of 2012" list, saying "The Korean auteur [Psy] conquered the world with his 'dress classy, dance cheesy' aesthetic, blurring the line between parody and celebration." The video took No. 4 position on the Digital Spy's list of 10 top pop music videos of the year.
### Miscellaneous
The music video came in first with 21% rating in the 2012 Billboard.com's readers poll, beating "Where Have You Been" by Rihanna (19%) and "Beauty and a Beat" by Justin Bieber featuring Nicki Minaj (11%). The song was the most popular song played on New Year's Eve and the most sung song on the day, leaving "Auld Lang Syne" in second place for the first time since 2005, on karaoke company Lucky Voice's online service in the United Kingdom. CNN readers picked "Gangnam Style" as the eighth best song of 2012. The Week (US edition) ranked the song's global popularity at No. 6 with the strapline "'Gangnam Style' takes over the world" on the 13 biggest pop culture moments of the year list. The phenomenon of the song and the video was also picked as one of the 2012's most viral moments in music by Wendy Geller of Yahoo! Music, and No. 2 on the 2012 top 20 music moments list after Whitney Houston's death by Billboard, being written "If there's one meme, song and face that has been truly inescapable in the second half of 2012, it's South Korean rapper Psy and his outrageous 'Gangnam Style'."
On December 1, 2014, YouTube announced that "Gangnam Style" had exceeded the number of views that are possible to store using a 32-bit signed integer, that being 2,147,483,647 (2<sup>31</sup>−1, or two billion). As a result, YouTube was forced to upgrade to using 64-bit integers to store view numbers, with a maximum value of 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 (2<sup>63</sup>−1, or nine quintillion). "We never thought a video would be watched in numbers greater than a 32-bit integer, but that was before we met Psy," stated a YouTube spokesperson.
With 132 beats per minute, the song was momentarily forbidden in gyms in South Korea during the COVID-19 pandemic. The country restricted music faster than 120 BPM to avoid Koreans feel energized by the tempo of music, breath more heavily or sweat more intensely.
## Chart performance
### South Korea
Upon its release, "Gangnam Style" was an enormous hit. The song went straight to number one on the Gaon Singles Chart on the fourth week of July 2012, with 816,868 digital downloads, and spent five consecutive weeks at the top position of the chart, tying it with IU's "Good Day" for the most weeks at number one single in the chart's history. In addition, the song became the first-place winner on various weekly chart shows such as M Countdown (three straight weeks) and Music Bank (a total of 16 weeks including a record 10-consecutive-week). According to the Korea Music Content Industry Association, "Gangnam Style" became the best selling song of 2012 in South Korea with 3,842,109 download sales.
The song debuted at number six on the Billboard Korea K-Pop Hot 100 for the week of July 28, 2012. It then topped the chart the week after and remained at the summit for five consecutive weeks, tying IU's record with "You and I" for the longest running number one song on the chart. The record, however, was broken by Lee Seung-gi's "Return" earned six weeks at the top spot from December 2012 to January 2013. "Gangnam Style" took number one spot on the 2012 Billboard K-Pop Hot 100 year-end chart.
### Oceania
In Oceania, "Gangnam Style" was a huge success. The single made its chart debut on the New Zealand Singles Chart at number 21 on September 3, 2012. After two weeks, the song reached in the top ten and the following week topped the chart, becoming the first K-pop song and the first foreign language song in three decades to achieve that feat since German band Nena's "99 Luftballons" hit the top spot in March 1982. The song remained atop the chart for two consecutive weeks before being deposed from the top spot by One Direction's "Live While We're Young." After one week of the band's reign, "Gangnam Style" regained its number one position and stayed at the top spot for a further four weeks, tallying a total of six nonconsecutive weeks atop the chart. The track was ranked in the top ten of the chart for 17 consecutive weeks before it fell to number 11 on the January 14, 2013, chart. The song has been certified 4× Platinum with sales exceeding 60,000 by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ). "Gangnam Style" was the second biggest-selling single of 2012 in the country behind Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe."
In Australia, the song debuted at number seven on the ARIA Singles Chart on September 17, 2012, becoming the highest debut for the week. It reached number one on the chart just three weeks after its release, overtaking "Battle Scars" by Guy Sebastian featuring Lupe Fiasco, and spent six consecutive weeks at the summit, making it the second-longest running chart-topper for 2012 behind Flo Rida's "Whistle" remained at the pole position for seven weeks. As a result, Psy became the first artist to reach number one on the chart with a foreign-language song since Las Ketchup topped the chart with "The Ketchup Song" in September 2002, and the eighth overall. In addition, "Gangnam Style" was the first Korean song to enter the chart and to climb to the top spot in Australian chart history. After the single spent the first 14 weeks in the top ten of the chart since its chart debut, it dropped to number 11 in its 15th week. The song, however, rebounded from the position to number three on the issue date of December 31, 2012. It descended to number 14 in its 18th week, ending a 16-week in the top ten, and out of the top 20 the following week, placed at number 23. It has been certified 10× Platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), with sales exceeding 700,000 copies. "Gangnam Style" was placed at number two on the 2012 ARIA Singles year-end chart behind Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe."
### Europe
In Europe, the song was successful as well, topping the charts in almost all countries. "Gangnam Style" made its first European chart appearance, entering the Danish Singles Chart at number 40 on August 3, 2012. It reached the top ten in its fifth week, and climbed to number four in its sixth. For the issue dated September 14, 2012, the song became Psy's first number one on the chart, ending the one-week reign of the Danish rock band Nephew's "Hjertestarter." The song remained at the top position for seven consecutive weeks, tying it with "Somebody That I Used to Know" performed by Gotye featuring Kimbra for the longest running number one single on the chart for 2012. In its 24th week, it climbed back to the top, giving it its 8th week in that position. The single spent 22 straight weeks in the top ten of the chart. In January 2013, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI Denmark) certified the single 2× Platinum, denoting sales of 60,000 copies.
The song entered the UK Singles Chart at number 196 on September 1, 2012, and in its fourth week broke into the top 40 at number 37. In its fifth week, the song reached the top five on the chart and eventually peaked at number one on the week of October 6, becoming the first-ever K-pop song to achieve that feat. While the track only remained atop the chart for one week before being overtaken by Rihanna's "Diamonds", it spent a further 17 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the chart before it fell to number twelve on the January 26, 2013, chart. The song was the sixth biggest selling single of 2012 with 878,000 sales, and ranked at number 24 among the top 40 most streamed tracks of the year in the United Kingdom. According to Official Charts Company sales data, "Gangnam Style" has become not only the 129th track to sell more than 1 million copies in the history of the UK's Official Singles Chart, but also the first million seller by an Asian music star. On April 9, 2013, the song became 13th most downloaded single of all time in the UK.
Elsewhere in Europe, the song also peaked at number one on the German Singles Chart for two non-consecutive weeks in 2012. For the week of January 11, 2013, it returned to the summit, ending the ten-consecutive-week reign of "Diamonds" by Rihanna, and spent a week at the top. Psy's song remained in the top ten on the chart for a 19th straight week including 15 in the top three position since October 2012. It has been certified 5× Gold by the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI), denoting sales of 750,000 copies. In addition, the single remained number one in Austria for four nonconsecutive weeks, Belgium (Flanders) for five consecutive weeks, Belgium (Wallonia) for seven straight weeks, Czech Republic for one week, Finland for four consecutive weeks, France for six non-consecutive weeks, Italy for a week, the Netherlands for two consecutive weeks, Norway for four straight weeks, Scotland for a week, Spain for 12 consecutive weeks, and Switzerland for three nonconsecutive weeks. It additionally placed top five positions in Iceland, Ireland, and Sweden, and top ten in Hungary and Slovakia.
### North America
In the United States, "Gangnam Style" debuted at number 64 the Billboard Hot 100 in the week of September 22, 2012, with 61,000 downloads sold, more than the total number of previous weeks (57,000), becoming the second K-pop song to enter the chart behind the Wonder Girls' "Nobody," which spent a week at number 76 on the October 31, 2009 chart. The following week, the song rocketed to number 11 on the chart with 188,000 downloads, seeing a sales increase of 210% after Psy appeared on various TV shows such as The Ellen DeGeneres Show and NBC's Today. In its third week, it rose to number two on the chart, topping the Hot Digital Songs chart with a 60% increase to 301,000 downloads sold and climbing to number nine on On-Demand Songs chart. After that, the song peaked at the runner-up spot for seven consecutive weeks behind Maroon 5's "One More Night," failing to gain in enough radio audience to ascend to the summit, although it ruled Hot Digital Songs for a fourth week and On-Demand Songs for a fifth week during that period. While "One More Night" dominated the Radio Songs chart for eight weeks, "Gangnam Style" peaked at just number 12 on the chart.
For the week of November 24, the song dropped to number five on the Hot 100, despite leading in sales with 188,000 downloads. In its 12th week, the single rebounded from number seven to number five with top Digital Gainer accolades, spurred by Psy's show-closing performance of the song with MC Hammer at the AMA. The track returned for a sixth week atop Hot Digital Songs with 229,000 downloads sold including 41,000 stemmed from the duet version, which mixed in Hammer's 1992 No. 5 Hot 100 hit "2 Legit 2 Quit." It was the first song to spend six weeks at number one on the Digital Songs chart without reaching the top spot on the Hot 100 since Miley Cyrus's "Party in the U.S.A." in 2009. After the song stayed in the top ten of the Hot 100 for 11 consecutive weeks, it dropped out of the top ten on the December 22, 2012, chart, falling from number 10 to number 11. The following week, "Gangnam Style" descended to number 18 on the chart but achieved the milestone of 3 million downloads sold in the country, becoming the first and only K-pop song to reach the mark. For the week of January 12, 2013, powered by consumers purchasing some of 2012's most buzzworthy hits and radio airplay recounting the same in year-end retrospectives, the song resurged from number 19 to number six with its best weekly total 400,000 downloads sold, returning to the Hot 100's top ten after three weeks out of the top ten. The track dropped to number 14 in its 18th week, ending a 12-week in the top 10, and number 22 in its 19th week, despite staying in the top ten of Digital Songs chart with 192,000 and 105,000 copies sold, respectively. On February 20, 2013, Billboard and Nielsen announced the addition of U.S. YouTube video streaming data to its platforms, which includes an update to the methodology for the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Thanks to the change to reflect online video activity, "Gangnam Style" rebounded from number 48 to number 26 on the Hot 100 for the week of March 2, 2013.
On October 11, 2012, Billboard unveiled new methodology for the Hot Rap Songs chart, including digital download sales and streaming data for the first time, along with radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen BDS. Due to this, "Gangnam Style" soared from number 20 to number one on the October 20, 2012, chart. The song spent eight consecutive weeks atop the chart before being overtaken by Flo Rida's "I Cry." After four weeks of his reign, "Gangnam Style" regained its number one position in the week of January 12, 2013. The track also peaked at number three on the Hot Dance/Club Play Songs chart in the week of November 17, 2012. The song was certified 4× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on April 19, 2013, denoting digital download sales of 4,000,000. According to Nielsen SoundScan, "Gangnam Style" became the 9th best selling song of 2012 in the United States with 3,592,000 download sales. In late January 2013, the song topped the 4 million mark in digital sales, becoming the third comic/novelty song to reach the mark, following LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It" and Cee Lo Green's "Fuck You!."
In Canada, "Gangnam Style" was a big hit just like the rest of the world. The song entered the Canadian Hot 100 chart at number 71 on the week of September 8, 2012. In its fourth week, it reached in the top ten of the chart, climbing to number three, and the following week hit the pole position. The single spent seven consecutive weeks atop the chart, making it the second longest running number one song of 2012 behind Maroon 5's "Payphone" remained at the top for eight straight weeks. On the week of September 12, 2012, the song debuted at number seven on the Top 20 Digital Tracks chart, based on Nielsen SoundScan data. The following week it topped the chart and spent four weeks at the top spot before giving the summit to "I Knew You Were Trouble" by Taylor Swift. "Gangnam Style," however, was back on top of the chart for the week of October 24, and grabbed the number one position for another four straight weeks, tallying a total of eight nonconsecutive weeks atop the chart. On November 16, 2012, the track was certified 4× Platinum by Music Canada, and as of January 2013 had sold more than 476,000 copies in the country.
### iTunes Music Video Charts
On August 21, 2012, "Gangnam Style" charted number one on the iTunes Music Video Charts, overtaking Justin Bieber's "As Long as You Love Me" and Katy Perry's "Wide Awake"; this feat was the first for any South Korean artist. From September 8, 2012, to February 23, 2013, the song has also peaked and stayed at number one on Billboard's YouTube Chart for 22 weeks, until being surpassed by "Stay" by Rihanna for one week; as of April 2013, it had reclaimed its top position for a 30th week.
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
### Decade-end charts
## Sales and certifications
## Release history
## "Oppa Is Just My Style"
"Gangnam Style" was officially re-released on August 14, 2012, as "Oppa Is Just My Style" (Korean: 오빤 딱 내 스타일), featuring additional vocals provided by Korean singer and 4Minute member Hyuna. Mallika Rao of The Huffington Post'' wrote that the video was "apparently retrofitted here to work from a woman's point of view, but the main difference we're spotting is less invisible horse riding and more sultry side-eyeing." As of January 2021, the accompanying music video had received more than 784 million views, 2.6 million likes, and 520,000 dislikes on YouTube.
## See also
- Gangnam Style in popular culture
- World Digital Song Sales
- List of best-selling singles
- List of best-selling singles in Australia
- List of best-selling singles in South Korea
- List of best-selling singles in the United States
- List of million-selling singles in the United Kingdom
- List of top hit singles (Youtube 100) |
43,840,178 | The Boat Race 1871 | 1,154,812,440 | 1871 boat race between Oxford and Cambridge universities | [
"1871 in English sport",
"1871 in sports",
"April 1871 events",
"The Boat Race"
]
| The 28th Boat Race between crews from the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge took place on the River Thames on the 1 April 1871. The race, umpired by Joseph William Chitty, was won by Cambridge by one length in a time of 23 minutes 10 seconds for their second consecutive victory.
## Background
The Boat Race is a side-by-side rowing competition between the University of Oxford (sometimes referred to as the "Dark Blues") and the University of Cambridge (sometimes referred to as the "Light Blues"). The race was first held in 1829, and since 1845 has taken place on the 4.2-mile (6.8 km) Championship Course on the River Thames in southwest London. Cambridge went into the race as reigning champions, having defeated Oxford by three lengths in the previous year's race, while Oxford led overall with sixteen wins to Cambridge's eleven.
Oxford were coached by W. D. Benson (their non-rowing president, who had rowed three times for the Dark Blues in the 1868, 1869 and 1870 races). Cambridge's coach was John Graham Chambers (who rowed in the 1862 and 1863 race, and was a non-rowing president for the 1865 race) and John Hilton Ridley (who rowed in the 1869 and 1870 races).
The race was umpired by Joseph William Chitty who had rowed for Oxford twice in 1849 (in the March and December races) and the 1852 race, while the starter was Edward Searle.
## Crews
The Oxford crew weighed an average of 12 st 4.125 lb (76.1 kg), 2.75 pounds (1.2 kg) more than their opponents. The Cambridge crew saw only three new rowers, with five returning from the 1870 race, including the Cambridge University Boat Club president John Goldie and William Henry Lowe in their third appearance in the event, along with the cox Henry Erskine Gordon. Similarly, Oxford saw five of their crew return, including S. H. Woodhouse at bow and Thomas Southey Baker who were participating in their third Boat Races.
## Race
There was "little or no tide and head wind over part of the course" according to Drinkwater. Cambridge won the toss and elected to start from the Surrey station, handing the Middlesex station to Oxford. The umpire, Chitty, got the race underway at 10.08 a.m., with Cambridge taking an early lead. The Light Blues had a clear water advantage by the Point and held a two-length lead by the time the crews shot Hammersmith Bridge. Despite a spurt instigated by Oxford stroke Robert Lesley at Barnes Bridge, Goldie remained steady until, before the final twenty strokes, he increased the stroke rate and saw Cambridge home by one length in a time of 23 minutes 10 seconds for their second consecutive victory and took the overall record to 16–12 in Oxford's favour. |
23,637,966 | Andrade El Idolo | 1,169,735,007 | Mexican professional wrestler | [
"1989 births",
"21st-century professional wrestlers",
"All Elite Wrestling personnel",
"CMLL World Tag Team Champions",
"CMLL World Trios Champions",
"Expatriate professional wrestlers",
"Expatriate professional wrestlers in Japan",
"IWGP Intercontinental champions",
"Living people",
"Masked wrestlers",
"Mexican National Trios Champions",
"Mexican expatriate sportspeople in the United States",
"Mexican male professional wrestlers",
"NWA World Historic Middleweight Champions",
"NWA World Historic Welterweight Champions",
"NWA World Welterweight Champions",
"NWA/WCW/WWE United States Heavyweight Champions",
"NXT Champions",
"People from Gómez Palacio, Durango",
"Professional wrestlers from Durango"
]
| Manuel Alfonso Andrade Oropeza (born November 3, 1989) is a Mexican professional wrestler who is currently signed to the American promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW) under the ring name Andrade El Idolo (also stylized Andrade "El Ídolo"). He is also known for his appearances in Mexico for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre and in Japan for New Japan Pro-Wrestling as La Sombra (Spanish for "The Shadow"), and for his appearances with the United States-based promotion WWE as Andrade "Cien" Almas (later shortened to simply Andrade).
A third-generation professional wrestler, Andrade made his debut a month before his 14th birthday and worked under the name Brillante Jr. in reference to his father, who wrestled as Brillante. He spent eight years wrestling for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) under the name La Sombra, where he won the 2007 Torneo Gran Alternativa tournament and the 2011 Universal Championship and simultaneously held the Mexican National Trios Championship, NWA World Historic Welterweight Championship and CMLL World Tag Team Championship. He was one of the founding members of the Los Ingobernables ("the Ungovernables") stable, and won the masks of El Felino, Olímpico and Volador Jr. by defeating them in Lucha de Apuestas matches before losing his own mask to Atlantis. Andrade also made appearances for New Japan Pro-Wrestling as part of a working agreement between CMLL and NJPW, winning the IWGP Intercontinental Championship.
Andrade joined WWE in 2015. He initially wrestled for its NXT brand under the ring name Andrade "Cien" Almas, winning the NXT Championship. In April 2018, he joined WWE's main roster where his ring name was shorted to simply "Andrade". Andrade held the WWE United States Championship for several months in 2019-2020. He departed WWE in March 2021, debuting in AAA and AEW that summer.
## Early life
Manuel Alfonso Andrade Oropeza was born in Gómez Palacio, Durango, on November 3, 1989. He is the son of Jose Andrade Salas, who wrestles as Brillante. He became part of the third generation of the Andrade family to compete in lucha libre. His grandfather, José Andrade, wrestled under the name "El Moro", while his uncles wrestle or wrestled under the names Diamante/Moro III (Sergio Andrade), Zafiro/Pentagoncito (real name unrevealed), Kevin (Juan Andrade), Espanto Jr./Pentagón (Jesús Andrade), and Espiritu Magico (Juan Andrade), and one of his cousins works as the current Espanto Jr. (real name unrevealed).
## Professional wrestling career
### Early career (2003–2007)
With his father, uncles and grandfather being involved in running a local lucha libre promotion and school in Durango, Andrade began training for a professional career from an early age, initially by playing around with his father and uncles, but later began to train seriously for a career in the wrestling ring. He made his professional wrestling debut on October 3, 2003, a month before his 14th birthday, but only after his father signed a waiver for the local boxing and wrestling commission to issue him a license. He began working under the ring name Brillante Jr. in honor of his father.
Working for his family's wrestling promotion Andrade used the name "Brillante Jr." from 2003 through early 2007. During that period of time, he got involved in a storyline rivalry with his uncle who wrestled as "Zafio", leading to his first ever Lucha de Apuestas, or bet match. By defeating Zafiro he won his first headline match, forcing Zafiro to have all his hair shaved off after the match per lucha libre traditions. He later won another Lucha de Apuestas match, forcing the masked wrestler Camorra to unmask in the middle of the ring and reveal his real name. During this time period Andrade also competed as the enmascarado (masked) characters "Guerrero Azteca" ("Aztec Warrior") and "Rey Azteca" ("Aztec King") on occasion.
### Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre
#### Técnico (2007–2014)
In 2007 he signed with Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre ("World Wrestling Council"; CMLL), and began training under CMLL head trainer El Satánico. He made his CMLL in-ring debut on February 27, working as "Brillante" just like his father had. In June CMLL changed his name, rechristening him La Sombra ("The Shadow"). CMLL previously had other people work under the name "La Sombra" in the 1980s and 1990s; CMLL did not promote the most recent La Sombra as having any relation to the previous incarnations at all, although the relationship was later subtly acknowledged when La Sombra began wrestling in a black and silver version of his father's mask.
La Sombra quickly moved up the ranks of CMLL in the months after his debut. The first sign of CMLL putting their faith in La Sombra came when the promoters him teamed up with CMLL's main good guy (known as a técnico in Spanish) Místico for their annual Torneo Gran Alternativa ("Great Alternative Tournament") where a rookie and a veteran team up. La Sombra and Místico defeated Heavy Metal and Super Nova in the first round, Dr. Wagner Jr. and Mascara Purpura in the semi-final and the team of Último Guerrero and Euforia in the finals to win the 2007 Tornero Gran Alternativa. The following month, La Sombra teamed up with El Sagrado and Volador Jr. to defeat Mr. Águila, Damián 666, and Halloween, collectively known as Los Perros del Mal ("The Bad Dogs"), to win the Mexican National Trios Championship. On November 27, 2007, La Sombra added the NWA World Welterweight Championship to his collection when he defeated Hajime Ohara to win the title; his victory made him the youngest wrestler to hold the championship, winning it at the age of 18. Throughout 2008 La Sombra was busy defending both championships on several occasions. On January 16, 2009, La Sombra became a triple champion as he teamed up with Volador Jr. to defeat Averno and Mephisto, winning the CMLL World Tag Team Championship. La Sombra's time as a triple champion lasted just over two weeks, until February 3, when Sangre Azteca, Black Warrior, and Dragón Rojo Jr., collectively known as Poder Mexica ("Mexican Power") defeated La Sombra, Volador, and Sagrado to win the Mexican National Trios Championship. On May 27, 2009, La Sombra lost the NWA World Welterweight Championship to Mephisto.
In early 2010 La Sombra began a storyline feud with El Felino. The feud began on February 2, 2010, during a singles match between El Felino and La Sombra; when tied at one fall each, Puma King, El Felino's son, showed up wearing an El Felino outfit and mask, distracting both the referee and La Sombra long enough for El Felino to land a low blow on La Sombra to win the match. The two met in a Lighting match (a one fall, 10 minute time limit match) on the February 19 CMLL Super Viernes show. Once again Puma King tried to help his uncle, but this time the referee disqualified El Felino for the transgression. La Sombra and El Felino continued to feud, both interfering in a match between Volador Jr. and Místico. The storyline led to Místico, Volador Jr., La Sombra and El Felino being booked in a four-way Lucha de Apuestas match as the main event of the 2010 2010 Homenaje a Dos Leyendas ("Homage to Two Legends") show. La Sombra was the first man pinned at Dos Leyendas and El Felino was the second, forcing the two to compete with their masks on the line. La Sombra pinned El Felino, forcing him to unmask and reveal his real name.
On May 14, 2010, La Sombra teamed up with Máscara Dorada and La Máscara to defeat the then CMLL World Trios Champions La Ola Amarilla ("The Yellow Wave"; Hiroshi Tanahashi, Okumura, and Taichi) in a non-title match to earn a shot at the Championship the following week. One week later the trio defeated Ola Amarilla again, ending the Japanese trios title reign after just two weeks. On July 12, 2010, at the Promociones Gutiérrez 1st Anniversary Show La Sombra participated in a match where 10 men put their mask on the line in a match that featured five pareja incredibles ("Incredible Pairs") teams, with the losing team being forced to wrestle each other with their mask on the line. His partner in the match was Histeria, facing off against the teams of Atlantis and Olímpico, Místico and El Oriental, El Alebrije and Volador Jr., Último Guerrero and Averno. La Sombra and Histeria were the first team to escape the match and retain their masks. While La Sombra had traveled to Japan to participate in the 2010 Best of the Super Juniors (BOSJ) tournament Volador Jr. had begun showing rudo signs, but when La Sombra returned the two teamed back up without any signs of problems between the two
Sombra and Volador Jr. lost the CMLL World Tag Team Championship to the Los Invasores team of Mr. Águila and Héctor Garza on July 23, 2010, again without any signs of dissension between the two. During a later show Volador Jr. finally turned fully rudo when he attacked La Sombra and tore La Sombra's mask off, provoking a feud between the two longtime partners. La Sombra entered the 2010 Universal Championship tournament and qualified for the finals when he won "Block A" on the July 30, 2010 Super Viernes show by defeating Mephisto, El Texano Jr., and Último Guerrero. In the finals Jyushin Thunder Liger, with help from Okumura at ringside, defeated La Sombra to claim the tournament trophy. The unresolved issues between La Sombra and Volador Jr., as well as the storyline between La Sombra and Jyushin Thunder Liger, led to all three wrestlers being booked in the main event of the CMLL 77th Anniversary Show, a 14-man steel cage Lucha de Apuestas, mask vs. mask match. The match came down to Olímpico and La Sombra after the other 12 men had escaped the cage; La Sombra pinned Olímpico to force him to unmask.
On March 13, 2011, La Sombra defeated Mephisto to win the NWA World Historic Welterweight Championship. On July 15, La Generación Dorada lost the CMLL World Trios Championship to Los Hijos del Averno (Averno, Ephesto and Mephisto). On September 2, La Sombra entered CMLL's annual tournament of champions, the Universal Championship tournament. After defeating Mexican National Trios Champions Ángel de Oro and Diamante in his first two matches, La Sombra defeated NWA World Historic Light Heavyweight Champion Rey Bucanero in his block's finals to advance to the tournament finals. On September 16, La Sombra defeated Averno to become the 2011 Universal Champion. On February 13, 2012, La Sombra lost the NWA World Historic Welterweight Championship to Negro Casas, ending his reign at 337 days. On November 28, 2012, La Sombra won the advanced category in CMLL's annual bodybuilding contest. On December 14, La Sombra defeated Tama Tonga to win the 2012 La Copa Junior Tournament in the main event of CMLL's 2012 Sin Piedad ("No Mercy") show.
On February 15, 2013, La Sombra defeated Volador Jr. to win the 2013 Reyes del Aire tournament. Following their clash over the Reyes del Aire trophy Volador Jr. and La Sombra were teamed up for the 2013 Torneo Nacional de Parejas Increibles tournament, the same tournament that in 2010 was the impetus for Volador Jr.'s rudo turn. The rivals put their issues aside for the tournament, defeating the teams of Guerrero Maya Jr. and Negro Casas, La Máscara and Averno, and Shocker and Mr. Niebla to qualify for the finals of the tournament. On March 15, at the 2013 Homenaje a Dos Leyendas show, Volador Jr. and La Sombra defeated Altantis and Último Guerrero to win the Torneo Nacional de Parejas Increibles. The truce between La Sombra and Volador Jr. that allowed them to win the tag team tournament only lasted until the next time the two rivals were in the same ring. On February 17, 2013, La Sombra teamed up with Marco Corleone and Místico II against Volador Jr., Euforia and Último Guerrero. During the match Volador Jr. attacked both La Sombra and the referee, causing a disqualification before leaving the ring and his confused partners behind. On September 13 at CMLL's 80th Anniversary Show, La Sombra and Volador Jr. defeated Atlantis and Último Guerrero in a Relevos Suicidas match and thus advanced to a Mask vs. Mask Lucha de Apuestas against each other. In the end, La Sombra was victorious, forcing his rival to unmask.
#### Los Ingobernables (2014–2015)
The main event of the 80th Anniversary show was not well received by the fans as they had been expecting a match between Atlantis and Último Guerrero, loudly chanting "fraud" during the main event. After the match the fans rallied behind Volador Jr., giving him the crowd support that made CMLL return him to the técnico side. Conversely the fans began to boo and heckle La Sombra, the supposed técnico, leading to a change in how La Sombra was booked and presented by CMLL. La Sombra formed a partnership with Rush and effectively began working as a rudo, though the two refused to acknowledge themselves as such, instead referring to themselves as técnicos diferentes ("a different kind of good guy"). On June 6, La Sombra defeated Volador Jr. with help from Rush and La Máscara to win the NWA World Historic Welterweight Championship in a match, where La Sombra's Historic Middleweight Championship was also on the line. The trio of Sombra, Rush and La Máscara was eventually named Los Ingobernables ("The Ungovernables"). On August 1 at El Juicio Final, La Sombra lost the NWA World Historic Welterweight Championship back to Volador Jr. Later in August, La Sombra made it to the finals of the 2014 Universal Championship tournament, before losing to Último Guerrero. On May 1, 2015, La Sombra won the 2015 Reyes del Aire tournament ("Kings of the Air").
On July 21, La Sombra and Rush were involved in an incident in Guadalajara, where they attacked fans who were throwing beers at them during a match. The following day, Jalisco's Boxing and Wrestling Commission suspended the two from wrestling in the state for three months. While the commission only suspended them from wrestling in Jalisco, CMLL decided to pull both La Sombra and Rush from their Super Viernes show three days later. CMLL did not offer an official explanation for the change. Over the summer of 2015 Los Ingobernables started to wrestle against tecnico teams instead of generally facing rudo teams as they had been up to that point. By August 2015, Los Ingobernables found themselves facing off against Atlantis on multiple occasions, often with La Sombra going out of his way to attack Atlantis, tearing Atlantis' mask apart during matches to show his disdain for the veteran tecnico. On August 31, La Sombra lost the NWA World Historic Middleweight Championship to Último Guerrero, ending his two and a half year reign. In the main event of the CMLL 82nd Anniversary Show on September 18, 2015, La Sombra, the winner of the main event of the 80th Anniversary, put his mask on the line against the winner of the main event of the 81st Anniversary Show, Atlantis. Atlantis won the Lucha de Apuestas match and, as a result, La Sombra was forced to unmask and reveal his real name. In early November, La Sombra and Rush began having issues with each other, which led to a match between the two on November 13, where Rush was victorious. After the match, which turned out to be La Sombra's final with CMLL, the two founding members of Los Ingobernables made peace with each other.
### New Japan Pro-Wrestling (2010–2015)
In 2010 La Sombra was selected to be the CMLL representative for New Japan Pro-Wrestling's (NJPW) Best of the Super Juniors XVII (BOSJ) tournament that took place from May 30 to June 16, 2010, in Japan. The tournament marked the first time that La Sombra toured Japan. On May 30, 2010, La Sombra wrestled his first match in the tournament, defeating Tiger Mask. On the final day of the tournament he defeated the junior heavyweight wrestling innovator, Jyushin Thunder Liger. With just three wins in the tournament and a total of six points, he did not advance to the semi-finals. In November 2010 La Sombra and Máscara Dorada took part in New Japan's five-day-long Super J Tag League. After winning two out of their four matches in the group stage, La Sombra and Dorada finished third in their block, missing the finals of the tournament.
La Sombra and Dorada returned to New Japan on January 4, 2011, at Wrestle Kingdom V in Tokyo Dome, where they defeated Jyushin Thunder Liger and Héctor Garza in a tag team match, when Sombra pinned Liger. As a result of his victory he was granted a match for Liger's CMLL World Middleweight Championship in the process. La Sombra received his match for the championship on January 22, 2011, at Fantastica Mania 2011, but lost to Liger. La Sombra returned to NJPW in August 2011 to take part in the 2011 G1 Climax. La Sombra started the tournament by picking up wins over Wataru Inoue and fellow CMLL worker Strong Man, but then went on to lose his remaining seven matches in the tournament, finishing eighth out of the ten wrestlers in his block. La Sombra returned to Japan in January 2012 to take part in the Fantastica Mania 2012 events. In the main event of the second night of the tour, La Sombra successfully defended the NWA World Historic Welterweight Championship against Volador Jr. La Sombra returned to New Japan in April 2012 to take part in the 2012 New Japan Cup. After defeating Yoshi-Hashi in his first round match, he was eliminated from the tournament in the second round by Hirooki Goto.
In January 2013, La Sombra took part in the three-day Fantastica Mania 2013 event. During the second night of the tour, La Sombra unsuccessfully challenged Nakamura for the IWGP Intercontinental Championship. During the third and final night, La Sombra defeated Dragón Rojo Jr. to win the NWA World Historic Middleweight Championship. On May 31, 2013, La Sombra defeated Nakamura in a rematch in Mexico City to win the IWGP Intercontinental Champion, becoming the first Mexican to hold that championship. On July 20, he lost the IWGP Intercontinental Championship back to Nakamura during a tour of Japan. From November 23 to December 6, La Sombra took part in the 2013 World Tag League, where he and Tetsuya Naito finished with a record of three wins and three losses, failing to advance to the semifinals. In January 2014, La Sombra took part in the five-day Fantastica Mania 2014 tour. La Sombra returned to New Japan in November to take part in the 2014 World Tag League, teaming with Tetsuya Naito once more. The team finished in the middle of their block with four wins and three losses. In January 2015, La Sombra returned to Japan to take part in the Fantastica Mania 2015 tour, during which he feuded with Máscara Dorada, culminating in a singles match between the two on January 19, where La Sombra was victorious.
### WWE
#### Early feuds (2015–2017)
On November 19, 2015, Andrade signed a developmental contract with WWE. He later reported to the WWE Performance Center to begin his WWE career, focusing initially on improving his English language skills with the help of Sarah Stock, a WWE trainer who worked for CMLL for almost a decade. He made his WWE in-ring debut at an NXT house show in Tampa, Florida on January 8, 2016, wrestling under the name "Manny Andrade" and defeating Riddick Moss. He made his NXT TakeOver debut at NXT TakeOver: Dallas on April 1, where he defeated Christopher Girard during a dark match.
The following month, Andrade was given the new ring name Andrade "Cien" Almas (Spanish for Andrade "100" Almas). At NXT TakeOver: The End on June 8, Almas defeated Tye Dillinger. At NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II on August 20, Almas was defeated by the debutant Bobby Roode. On October 5 episode of NXT, after losing to The Revival in the first round of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, Almas took out his frustrations by attacking his tag team partner Cedric Alexander, thus turning heel in the process. By defeating No Way Jose on December 14 episode of NXT, Almas qualified for a fatal four-way match to determine a new number one contender to the NXT Championship but was eliminated by Roderick Strong. At NXT TakeOver: San Antonio on January 28, 2017, Almas was defeated by Roderick Strong.
#### NXT Champion (2017–2018)
On the July 19 episode of NXT, Almas appeared with an unidentified woman and attacked Cezar Bononi before threatening No Way Jose, though Almas ran away when Jose ran back into the ring. After being absent from in-ring competition, Almas returned being accompanied by the woman who turned out to be his new manager Zelina Vega, defeating Jose on the August 9 episode of NXT and pacting a match at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn III against Johnny Gargano on August 19, which Almas won. Almas returned on the October 11 episode of NXT, where he once again defeated Gargano. On the November 1 episode of NXT, Almas signed a contract where he pacted a match against Drew McIntyre for the NXT Championship, before attacking him later that night. On November 18 at NXT TakeOver: WarGames, Almas defeated McIntyre to become the new NXT Champion.
On January 27, 2018, at NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia, Almas successfully defended the title against Johnny Gargano. Almas's match with Gargano at TakeOver: Philadelphia was highly acclaimed, earning five stars from Wrestling Observer Newsletter journalist Dave Meltzer, making it the first match in NXT history to receive a five-star rating. On January 28, at the Royal Rumble, Almas made his first main roster appearance entering as a surprise entrant at number 7 during the Royal Rumble match, in which he eliminated Kofi Kingston before being eliminated by Randy Orton. On February 3 during an NXT house show, Almas teamed with Zelina Vega in her first match as part of the company, in which they were defeated by Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae. On February 21 episode of NXT, Almas retained the title against Gargano after interference from Tommaso Ciampa. At NXT TakeOver: New Orleans on April 7, Almas lost the NXT Championship to Aleister Black, ending his reign at 140 days. On April 18 episode of NXT, Almas accompanied Zelina Vega during her first televised match against Candice LeRae, in which she was defeated and this turned out to be Almas' and Vega's last appearances on NXT.
#### Various feuds (2018–2019)
On April 17, 2018, Almas, alongside Zelina Vega, was drafted to SmackDown brand as part of the Superstar Shake–up. A month later, in his in-ring debut, Almas defeated a local wrestler on the May 15 episode of SmackDown Live. Shortly after his debut, Almas was placed in his first feud with Sin Cara, who tried to convince him to "reconnect" again only for Almas to attack him. Almas defeated Sin Cara on July 10 episode of SmackDown Live and again five days later in a rematch at the Extreme Rules Kickoff Show to end their feud. On July 17 episode of SmackDown Live, Almas suffered his first loss as part of main roster by then–WWE Champion AJ Styles in a non–title match. Throughout August, Almas and Vega started a feud with Rusev and Lana whom they would defeat in various singles matches. This led to a mixed tag team match between the two teams on the Kickoff Show for SummerSlam on August 19, where Almas and Vega were victorious. Two days later on SmackDown Live, Almas and Vega lost to Rusev and Lana in a rematch, ending their feud in the process. Throughout the rest of the year, Almas continued to perform in various singles and tag team matches, most of which he would go on to lose.
On January 15, 2019, his ring name was shortened to Andrade, and he was announced as an entrant for the Royal Rumble match, where he was one of the final four, before being eliminated by Braun Strowman. A match between Andrade and Rey Mysterio was scheduled for the Fastlane pay-per-view, but it was cancelled in favor of both men competing in a fatal four-way match for the United States Championship, where Samoa Joe retained in a match also involving R-Truth. At WrestleMania 35, Andrade competed in the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, but failed to win after he accidentally eliminated himself, when he eliminated Apollo Crews. On April 15, both Andrade and Vega were drafted to Raw brand as part of Superstar Shake-up. However, on April 23, Andrade and Vega were moved back to the SmackDown brand. At the Money in the Bank, Andrade competed in the ladder match, which he failed to win. At Super ShowDown, Andrade failed to capture the Intercontinental Championship from Finn Bálor. In August, Andrade competed in the King of the Ring tournament, where he defeated Apollo Crews in the first round, but lost to Chad Gable in the quarterfinals.
#### United States Champion and teaming with Angel Garza (2019–2021)
As part of the 2019 draft, Andrade and Vega were drafted to Raw. On December 26, during a house show at Madison Square Garden, Andrade defeated Rey Mysterio to win the United States Championship for the first time. Andrade successfully retained the title against Mysterio on the January 6, 2020 and January 20 episodes of Raw. At the Royal Rumble on January 26, Andrade defeated Humberto Carrillo to retain his championship. The next day, Andrade was suspended for 30 days, for violating WWE's Wellness Policy. To write him off television, an angle took place on Raw, where Carrillo delivered a Hammerlock DDT on Andrade onto cement.
With Andrade absent over the next month, Zelina Vega brought up her new associate, Angel Garza, who is Carrillo's cousin, and the two then feuded. Andrade returned at Super ShowDown, competing in the gauntlet match for the Tuwaiq Trophy, but was eliminated by R-Truth. At Elimination Chamber, Andrade retained his title against Carrillo once again. Andrade was scheduled to team with Garza to face The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) for the Raw Tag Team Championship at WrestleMania 36, but Andrade was removed from that match due to an injury and was replaced by Austin Theory. On the April 13 episode of Raw, Andrade, Garza and Theory attacked Akira Tozawa, creating a new faction. However, this would be short-lived, as Theory was kicked out of the faction on the May 18 episode of Raw. On the May 25 episode of Raw, Andrade lost the United States Championship to Apollo Crews, ending his reign at 151 days. He failed to regain the title from Crews at Backlash, after failed interference from Garza.
Andrade began a tag team with Garza, including a title match against The Street Profits at SummerSlam and Clash of Champions, where they were unsuccessful. After these failures, Zelina Vega left the group and on the October 12 episode of Raw, Andrade lost to Garza before allowing him and Vega to be attacked by The Fiend and Alexa Bliss, thus officially splitting up the team. This would wind up being his final WWE match as Andrade disappeared from WWE programming soon after while Vega was released in November. In March 2021, Andrade requested his release from WWE and was initially denied, but WWE eventually granted his release on March 21.
### Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (2021–2022)
On May 2, 2021, Andrade appeared via video package on Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide's Rey de Reyes show, challenging AAA Mega Champion Kenny Omega to a championship match at Triplemanía XXIX. On May 18, the match was officially announced. At the event, Andrade, accompanied by Ric Flair, was defeated by Omega.
On April 30, 2022, at Triplemanía XXX: Monterrey, Andrade, who was teamed with Cibernético and Deonna Purrazzo, was defeated by Bandido, Taya, and Pagano in a trios match.
### All Elite Wrestling (2021–present)
Andrade made his debut for All Elite Wrestling (AEW) on the June 4, 2021 episode of Dynamite, under the new ring name "Andrade El Idolo". He was Managed by Jose the assistant. He allied himself with Vickie Guerrero, who would serve as his manager. At the Road Rager event on July 7, Andrade made his in-ring debut for AEW, defeating Matt Sydal. Later that month, he would end his affiliation with Vickie Guerrero, and introduced her nephew Chavo Guerrero as his new "consultant". In August, Andrade began a feud with Pac, leading to a match on the September 10 episode of Rampage, which Andrade won; after the match he would attack Chavo, ending their partnership. On the October 6 episode of Dynamite, Andrade competed in a Casino Ladder Match for an opportunity at the AEW World Championship, but the match was won by Adam Page.
## Professional wrestling persona
Throughout his career, Andrade has portrayed two main characters, La Sombra and Andrade "Cien" Almas, with both of those characters having phases of being heroic and villainous.
From 2007 through 2014, Andrade portrayed the masked character "La Sombra" as a heroic, young, high-flying wrestler who used a lot of lucha libre moves, especially dives off the top rope and occasionally out of the ring to the floor. At the time, he often used a split-legged corkscrew senton dive off the top rope to finish his matches.
When he transitioned from a face to a heel character in 2014, he developed a more individual personality, acting cockier and more laid back in the ring, acting unimpressed with his opponents by adopting a more arrogant tranquilo attitude that became synonymous with all the Los Ingobernables members. As a heel, he began using the Sombra Driver (sometimes referred to as the Shadow Driver), a Schoolboy suplex, that illustrated his transition from high-flyer to a more power-based wrestler.
Initially, the Andrade "Cien" Almas character was portrayed as a face, although without much depth to the character. His heel turn in 2016 saw a return of the arrogant tranquilo character he had used with success while working as "La Sombra", now bolstered by the presence of manager Zelina Vega, who helped him win matches by unfair means. After his heel turn, Andrade often used a running double knee smash against an opponent sitting in the corner of the ring, or sometimes on an opponent leaning against the ring post on the outside of the ring. After his heel turn, he began using a hammerlock DDT (which he named La Sombra) as a finisher. As of his debut at AEW Road Rager, Andrade would enter the ring wearing a white suit with black stripes and a black skeleton mask, resembling DC Comics supervillain Black Mask.
## Other media
Andrade is a playable character in the video games WWE 2K19 and WWE 2K20.
## Personal life
In February 2019, Andrade began dating fellow professional wrestler Charlotte Flair. The couple got engaged on January 1, 2020, and they got married on May 27, 2022, in Mexico.
## Championships and accomplishments
- CBS Sports
- NXT Match of the Year (2018) vs. Johnny Gargano at NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia
- Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre
- CMLL Universal Championship (2011)
- CMLL World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Volador Jr.
- CMLL World Trios Championship (1 time) – with Máscara Dorada and La Máscara
- Mexican National Trios Championship (1 time) – with El Sagrado and Volador Jr.
- NWA World Welterweight Championship (1 time)
- NWA World Historic Middleweight Championship (1 time)
- NWA World Historic Welterweight Championship (2 times)
- La Copa Junior (2012)
- Cuadrangular de Parejas (2014) – with Omar Brunetti
- Reyes del Aire (2013, 2015)
- Torneo Corona (2008) – with Metalik
- Torneo Gran Alternativa (2007) – with Místico
- Torneo Nacional de Parejas Increibles (2013) – with Volador Jr.
- CMLL Bodybuilding Contest (2012 – Advanced)
- CMLL Tag Team of the Year (2009) – with Volador Jr.
- CMLL Technico of the Year (2010)
- CMLL Trio of the Year (2010) – with Máscara Dorada and La Máscara
- Lucha Libre Azteca
- LLA Azteca Championship (1 time)
- New Japan Pro-Wrestling
- IWGP Intercontinental Championship (1 time)
- Pro Wrestling Illustrated
- Ranked No. 13 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2018
- WWE
- NXT Championship (1 time)
- WWE United States Championship (1 time)
- NXT Year-End Award for Match of the Year (2018) vs. Johnny Gargano for the NXT Championship at NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia
## Luchas de Apuestas record |
3,231,476 | All-China Women's Federation | 1,146,802,485 | Women's organization in China | [
"All-China Women's Federation",
"Organizations associated with the Chinese Communist Party",
"Organizations based in Beijing",
"Organizations established in 1949",
"Women's organizations based in China",
"Women's wings of communist parties"
]
| The All-China Women's Federation (ACWF; Chinese: 中华全国妇女联合会; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Quánguó Fùnǚ Liánhéhuì) is a women's rights people's organization established in China on 24 March 1949. It was originally called the All-China Democratic Women's Foundation, and was renamed the All-China Women's Federation in 1957. It has acted as the official leader of the women’s movement in China since its founding. It is responsible for promoting government policies on women, and protecting women’s rights within the government, while liberating them from traditional norms within society and involving them in social revolution with the aim to promote their overall status and welfare in Chinese society. As a united political community, women in the ACWF achieved political momentum, power among the male elite, and required representation.
## History
### Pre-1949: Women’s movement prior to the CCP and predecessors
The early women’s movement in China focused on eradicating the assumption that women were inferior to men. The early reformers believed that women needed help to improve their own attitudes about themselves, since even the women generally considered themselves to be inferior to men. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had shown an early interest in protecting the rights of women. During the 2nd National Congress in 1922, the party issued a statement arguing for the end of Chinese traditions that repress women. They also released a formal letter ensuring equality under the law for both men and women, and guaranteed equal pay for both genders during the 3rd National Congress.
When the CCP entered the First United Front to fight warlords and unite China from 1924 to 1927 with the Kuomintang (KMT), each party established their own women’s department during this time. However, the United Front ended with the White Terror (1927), where the KMT launched an attack to purge communists and laborers. The ideas about liberating Chinese women from Confucian values were only permitted within the territory under CCP rule. These territories were called soviets, and were the places the CCP fled to following the White Terror because they were not under the control of the KMT. The KMT championed traditional Confucian ideals about women, and they established the New Life Movement, which sought to counter the gender role espoused by the CCP with traditional Confucian gender roles supported by the KMT. The CCP's time in the soviets from 1927 to 1945 also gave them the opportunity to develop the skills for organizing federations and governing, which greatly facilitated the founding of the ACWF later.
The Chinese women’s movement gained a new momentum with the Second Sino-Japanese war (1937–1945). Leaders of the women's movement expressed nationalist sentiments in response to the threat the war posed to their daily lives. These leaders called for the liberation of women to defend the nation. The number of official women’s organization within the CCP at one of the soviets, Yan’an, grew during the invasion. In March 1938, at the First Women’s Congress held by the Women’s Federation of Shaan-Gan-Ning (a forerunner to the ACWF) in a different communist-controlled area, the leaders of the women's movement began to form their nationalist ideas into an agenda. The women in attendance stated that the goal of the women’s movement should be to unite women and to work together to liberate China. The First Women's Congress also outlined goals for the women's movement such as: helping women escape abusive marriages, improving women’s health, eradicating the practice of foot binding, ending domestic abuse, and protecting women’s inheritance rights. The ACWF would adopt many of the same goals in 1949.
### 1949–1966: Founding and early years
The All-China Democratic Women’s Federation was established on 24 March 1949 as China's first country-wide women’s organization, and would be renamed the All-China Women's Federation later that year. Women who had been dominant in the women’s movement and the CCP were included in the federation’s leadership. Cai Chang, a prominent leader in the women’s movement since, an active CCP member, and a veteran of the Long March, was the first chair of the organization. The organization began as a federation of various regional women’s groups with the dual goals of building a socialist China and promoting the status of women. The ACWF soon developed beyond its original mission of promoting gender equality, and it became a tool used by the party to mobilize women for economic, political and ideological motives.
The early stages of the organization were characterized by a focus on Marxist–Leninist ideology. The CCP viewed the women’s movement as a part of the larger Chinese revolution against the feudal past, but some leaders in the CCP argued that because most of the women continued to do domestic work, and did not actively participate in the revolution, this contradicted the Marxist–Leninist ideology. The ACWF contested this assertion, stating that the economic conditions were not at the point where jobs could be provided to all women. Therefore, housekeepers, wives and mothers who were dedicated to their work could indeed be seen as contributing to socialism.
During the land reform movement, the ACWF issued a call to Party activists to encourage peasant women to understand their "special bitterness" from a class perspective. Women activists helped peasant women prepare to speak in public, including by roleplaying as landlords to help such women practice.
To emphasize the contribution of women, the Five Good Family Campaign was introduced in 1956 to acknowledge efforts in areas such as education, managing the household, establishing connections with neighbors, keeping the house clean, and self-improvement. Promoting this campaign and ideology was important to the ACWF, and it encouraged local chapters to form women’s congresses to spread the message.
Around 1957, the ACWF entered a new phase, dropping "Democratic" from its name, as the federation was formally incorporated in the party structure. It entered the administrative hierarchy of the state, and declared itself a mass organization. Formal inclusion into the state apparatus altered some of the duties of the ACWF. The ACWF was now responsible for spreading political propaganda among women, guaranteeing the inclusion of women in political campaigns, marketing the campaigns to Chinese women, and organizing parades, meetings and demonstrations to encourage female participation in campaigning. The CCP sought to use the ACWF to promote its gender-specific ideas and create a formal channel to mobilize women. The ACWF also established affiliations with other mass movements: The YWCA of China and the Women Personnel Section of the Trade Union.
In the period prior to the Cultural Revolution, the ACWF was among organizations which hosted birth planning exhibitions to educate the public about contraception, abortion, IUDs, and sterilization procedures.
In addition to this, the ACWF played an important role internationally for the CCP. As a communist country in the Cold War, China had difficulty establishing diplomatic connections. ACWF was able to reach out to women’s movements abroad, and even hosted 23 delegations from other parts of the world for the Asia Women’s Representative Conference in December 1949. This enabled the PRC to go around the diplomatic blockade and forge connections with other countries. However, soon the Cultural Revolution would begin in China, which forced the ACWF to discontinue many of its policies.
### 1966–1976: The ACWF and the Cultural Revolution
The women's movement during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), like other movements in this period, came to depend on the cult of Mao Zedong. During the Cultural Revolution, the women’s movement was viewed as bourgeois and reactionary since it had originated in the West. The ACWF shut down in 1968 because it was considered anti-revolutionary. The party argued that the women’s movement needed to be completely immersed in the revolutionary movement instead of harboring its own agenda. The offices of the ACWF were occupied by the army and many of the female cadres who had been involved with the women’s movement were sent to labor camps in the countryside; the movement ceased to function until the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976.
The committee for the 4th National Women’s Congress met in 1976, started rehabilitating many of the female cadres sent to the countryside, and reinstated the ACWF. The ACWF was completely reestablished in 1978 and soon it announced its support for the Four Modernizations, Deng Xiaoping's plan to modernize agriculture, national defense, industry and technology in China. The newly reformed ACWF was able to strengthen its ability to set up local chapters, but, while other federations were able to resume work in the early 1970s, he ACWF did not resume work on a national level until 1978.
### 1976–present: NGO status in the reform era
Following the Cultural Revolution, the All-China Women's Federation began to prioritize protecting women’s rights and promoting equality over its responsibilities as an organ of the party. While the ACWF was responsible for communicating how the CCP had helped the women’s movement, they also began to critique the previous actions taken during the women’s movement as having been unsuccessful in the face of China’s dominant patriarchy. The ACWF increasingly studied women's movements in other countries, and held debates that transcended the parameters set by the CCP. ACWF campaigns became more diverse as they attempted to meet the disparate needs of the urban population and the rural population. While the ACWF continues to toe the party line, it is no longer involved in mass political campaigns. The party officially declared the ACWF a supervisory body in the early 1990s, so the ACWF is responsible for analyzing that effectiveness of the government in promoting women's rights. It was also approved to found for-profit businesses in 1992, so it less reliant on government financing, and more autonomous in setting its own agenda.
The new focus was on women's self-discovery; and the ACWF launched the Four Self Campaign consisting of: self-respect, self-confidence, self-improvement, and self-reliance. An example of the ACWF balancing its government responsibilities with its responsibility to the women of China can be seen in the One-Child Policy. The ACWF was responsible for publicizing the policy and its content, but questioned if the policy respected the rights of women. In the end, the ACWF settled on requesting that its cadres comply with the law to set a good example for the country, to promote the One-Child policy to the Chinese women, and to strongly condemn any coercive action related to the policy.
The ACWF also expanded its legal training for cadres, strengthened its finances, became involved with gay rights, fought employment discrimination and female trafficking, and introduced legislation to meet the challenges faced by women. In 2000, ACWF developed jobs for one million unemployed women by creating small economic (for profit) entities in which women can work as family service aides or in women's service groups. The organization also helps China's "leftover" women. These are women who remain unmarried after the age of 27. ACWF offers them alternatives to marriage such as the opportunity to pursue an education. With these changes, the ACWF became less concerned with mobilizing grass roots organization, and focused on its role in setting the public discourse for the social and political issues of women.
By 1994 the organization had over 68,000 branches and somewhere between 80,000 and 90,000 cadres. By 1995 the party declared the ACWF, at least nominally, a non-governmental organization in response to criticism from women's groups abroad. However, the international women's movement questioned the validity of that declaration. While the federation expanded in size, it became increasingly difficult to continue to reach all Chinese women through traditional channels. Other NGOs appeared to fill some of the void, but many of those became incorporated within the federation to gain legitimacy. By the end of the 1990s there were 6,386 women’s associations and recreational clubs under the ACWF umbrella. The ACWF continues to struggle to reach an increasingly diverse female population in China, to incorporate groups outside the ACWF umbrella, and to defend its NGO status.
## Organization
### Actions and organizations
The main action of the All-China Women's Federation is funu gongzuo (women’s work). The federation currently has seven functional departments to carry out this work: the Department for Children, the International Liaison Department, the Department for Women’s Development, the Publicity Department, the Department for Women’s Rights and Interests, the Human Resources Development Department and the General Office. The ACWF maintains a strong connection to the CCP through the women’s committees in the government. These committees cover topics ranging from systems of education, science, arts and medicine. The party still does have direct control over some aspects of the ACWF through cadres, who work within the federation who may be receiving a government salary, and through the government's power of promotion. The ACWF also has many affiliated organizations that expand its influence including: the China Women’s Development Foundation, Marriage and Family Magazine, the Legal Assistance Center of the ACWF, the China Women’s Activity Center, the China Women’s University, the China Women’s News, the China Women’s Publishing House, Women of China Magazine Publishing House. Many of these affiliated organizations help distribute information to the women of China. The ACWF has over 49 newspapers and magazines, and major debates about the women’s movement occur in its national journals the Women of China, Chinese Women’s Movements, and Collection of Women’s Studies.
The All-China Women's Federation operates several programs for the benefit of left-behind children, including substitute parent programs, summer camps, and village volunteers.
### Structure
#### Interaction with the Chinese Communist Party
Though the All-China Women's Federation claims itself as an NGO, its longstanding relationship with the CCP means that the party still has interests in the federation and its members. The four levels of the federation still coincide with the state administrative system. The highest ranking body of the ACWF is the National Congress of Women which meets every five years. The National Congress Women studies reports sent to them from the executive committee of the ACWF, decide the goals for the women’s movements, make changes to the constitution, and elect the executive committee and Standing Committees of the ACWF. Under this national level, the provincial level’s women’s congresses meet every three years to select their Executive and Standing Committees. However the local level must also carry out the directive and report to the CCP committee in addition to following the ACWF. This is supposed to give the organization a dual structure of carrying out party orders and informing the government of women’s interests. Since 2015, the ACWF, together with other Party-affiliated "mass organisations" have launched a new round of reform in order to better represent the interest of their members and to defer to Party's authority in their work.
#### Grass root versus upper levels of the ACWF
The All-China Women's Federation is run from the national level with the provincial, municipal, county, district and village levels below it. However it is considered a nominal hierarchical structure because the Party controls each level over and above the jurisdiction of the ACWF. Instead of direct control, the higher levels provide guidance, ideas, and trainings to the levels below it. Some members have complained that women trained by the party are promoted more rapidly than women trained by the ACWF. Due to this perceived promotion rate, the grass roots members are incentivized to follow the demands of the party instead of the demands of the ACWF. Other members of the ACWF believe that the grassroots structure is successfully in touch with the women they are working for since they are on the front lines of the movement, and see little problem with the disconnect between the upper levels of the party and grassroots levels.
### Relationship with the women’s movement
One of the problems that the All-China Women's Federation has identified is that women in China do not understand the federation’s contributions or significance in the women’s movement. The members of the ACWF identified two potential sources for the lack of understanding. The first is that the ACWF has many roles and branch organizations which may be obscuring the contribution it is making. The second is that it has lacked consistency in how it has represented women, especially during its early years. Another problem facing the ACWF is its relationship with the international women’s movement.
## Challenges
### Cooperation with outside women’s groups
The All-China Women's Federation is the largest women’s organization in China and the only women’s organization still in existence that appeared before the 1980s. However, the ACWF has recently been struggling to adequately represent a diverse range of women’s interest, and some critics believe that women’s growing needs ought to be represented by a more diverse group of organizations. Most women-interest NGOs operating in China are currently listed under the ACWF and have sought a close relationship with the organization to gain legitimacy and protection. Some of the organizations that are listed outside the ACWF are run by women who are affiliated with the ACWF, so there is considerable overlap. New women's groups have more freedom in exploring sensitive topics and alternative theories on gender because they are not affiliated with the government in any manner. The ACWF has encouraged some of these groups to form, and brought others under their umbrella, which extends the reach of the ACWF. However, given the limited resources available to the women’s movement, and the ACWF historically representing the only large organization, tensions exists between these women’s groups and the ACWF.
### NGO status
The state officially labeled the All-China Women's Federation an NGO in 1995. Yet how applicable the term NGO is to the ACWF has been contested, given the ACWF’s long and continuing relationship with the CCP. Some leaders in the women’s movement opposed the ACWF attending an NGO forum in Manila in 1993 because they did not believe that it met the criteria of an NGO. Even the ACWF hesitates using the term NGO within China because it has been linked to anti-government groups, although it has embraced the title internationally. International donor agencies generally are more likely to work with NGO's, so the classification of an NGO has helped the ACWF obtain financing from international organizations. Others believe that the ACWF classifies as an NGO because it has separated itself from the government in recent years, and still others believes that ACWF could be classified as a NGO if the definition was broadened.
## See also
- Government-operated non-governmental organization (GONGO)
- Non-governmental organizations
- Women in China
- Feminism in China
- Gender equality
- All-China Federation of Trade Unions
- Communist Youth League of China
- Young Pioneers of China
- Chinese Peasants‘ Association
- March 8th Red Banner Pacesetter |
3,014,582 | Ranbir Kapoor | 1,169,125,752 | Indian actor (born 1982) | [
"1982 births",
"Filmfare Awards winners",
"Indian male dancers",
"Indian male film actors",
"International Indian Film Academy Awards winners",
"Kapoor family",
"Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute alumni",
"Living people",
"Male actors from Mumbai",
"Male actors in Hindi cinema",
"Punjabi people",
"Screen Awards winners",
"Zee Cine Awards winners"
]
| Ranbir Kapoor (, born 28 September 1982) is an Indian actor known for his work in Hindi-language films. He is one of the highest-paid actors of Hindi cinema and has featured in Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list since 2012. Kapoor is the recipient of several awards, including six Filmfare Awards.
The son of actors Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh, and the grandson of actor-director Raj Kapoor, Kapoor pursued filmmaking and method acting at the School of Visual Arts and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, respectively. He subsequently assisted Sanjay Leela Bhansali on the film Black (2005) and made his acting debut with Bhansali's tragic romance Saawariya (2007), a critical and commercial failure. He rose to prominence with the coming-of-age film Wake Up Sid, the romantic comedy Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (both 2009), and the political drama Raajneeti (2010).
Kapoor's performances as a troubled musician in Rockstar (2011) and a cheerful deaf-and-mute man in Barfi! (2012) earned him two consecutive Filmfare Awards for Best Actor. The romantic comedy Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (2013) further established him as a star. This was followed by a series of commercial failures, with Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (2016) and Sanju (2018) being the exceptions. The latter emerged as his highest-grossing release, and his portrayal of Sanjay Dutt in it won him another Filmfare Award. Following a hiatus, he starred in the top-grossing fantasy film Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva (2022) and in the romantic comedy Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar (2023).
In addition to his acting career, Kapoor supports charities and causes. He is also a co-owner of the Indian Super League football team Mumbai City FC. He is married to the actress Alia Bhatt, with whom he has a daughter.
## Early life and background
Ranbir Kapoor was born on 28 September 1982 in Bombay, Maharashtra, India to Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh, both actors of the Hindi film industry. He is the great-grandson of Prithviraj Kapoor and the grandson of actor-director Raj Kapoor. His elder sister, Riddhima (born 1980), is an interior and fashion designer. The actor Randhir Kapoor is his uncle, and his daughters, actresses Karisma Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor, are his first cousins. Kapoor is of Punjabi descent, born to a Hindu father and a Sikh mother. He was educated at the Bombay Scottish School. As a student, he found little interest in academics and would rank low among his peers. However, he has stated that he performed better in sports, particularly football.
Kapoor has been vocal about how his parents' troubled marriage affected him as a child: "Sometimes the fights would get really bad. I would be sitting on the steps, my head between my knees, till five or six in the morning, waiting for them to stop". These experiences led to a "reservoir of emotions building up inside [him]", which he said compelled him to develop an interest in film. In his early years, Kapoor was close to his mother, but had a dysfunctional relationship with his father. After completing his tenth standard examinations, he worked as an assistant director to his father on the film Aa Ab Laut Chalen (1999), during which he developed a closer bond with him.
After completing his pre-university education from the H.R. College of Commerce and Economics, Kapoor relocated to New York City to learn filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts and subsequently pursued method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. In film school, Kapoor directed and starred in two short films, entitled Passion to Love and India 1964. The loneliness of living alone in New York City coupled with his experience in film school, which he described as "useless", inspired him to pursue a career in Bollywood. Upon returning to Mumbai, Kapoor was hired as an assistant director to Sanjay Leela Bhansali on the 2005 film Black. He described the experience: "I was getting beaten up, abused, doing everything from cleaning the floor to fixing the lights from 7 am to 4 am, but I was learning every day." He later remarked that his motive for working on Black was to get Bhansali to offer him an acting job.
## Career
### Early work and success (2007–2010)
Following the release of Black, Bhansali cast Kapoor as the protagonist of his 2007 tragic romance Saawariya, alongside Sonam Kapoor and Rani Mukerji. The film tells the story of a tramp, played by him, who falls obsessively in love with a woman awaiting the return of her lover. In an interview with the news and entertainment portal Rediff.com, Kapoor stated that his character was written as a tribute to his grandfather's iconic roles as a tramp. Saawariya was the first Indian film to be produced by a Hollywood studio (Sony Pictures Entertainment), and was a highly anticipated release. However, film critics were disappointed with the picture with BBC's Jaspreet Pandohar calling it a "misfire on a massive scale". CNN-IBN's Rajeev Masand considered it "contrived and fake", but was impressed by Kapoor's "affable charm" and wrote that "he's got that star quality to him which is so rare to find." At the box office, Saawariya failed to earn profits. However, at the annual Filmfare Awards ceremony, Kapoor was awarded a Best Male Debut trophy.
Despite the commercial failure of Saawariya, Kapoor was contracted by Yash Raj Films for a primary role in the Siddharth Anand-directed romantic comedy Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008). The film was his first commercial success, in which his role was that of a womaniser who is romantically involved with three women, played by Bipasha Basu, Minissha Lamba, and Deepika Padukone, at different stages of his life. Rachel Saltz of The New York Times expressed mixed views on his performance, but predicted that his "puppy-dog sweetness" would "serve him well as a Bollywood leading man".
In 2009, Kapoor had three film releases. In Dharma Productions's Wake Up Sid, a coming of age film from director Ayan Mukerji, Kapoor portrayed Siddharth "Sid" Mehra, a rich, lazy teenager whose life undergoes a series of changes after interacting with an ambitious journalist (played by Konkana Sen Sharma). When Mukerji narrated the then-untitled script of the film to him, Kapoor came up with the title himself. The media expressed doubt on the film's financial prospect as it depicted a romantic relationship between a younger man and an older woman. It eventually emerged as a sleeper hit and garnered acclaim from the critics. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama reviewed that Kapoor's performance in the film proved that he was "amongst the best in the business today".
Kapoor next starred opposite Katrina Kaif in Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, a slapstick comedy from director Rajkumar Santoshi, that emerged as the fourth highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2009. Film critic Gaurav Malani praised Kapoor's flair for comedy, but criticised his "over-excited husky baritone". His final release that year was the Shimit Amin-directed Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year, a drama about a sardar who aspires to be a salesman. Film critic Mayank Shekhar praised the film and found Kapoor's performance to be "astonishingly sincere", but the film earned little at the box office. Kapoor later professed to being highly disappointed by the film's commercial failure. At the 55th Filmfare Awards, he was awarded the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor for his performances in all three of his 2009 releases, and he also received two Best Actor nominations at the ceremony for Wake Up Sid and Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani.
Prakash Jha's big-budget ensemble political drama Raajneeti was Kapoor's first release of 2010. The film, which starred Nana Patekar, Ajay Devgn, Arjun Rampal, Manoj Bajpayee, Katrina Kaif and Sarah Thompson in prominent roles, was inspired by the Indian epic Mahabharata and Mario Puzo's 1969 novel The Godfather. Kapoor's role was of Samar Pratap (based on the characters of Arjuna and Michael Corleone), the youngest heir of an Indian political dynasty, who is reluctantly drawn to politics after the assassination of his father. Kapoor described it as his first complex role and considered it a departure from the "lover boy roles" that he had previously played. Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India reviewed: "The film finally belongs to Ranbir Kapoor who perfects the art of minimalism—and literally grows before your eyes—as the simmering volcano that cannot be held back, once it erupts." Robert Abele of the Los Angeles Times, however, was more critical of his performance which he considered "stony rather than calculating—especially jarring compared to the histrionic turns around him". Indian trade journalists were apprehensive of the film recovering its ₹600 million (US\$7.5 million) investment. The film, however, proved to be a major commercial success with worldwide earnings of over ₹1.43 billion (US\$18 million). Kapoor received a third Best Actor nomination at Filmfare for the film.
Later that same year, Kapoor collaborated with Priyanka Chopra on Anand's Anjaana Anjaani, a comedy-drama involving two strangers who vow to commit suicide on New Year's Eve. The film was a moderate financial success, but garnered little praise from the critics. Rajeev Masand noted that Kapoor "struggles with a badly-defined role" and NDTV's Anupama Chopra concluded: "Ranbir tries hard to salvage the film, dropping his shirt several times but even his lovingly shot chest can't save the film."
### Critical acclaim (2011–2013)
Following an item number in the children's film Chillar Party (2011), Kapoor took on the role of Janardhan "Jordan" Jakhar in Imtiaz Ali's Rockstar (2011), a drama that follows the journey of an aspiring musician from a humble background to international stardom. In preparation for the role, Kapoor lived with a Jat family in Pitam Pura and studied their mannerisms. He additionally learned to play the guitar and practiced extensively at A.R. Rahman's (the film's music composer) music studio. As part of the film's promotional activity, Kapoor performed at a live concert in Mumbai. Film critics were polarised on their view of the film, but were unanimous in their praise for Kapoor; Aniruddha Guha of Daily News and Analysis was particularly impressed with the film and thought that Kapoor's portrayal was one of "Hindi cinema's most accomplished performances by a lead actor". For the role, he won both the Best Actor and Best Actor (Critics) trophies at the 57th Filmfare Awards ceremony, along with Best Actor awards at Screen and IIFA. With a gross revenue of ₹1.07 billion (US\$13 million), Rockstar was one of the top-grossing Hindi films of the year.
The 2012 romantic comedy Barfi! was Kapoor's first release to earn over ₹1 billion (US\$13 million) at the domestic box office. Directed by Anurag Basu, the film, set in the 1970s, tells the story of its titular protagonist–a deaf and mute man, played by Kapoor–who falls in love with a woman who is already engaged, played by Ileana D'Cruz, and later, an autistic girl, played by Priyanka Chopra. In preparation, he observed the work of actors Roberto Benigni, Charlie Chaplin, and his grandfather. Barfi! received praise from the critics, and the performances of the three lead actors were acclaimed. Ronnie Scheib of Variety praised him for successfully channeling Chaplin in "tone and affect", and Raja Sen of Rediff.com wrote that "he does very strongly indeed with this Chaplin-tribute role, bestowing his character with heart every step of the way". The film was submitted as India's official entry for the 85th Academy Awards, and was screened at the Marrakech and Busan International Film Festivals. Kapoor won second consecutive Best Actor awards at the Filmfare, Screen, and IIFA Award ceremonies.
He achieved further success in 2013 when he reunited with director Ayan Mukerji for the romantic comedy Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani co-starring Deepika Padukone, Kalki Koechlin, and Aditya Roy Kapoor. He was cast as Kabir "Bunny" Thapar, a commitment-phobic photographer, a character Kapoor found to be an extension of himself. His pairing with Padukone, after their highly publicised break-up, led to hype surrounding the film's release. The film emerged as one of the highest-grossing Indian films of all time with earnings of ₹2.95 billion (US\$37 million), proving to be his third consecutive commercial success in three years and earned him another Best Actor nomination at Filmfare. Film critics found the film to be "riddled with clichés", but praised both Kapoor and Padukone, with Daily News and Analysis' Tushar Joshi labelling their on-screen chemistry as "unsurpassable". His second release of 2013 was the action-comedy film Besharam in which he played a petty thief, alongside Pallavi Sharda and his parents. The film met with an overwhelming negative reception and emerged as a failure; Sudhish Kamath of The Hindu described it as "Kapoor's hall of shame".
### Commercial struggles and Sanju (2014–2018)
After a year-long absence from the screen, Kapoor featured as a mysterious thief in Roy (2015), a romantic thriller which critic Sarita Tanwar described as a "boring, exhausting and pretentious" film. The series of financial failures continued with his next release, the Anurag Kashyap-directed crime drama Bombay Velvet, based on the historian Gyan Prakash's book Mumbai Fables, which also starred Anushka Sharma and Karan Johar. Kapoor portrayed an ambitious boxer in the 1960s who is drawn towards a life of crime; he based his tapori diction on Johnny Walker's character in Mr. & Mrs. '55 (1955). Made on a budget of ₹1.2 billion (US\$15 million), the film opened to meager box-office collections and mixed reviews from critics. Ritika Bhatia of Business Standard found Kapoor's part to be a departure from his previous roles, writing that he "does test the waters with methodical sincerity but his portrayal lacks depth on occasion". Bombay Velvet was eventually screened at the Locarno and Bucheon film festivals.
Kapoor next reunited with Deepika Padukone in Tamasha (2015), a romantic drama from Imtiaz Ali. He played the role of Ved Sahni, a man who desires a career in the arts but settles for a life of monotony as an engineer. Once again, the film failed commercially and received mixed reviews from critics. Kapoor's performance was praised; Lisa Tsering of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Kapoor is beautifully cast, his trademark mix of assertive theatricality and subtle emotion well suited to the role of a man who seemingly has it all under control, until he doesn't." Kapoor's career prospect briefly improved in 2016 when he took on the lead role of an aspiring musician in Karan Johar's Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (2016). The romantic drama, co-starring Anushka Sharma and Aishwarya Rai, tells the story of unrequited love, and proved to be one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films of the year. Critical reception was mixed; Joe Leydon of Variety thought that "Kapoor [is] often erring on the side of annoying while trying to balance vulnerability and self-centeredness". Both Tamasha and Ae Dil Hai Mushkil earned Kapoor Best Actor nominations at Filmfare.
In a collaboration with director Anurag Basu, Kapoor formed a production company named Picture Shuru Productions, whose first release was the musical comedy-mystery film Jagga Jasoos (2017), which tells the story of a gifted teenager's search for his missing stepfather. Production on the project was plagued with difficulties—principal photography began in 2014, but the release date was pushed back several times owing to changes in the script, multiple reshoots, and rumours of animosity between Kapoor and co-star Katrina Kaif (the couple had broken-up before they finished filming). Anna M. M. Vetticad of Firstpost considered the film to be "a laudable experiment that zigzags off course", and while praising Kapoor's dedication to his part, criticised the decision to cast him as a teenage schoolboy. It did not perform well commercially which led Kapoor to regret his venture into production.
In 2018, Kapoor portrayed the actor Sanjay Dutt in Rajkumar Hirani's biopic Sanju. It deals with Dutt's troubled relationship with his father, his drug addiction, and arrest for illegal possession of firearms. Kapoor was keen to avoid a hagiographic narrative and did not want to mimic Dutt's mannerisms. He interacted extensively with Dutt and took a month's time to transform himself physically before filming each phase of the actor's life. Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV thought that despite dramatic liberties, the film had successfully portrayed Dutt's complexity, and wrote that Kapoor "pulls out the stops in astonishingly effective ways, subsuming his personality into that of the protagonist". Uday Bhatia of Mint was more critical for making Dutt too sympathetic despite his misdeeds, and wrote that Kapoor's "imitation (astonishing at times) takes over the performance". Sanju's strong financial performance re-established Kapoor's stardom. With earnings of over ₹5.79 billion (US\$73 million), it emerged as one of Indian cinema's biggest earners and Kapoor's highest-grossing release. He won another Best Actor award at Filmfare.
### Hiatus and comeback (2019–present)
Following Sanju, Kapoor's next screen appearance was after four years in 2022, when he starred in Shamshera and Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva. He attributed this absence to the COVID-19 pandemic, the death of his father, and the lengthy production time of these two big-budgeted films. In Karan Malhotra's Shamshera, a period action film set in the 1800s, he played a dual role. The film received poor reviews, with Saibal Chatterjee writing that "the actor should henceforth read his scripts with a more critical eye before buying into them. He owes it to his talent". It emerged as another box office bomb for Kapoor. He then starred opposite Alia Bhatt in Ayan Mukerji's fantasy film Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva, the first part in a planned trilogy, which took five years to film. Made on a production and marketing budget of around , the film is one of the most expensive Indian films. His performance and chemistry with Bhatt was not well-received by Simon Abrams of TheWrap, but Deccan Herald's Vivek M. V. deemed him "excellent as [a] vulnerable orphan". It earned to rank as the highest-grossing Hindi film of 2022.
Kapoor starred alongside Shraddha Kapoor in Luv Ranjan's Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar (2023), which Tushar Joshi of India Today remarked was a welcome return for Kapoor into the romantic comedy genre. It emerged as a moderate commercial success. Kapoor will next star in Sandeep Reddy Vanga's crime drama, Animal, which he has described as "way out of my comfort zone".
## Personal life
Kapoor has been vocal about his personal life, and has stated that his parents' marriage taught him how complex a relationship can be. He had his first serious relationship while in the seventh grade, and suffered from depression when it ended. While filming Bachna Ae Haseeno in 2008, Kapoor began dating his co-star Deepika Padukone. The relationship attracted substantial media coverage in India and they speculated on an impending engagement. However, the couple broke up a year later. Kapoor maintained that the split was amicable, though the media widely reported that the split was due to infidelity on Kapoor's part. Kapoor later confessed: "Yes, I have, out of immaturity, out of inexperience, out of taking advantage of certain temptations, out of callousness." Later in 2015, Kapoor stated that they both had resolved the conflict and had moved on with their lives. Since the split, he has been reticent to publicly discuss his personal life.
Rumours of an affair with Katrina Kaif first emerged during the production of Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani in 2009. In August 2013, a set of paparazzi photographs of Kapoor and Kaif at a beach in Spain were published by Stardust. Although Kapoor initially declined to speak of the relationship, he admitted to it in 2015: "Both of us are sure about our relationship and if we don't open about it now, it would be showing disrespect to the relationship." In February 2016, the media reported that they had broken up. He has also spoken about being addicted to smoking and drinking.
In 2018, he began dating Alia Bhatt, his co-star in Brahmastra (2022). He married her on 14 April 2022 in a private ceremony in their Mumbai house. In November 2022, Bhatt gave birth to their daughter, Raha Kapoor.
## Off-screen work
In addition to acting, Kapoor is a football enthusiast and supports charities and organisations. He is the vice-captain of the All Stars Football Club, a celebrity football club that raises money for charity. In March 2013, he played the game to raise funds for the Magic Funds Organisation, an NGO for underprivileged children. Along with the chartered accountant Bimal Parekh, Kapoor acquired ownership rights in 2014 for the Mumbai-based football team of the Indian Super League, named Mumbai City FC. Also that year, Kapoor announced his participation with the digital music company Saavn as a content and programming adviser. In 2016, he featured in the documentary series Girls with Goals, to create awareness about and raise funds for YUWA, an all-girls football team in the state of Jharkhand.
Kapoor supports the empowerment of the girl child and is the goodwill ambassador of Shabana Azmi's Mijwan Welfare Society, an NGO which helps empower women. He supports environmental charities, and in 2011 donated money to the Community Water Initiative, a charitable organisation owned by PepsiCo. In 2012, he appeared alongside other celebrities in a short film by Zoya Akhtar to generate awareness on breast cancer. He is the campaign ambassador for NDTV's Marks for Sports, a nationwide initiative to promote fitness and health in India. In 2013, he participated in an auction on eBay, where the highest bidder gets an opportunity to interact with him; the proceeds were donated to Save the Children, a non-profit organisation that raised funds for flood affected households in Uttarakhand. That same year, he appeared alongside other celebrities in a commercial, produced by the National Film Development Corporation of India, to create awareness about children's education. In December 2014, he again took part in another eBay auction; the phiran he wore in Rockstar (2011) was sold, with proceeds going to the redevelopment of the flood-ravaged states of Kashmir and Assam. He had also fronted a campaign to collect donations for the victims of the April 2015 Nepal earthquake. In 2015, he presented 2,000 raincoats to the Mumbai Traffic Police as an appreciation for their service during the year's heavy monsoon. In 2018, he collaborated with Aamir Khan's Paani Foundation to help local farmers and villagers suffering from drought in parts of Maharashtra.
## In the media
Born into a family of popular actors, Kapoor faced the media spotlight from a young age; Hindustan Times published that "he was always a star kid from whom everyone had great expectations". Despite the failure of his first film (Saawariya), IANS reported that he "rose like [a] meteor on film firmament by giving compelling performances in films like Raajneeti, Rockstar and [..] Barfi!" Discussing the commercial viability of Kapoor, Apoorva Mehta, the COO of Dharma Productions, noted in 2013, "In a short career span of 10 films, Ranbir Kapoor has achieved a tremendous jump in the business done by his films." Also that year, The Economic Times credited him as "the most bankable actor of his generation". However, following the success of Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, each of Kapoor's releases under-performed at the box-office. This led trade journalists to criticise his choice of films, noting that his inclination towards experimental projects negatively impacted his commercial appeal.
Nationally, he is one of the most popular and high-profile celebrities. In 2012 and 2013, Forbes featured him among the top twenty in India's Celebrity 100, a list based on the income and popularity of the country's celebrities. For the next two years, he was ranked 11th with an estimated annual earning of ₹93.25 crore (US\$12 million) and ₹85 crore (US\$11 million) respectively, making him one of the highest-paid actors in the country. He was frequently featured in Rediff.com's annual listing of "Bollywood's Best Actors"; he was ranked second in 2009, first in 2011, third in 2012, and held the sixth position in 2015.
He has been cited as one of the most attractive Indian celebrities by the media. He has featured on The Times of India's listing of the 'Most Desirable Man' from 2010 to 2015, ranking among the top ten each year. In 2009 People magazine listed him as the "Sexiest Man Alive" in India, and in 2013 he topped Filmfare's poll of the "Most Stylish Young Actor". Also in 2013, he was one of the recipients of the "People of the Year" award by the Limca Book of Records. In 2010, he was voted the "Sexiest Asian Man" in a poll conducted by the magazine Eastern Eye. Kapoor continued to feature among the top ten of the list from 2011 to 2014. He is also the celebrity endorser for various brands and services, including Pepsi, Panasonic, Renault India, Lenovo and the Spanish football club FC Barcelona.
## Awards and nominations
Kapoor has been the recipient of six Filmfare Awards: Best Male Debut for Saawariya (2007), Critics Award for Best Actor for Wake Up Sid (2009), Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (2009), and Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year (2009) (jointly for the three films), and Rockstar (2011), and Best Actor awards for Rockstar, Barfi! (2012), and Sanju (2018). |
45,346,887 | Gone to Coney Island and Booming Business | 1,167,636,718 | null | [
"1910 comedy films",
"1910 films",
"1910 lost films",
"1910s American films",
"1910s English-language films",
"American black-and-white films",
"American comedy short films",
"American silent short films",
"Films set in Coney Island",
"Lost American comedy films",
"Silent American comedy films",
"Thanhouser Company films"
]
| Gone to Coney Island and Booming Business are two 1910 American silent short comedy productions by the Thanhouser Company. Both were released together on a single film reel on July 5, 1910. Gone to Coney Island is a comedy that features Coney Island, which the mere subject would make for a successful film. Booming Business may have been the very type of slapstick comedy that Edwin Thanhouser specifically said the Thanhouser Company would not produce. The productions of both films have no credits for the cast or crew, but possible candidates for these roles exist. Reviews of the films favored Gone to Coney Island, but some reviewers specifically refused to explain the plot because Coney Island subjects were deemed self-explanatory. Booming Business received one detailed review in The New York Dramatic Mirror which was negative. The films are presumed lost.
## Plots
Though the films are presumed lost, a synopsis of Gone to Coney Island survives in The Moving Picture World from July 9, 1910. It states: "Kate has been employed for a number of years as a maid in the home of Mrs. Greene. Her 'young man,' Henry, works down at Coney [Island]. He induces Kate to leave her place and take a situation as a ticket seller at Luna Park. Kate tries to tell her mistress of her intended departure, but Mrs. Greene is busy and refuses to listen. Mrs. Greene goes out, during her absence, Kate takes French leave, leaving a note saying she is going to Coney Island. Never having visited the Island, Mrs. Greene considers it a jungle place. When she gets Kate's note, she thinks that her duty to immediately start in pursuit of the misguided girl. Not knowing how to get to the island, she appeals to her old friend, Professor Griggs. He also is ignorant of the ways of Coney, but in turn appeals to his friend Casey, a ward politician, who of course knows the Island, and consents to act as their escort. The three set out for Coney and start on their search for Kate. The hunt is almost forgotten in the joys of looping the loop, shooting the chutes and various other diversions of the Island. When they finally find Kate, she is at her post, selling tickets at Luna. She laughs at Mrs. Greene's fears for her safety and announces the fact that she is happily married, and presents the lucky man. In a cool Coney corner, Mrs. Greene confesses that she found Coney wasn't as bad as it was painted, and she is going to revisit it often."
The second production, Booming Business, was also featured in the same issue of the publication with a short summary. It states: "Jack is an industrious young businessman, who has invested in a small stock of stationery, and set up shop. He unfortunately has no customers, and his various schemes to bring trade prove extremely unlucky but mighty laughable. What they are we had better let the little picture tell."
## Production
The writer of the two scenarios is unknown, but it was most likely Lloyd Lonergan. Lonergan was an experienced newspaperman employed by The New York Evening World while writing scripts for the Thanhouser productions. He was the most important script writer for Thanhouser, averaging 200 scripts a year from 1910 to 1915. The film director is unknown, but it may have been Barry O'Neil. Bowers does not attribute a cameraman for this production, but two possible candidates exist. Blair Smith was the first cameraman of the Thanhouser company, but he was soon joined by Carl Louis Gregory who had years of experience as a still and motion picture photographer. The role of the cameraman was uncredited in 1910 productions. Members cast may have included the leading players of the Thanhouser productions, Anna Rosemond, Frank H. Crane and Violet Heming.
The setting of Gone to Coney Island is Coney Island, a popular amusement park and picture subject. One review in The Moving Picture World went so far as to give a review that was devoid of meaning by stating, "Not much further explanation is needed. Those who have been there and those who have heard of it know what it means. Perhaps nothing further is required." Bowers notes that the popularity of Coney Island was itself able to make a successful film regardless of the scenario involved. Booming Business is notable because it appears to have contained slapstick comedy if The New York Dramatic Mirror review was accurate. Edwin Thanhouser specifically stated that the company would not produce slapstick comedy in an article in The Moving Picture World.
## Release and reception
The two comedy productions were released on a single reel, approximately 1000 feet in total, on July 5, 1910. A Thanhouser Filmography Analysis, provided by Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, lists each film as comprising half a reel without further detail. The films were shown together in theaters, with known advertisements in Indiana, Kansas, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.
Reviews for the Gone to Coney Island were positive with two positive, but altogether undetailed reviews in The Moving Picture World. A detailed review in The Moving Picture News acknowledged that the film will have a lasting impact "as it is one of a class of pictures which can almost be shown as a repeater without hurting the reputation of the theatre." The reviewer praised the photography and found the acting adequate, but the decision to include the marriage scene was deemed peculiar. For Booming Business, The Moving Picture World gave it two sentences which said the film was funny beyond description, but The New York Dramatic Mirror provides a more detailed and negative review of the film by stating, "This 'comic' is not up to the usual Thanhouser standard. In fact, it is rather silly all through, the only laughs being brought about by blows, falls, and smashing furniture. The principal character comes down to the camera and indicates the things he intends doing all through the picture, robbing it of every element of reality. He has a small store and adopts various schemes to boom business, such as giving health treatment with a magnetic battery, teaching boxing, and so on. Everything turns out badly and ends in general confusion." Bowers notes that The New York Dramatic Mirror was not an unbiased reviewer, for the publication was slanted to the favor the Licensed companies instead of the Independents. Another window into the film is provided by an advertisement by the Amuzu in The Twin-City Daily Sentinel which states the grocery-man attempts to spur business in a variety of comical ways.
## See also
- List of American films of 1910 |
15,773,551 | The Last Ringbearer | 1,167,273,599 | 1999 fantasy book by Russian author Kirill Eskov | [
"1999 novels",
"Fan fiction works",
"High fantasy novels",
"Parallel literature",
"Parody novels",
"Russian fantasy novels",
"Sequel novels",
"Tolkien fandom",
"Works based on Middle-earth"
]
| The Last Ringbearer (Russian: Последний кольценосец, romanized: Posledniy kol'tsenosets) is a 1999 fantasy fan-fiction book by the Russian paleontologist Kirill Eskov. It is an alternative account of, and an informal sequel to, the events of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. It has been translated into English by Yisroel Markov, but the translation has not been printed for fear of copyright action by the Tolkien Estate.
Critics have stated that the book is well-known to Tolkien fans in Russia, and that it provides an alternate take on the story. Scholars have variously called it a parody and a paraquel. They have interpreted it as a critique of totalitarianism, or of Tolkien's anti-modern racial and environmental vision coupled with a destruction of technology which could itself be called totalitarian. The book contains sections of Russian history, and while it says little directly on real-world politics, it can be read as an ironic riposte to American exceptionalism.
## Premise
Eskov bases his novel on the premise that the Tolkien account is a "history written by the victors". Mordor is home to an "amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle-earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic", posing a threat to the war-mongering faction represented by Gandalf (whose attitude is described by Saruman as "crafting the Final Solution to the Mordorian problem") and the Elves.
Macy Halford, in The New Yorker, writes that The Last Ringbearer retells The Lord of the Rings "from the perspective of the bad guys, written by a Russian paleontologist in the late nineties and wildly popular in Russia". The book was written in the context of other Russian reinterpretations of Tolkien's works, such as Natalia Vasilyeva and Natalia Nekrasova's The Black Book of Arda [ru], which treats Melkor as good and the Valar and Eru Ilúvatar as tyrannical rulers.
## Plot
The tale begins by recapping the War of the Ring. The Ring itself is a luxurious ornament, but powerless, crafted by the Nazgûl (a group of ancient scientists and philosophers who guide Mordor through its industrialization) to distract Gandalf and the Elves while Mordor built up its army. Aragorn is a puppet of the Elves, seeking to usurp the throne of Gondor by murdering Boromir before Gandalf removes Denethor. Arwen, being 3,000 years older, holds Aragorn in contempt, but uses their marriage to cement Elvish rule over Gondor. Faramir has been exiled to Ithilien, where he is kept under guard with Éowyn. The Elves have corrupted the youth of Umbar (using New-Age style mysticism), which they aim to use as a foothold into Harad and Khand.
After defeating the Mordorian army, the Elves enter Mordor to massacre civilians with the help of Men from the East, to eliminate the "educated" classes. Two Orc soldiers ("Orc" being a racial slur used by the West: the Orcs in Eskov's book are humans), the medic Haladdin and Sergeant Tzerlag are fleeing the battle plain. They rescue Tangorn, a Gondorian noble who had been left buried in the desert for attempting to stop one of the massacres. They locate the mercenaries and kill the Elf Eloar.
The last of the Nazgûl, Sharya-Rana, visits Haladdin and explains that the physical world, Arda, is linked to the magical world from which the Elves came by the power of Galadriel's Mirror in Lórien and the palantírs. Haladdin is given the task of destroying the Mirror to separate the worlds and complete the goal of making men truly free. Haladdin is chosen as he is a rare individual in whom there is absolutely no magic and has a tendency to behave irrationally, for example joining the Mordorian army as a medic to impress his girlfriend and almost dying as a result, instead of putting his talents to better use at home in the university. While the Nazgûl cannot foresee how the quest is to be completed, he is able to provide Haladdin with useful information, including the current location of the palantírs.
An elaborate plan is devised which involves the forging of a letter from Eloar by a Mordorian handwriting expert. Tangorn manages to arrange a meeting with the Elves in Umbar, while evading Gondor's efforts to eliminate him. He succeeds in getting the letter to Eloar's brother Elandar. His plan succeeds when he is killed, an event which convinces the Elves to pass his message on to Eloar's mother, Eornis, a member of the ruling hierarchy of Lórien. She is led to believe that her son has been captured rather than killed. A palantír is dropped into Lórien by a Mordorian researcher developing flight-based weapons (under the secret patronage of Aragorn), and Eornis is instructed to bring the palantír to Galadriel's Mirror. This is supposed to prove that she is in Lórien, whereupon she will be allowed to communicate with Eloar.
Haladdin brings another palantír to Mount Doom. Gandalf figures out his plan and, concerned that magic will be banished from Middle-Earth, casts a spell on the palantír to turn its user into stone. Saruman, despite opposing Gandalf's methods, believes that Sharya-Rana's hypothesis about the relationship between the magical and physical worlds is incorrect and attempts to reason with Haladdin. However, Tzerlag touches the palantír by mistake and begins to turn into stone. Haladdin decides to drop the palantír into Orodruin because Saruman is unable to reverse Gandalf's spell. This causes the Eternal Fire to be transmitted to the other palantírs and the Mirror, destroying them and the magic of the Elves.
Haladdin goes into self-imposed exile and Tzerlag's descendants pass on the story orally, but the official record contains Aragorn's version of events. Despised by the Gondorian aristocracy, Aragorn finds favour with the people, as his policies result in an "economic miracle". After his death, childless, the throne reverts to the "rightful" king, Faramir. The Elves end their occupation of Mordor and leave Middle-Earth, which enters the industrial age.
## Publication
The book was first published by ACT of Moscow in Russian in 1999. It was reprinted in Russian by Folio of Kharkov in 2002, and by the print on demand publisher CreateSpace in 2015.
Though translated into several languages, the book has not had a commercial release in English, for fear of legal action by the Tolkien Estate. In 2010, Yisroel Markov translated the book into English, with a second edition released in 2011 fixing typos and revising the prose as well as providing ebook formatted versions; his text has appeared as a free and non-commercial ebook, and Eskov has officially approved this release. Mark Le Fanu, general secretary of the Society of Authors, opined that despite being non-commercial, the book still constitutes a copyright infringement.
### Translations
- Czech: Poslední Pán Prstenu, Fantom Print, 2003.
- English: The Last Ringbearer (online only)
- Estonian: Viimane sõrmusekandja, Fantasy, 2010.
- French: Le Dernier Anneau, 500nuancesdegeek, 2018.
- Polish: Ostatni powiernik Pierścienia, Red Horse, 1999. , translated by Eugeniusz Dębski and Ewa Dębska
- Polish: Ostatni Władca Pierścienia, Solaris, 2002. (same translation)
- Portuguese: O Último Anel, Saída de Emergência, 2008.
- Spanish: El último anillo, debolsillo, 2011.
## Reception
### Critical
The American journalist Laura Miller praises The Last Ringbearer in Salon as "a well-written, energetic adventure yarn that offers an intriguing gloss on what some critics have described as the overly simplistic morality of Tolkien's masterpiece." She notes that Markov's is the "official" translation, approved by Eskov, and more polished than earlier translations of some sections of the book. In her view, there are "still some rough edges", such as the mix of present and past tenses at the start, and what she calls the "(classically Russian) habit" of adding sections of political or military history to the narrative. Noting that the book has been called fan fiction, Miller comments that it is nothing like the teenage girl fantasy genre of "unlikely romantic pairings" of characters from the canon. She likens it instead to Alice Randall's The Wind Done Gone, a retelling of Gone with the Wind, stating that Eskov's is the better book.
Benedicte Page, writing in The Guardian, states that the book is well-known to fans in Russia, and that it is based on "the idea that Tolkien's own text is the romantic legend of the winning party in the War of the Rings, and that a closer examination of it as a historical document reveals an alternate version of the story."
Terri Schwartz, writing on MTV, describes the book's take, with a warmongering Gandalf who seeks only to "crush the scientific and technological initiative of Mordor", while a forward-thinking Sauron passes a "universal literacy law", as "certainly a different take on the story, to say the least."
### Academic
The scholar of English literature Catherine Coker describes the novel as "transparent revisionism" and "a Russian parody" which repurposes the characters' ideologies "so that the heroic epic becomes a critique of totalitarianism". In her view, with Tolkien's idealism removed, the story is changed radically, becoming "emphatically, a work in its own right".
Mark Wolf, a scholar of video gaming and imaginary worlds, calls the work a paraquel, a narrative that runs at the same time as the original story, with a different perspective.
The independent scholar of culture and comparative literature Greg Clinton, noting that Eskov depicts Sauron and his industrial realm of Mordor as "not 'evil', but ... working to modernize production", comments that the book sees something that he believes Tolkien missed, namely that destroying technology in favour of nature as The Lord of the Rings suggests would itself be "a totalitarian move".
The scholar of culture David Ashford describes the novel as a "splendid counter-factual fantasy", calling it the "most entertaining" and best-known Russian retelling, despite Tolkien's direct statement rejecting any link between Orcs and Russia: "To ask if the Orcs 'are' Communists is to me as sensible as asking if Communists are Orcs." Eliot Borenstein comments that Eskov's book says little about real-world politics, despite possible allusions to a "final solution", but that it does support an idea from Russian science fiction, namely that if "American exceptionalis[ts]" like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush want Russia to be their "evil empire", then fine, "but we'll do it with an irony and pride that you'll never entirely comprehend."
Robert Stuart, a Tolkien scholar interested in the question of Tolkien and race, comments that Eskov's book is "evidently particularly effective in critiquing the anti-modern dimension of Tolkien's ideological viewpoint".
## See also |
20,543,985 | U-52-class submarine | 1,134,926,025 | Planned Austro-Hungarian Navy submarines during WWI | [
"Submarine classes",
"Submarines of the Austro-Hungarian Navy"
]
| The U-52 class was a class of four ocean-going submarines or U-boats planned for the Austro-Hungarian Navy (German: Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine or K.u.K. Kriegsmarine) during World War I. The submarine design was based on the A 6 proposal submitted by Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino (STT) as part of a Navy design competition. STT, under its wartime name of Austriawerft, began construction on the first two boats in 1916, but neither boat was launched or completed before the end of the war. Both incomplete submarines were scrapped after the war ended. Neither of the third and fourth submarines was ever laid down.
## Design
Austria-Hungary's U-boat fleet was largely obsolete at the outbreak of World War I, and over the first two years of the war the Austro-Hungarian Navy focused its efforts on building a U-boat fleet for local defense within the Adriatic. With boats to fill that need either under construction or purchased from Germany, efforts were focused on building ocean-going submarines for operation in the wider Mediterranean, outside the Adriatic.
To that end, the Austro-Hungarian Navy selected the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino (STT) A 6 design as the winner of a design competition for a new ocean-going submarine. The plans called for a boat that displaced 849 t (936 short tons) surfaced and 1,200 t (1,300 short tons) submerged. The boats were to be 249 feet 3 inches (75.97 m) long with a beam of 22 feet 10 inches (6.96 m) and a draft of 11 feet 6 inches (3.51 m). For propulsion, the design featured two shafts, with twin diesel engines of 2,400 bhp (1,800 kW) (total) for surface running at up to 15.75 knots (29.17 km/h; 18.12 mph), and twin electric motors of 1,480 shp (1,100 kW) (total) for submerged travel at up to 9 knots (16.7 km/h; 10.4 mph). The U-52 class boats were designed for a crew of 40 men.
The U-52 design called for six 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes—four bow tubes and two stern tubes—and a complement of nine torpedoes. The original design specified two 10 cm/35 (3.9 in) deck guns, which were superseded by two 12 cm/35 (4.7 in) deck guns in plans for the third and fourth boats.
## Construction
By 1916, Austriawerft, the new, more-"patriotic" wartime name for STT, had begun construction on U-52 and U-53, the first two boats of the class. Austriawerft remained headquartered at Trieste, but sources do not specifically say where the two U-52 submarines were laid down. These first two boats, which comprised one-third of the six ocean-going submarines under construction in 1916, were followed by orders for U-54 and U-55 in December 1917.
Shortages of skilled shipyard workers as well as material slowed construction of all of the ocean-going boats. As a result, neither of the first two boats was ever launched, much less completed, and the second pair was cancelled before either was laid down. U-52 was 25% complete at war's end, while U-53 was only 10% complete. Both boats were scrapped in 1919. |
2,450,308 | The Fountain | 1,173,200,499 | 2006 American film by Darren Aronofsky | [
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| The Fountain is a 2006 American epic romantic drama film written and directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. Blending elements of fantasy, history, spirituality and science fiction, the film consists of three storylines involving immortality and the resulting loves lost, and one man's pursuit of avoiding this fate in this life or beyond it. Jackman and Weisz play sets of characters bonded by love across time and space: a conquistador and his ill-fated queen, a modern-day scientist and his cancer-stricken wife, and a traveler immersed in a universal journey alongside aspects of his lost love. The storylines—interwoven with use of match cuts and recurring visual motifs—reflect the themes and interplay of love and mortality.
Aronofsky originally planned to direct The Fountain on a \$70 million budget with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in the lead roles, but Pitt's withdrawal and cost overruns led Warner Bros. Pictures to shut it down. Aronofsky rewrote the script to be sparser, and was able to resurrect the film for \$35 million with Jackman and Weisz in the lead roles. Principal photography began from November 2004 to February 2005, and mainly took place on a sound stage in Montreal, Quebec. Aronofsky used macro photography to create key visual effects for The Fountain at a low cost.
The film was released theatrically in the United States and Canada on November 22, 2006. It grossed \$16.5 million worldwide. Critics' reactions were divided, but it has gained a cult following since its release.
## Plot
Conquistador Tomás Verde in New Spain fights a band of Mayans to gain entry into a pyramid, where he is attacked by a Mayan priest. The story intercuts to Tommy, a traveler who was tending a tall tree in a glass dome biosphere travelling through space, annoyed by a woman called Izzi. Finally, a third iteration, present-day surgeon Tom Creo, is losing his wife Izzi to a brain tumor. Tom is working on a cure using samples from a tree found through exploration in Guatemala, which are being tested for medicinal use for degenerative brain diseases in his lab. Izzi has come to terms with her mortality, but Tom refuses to accept it, focused on his quest to find a cure for her. She writes a story called "The Fountain" about Queen Isabella losing her kingdom to the Inquisition and a commission given by her to Tomás Verde to search for the Tree of Life in the Central American forest in Mayan territory. As she does not expect to finish her book, Izzi asks Tom to finish it for her. As they look up at the golden nebula of Xibalba, she imagines, as the Mayans did, that their souls will meet there after death when the star goes supernova. She dies shortly thereafter and Tom dedicates himself to curing not only her disease but death itself after seeing experimental success in reversing aging. His colleagues fear that this drive has made him reckless, but they support him in his scientific work and emotionally at Izzi's funeral. Tom plants a sweetgum seed at Izzi's grave in the manner of a story she told him relating how a Mayan guide's dead father lived on in a tree nourished by the organic nutrients of the buried body.
In the Mayan jungle, Tomás finds that most of his fellow knights are exhausted and refuse to continue searching for the Tree of Life. After a failed mutiny and the death of their priest guide, he takes the few who remain loyal with him to a pyramid, carrying a ceremonial dagger. Once he arrives at the pyramid, the first scene repeats and Tomás engages in combat with the Mayan priest. Tommy (whether is a version of Tom, an element of Izzy's story, or Tom himself in the future is unclear) spends much of his time performing physical or mental exercises, including a form of meditation allowing him to perceive and interact with the past. In that past, Tomás is stabbed in the stomach but, just as the priest is about to kill him, he appears before the figurehead. The priest now believes Tomás is the "First Father" who birthed all life. Tomás kills the priest as a sacrifice and proceeds to a pool with a large tree, convinced this is the Tree of Life. Tomás applies some of its sap to his torso and is cured of his stab wound. He drinks the sap flowing from the bark. But in a reenactment of the Mayan creation myth recounted earlier, his body is turned into flowers and grass that burst forth from it and he literally gives rise to new life, killing himself in the process. In space, the tree finally dies just before the spaceship arrives at its destination, much to the horror of the version of Tom tending it. A final vision of Izzi appears, comforting him in the face of his acceptance of death. The star goes supernova, engulfing the ship and everything within. Tommy's body, engulfed by the dying star inside of the nebula, is absorbed by the tree, causing it to flourish back to life. Izzi's apparition picks a fruit from the new tree of life and hands it to Tom, who plants it in Izzi's grave, accepting her death and moving on.
## Cast
- Hugh Jackman as Tomás Verde / Tom Creo / Tommy the Space Traveler:
A 16th-century Spanish conquistador set out in the deep jungles of South America to find the elixir of life that was purported to come from the Fountain of Youth springing forth from a tree atop a Mayan pyramid, where he fiercely fought a Mayan high priest. In the present, a scientist discovers a South American tree with promising life-extending properties in an attempt to cure his wife of brain cancer. Centuries later, a man journeys through deep space in a futuristic spherical spacecraft with a tree assumed to be the one Tom Creo planted on the grave of his wife Izzi half a millennium earlier, heading toward a dying star believing its explosion will restore her. Jackman played all three characters in three interweaving narratives spanning a period of one thousand years, beginning in 1500 A.D.
- Rachel Weisz as Isabella I of Castile / Izzi Creo
A terminally-ill woman writes an unfinished manuscript titled "The Fountain" about a 16th-century Spanish queen held captive by a powerful Catholic priest, who sends her most loyal henchman to find a legendary tree she believes would free her and her subjects from the Inquisition. Weisz, speaking to The Guardian, shared how working with director Aronofsky, who was then in a relationship with her at the time of filming and release, was "very different to who we are around the house."
- Ellen Burstyn as Dr. Lillian Guzetti
- Stephen McHattie as Grand Inquisitor Silecio
His growing power and ruthless crackdown on the queen's loyal subjects, branded as heretics during the Inquisition, threatens the peace of her kingdom.
- Mark Margolis as Father Avila
- Cliff Curtis as Captain Ariel
## Narrative structure
The three stories are interwoven with match cuts and recurring visual motifs; Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz play the main characters in all three narratives. Whether the actions in these stories are actual events, or symbolic, is not clear: director Darren Aronofsky emphasized that the storylines in their time periods and their respective convergences were open to interpretation. The director has said of The Fountain's intricacy and underlying message, "[The film is] very much like a Rubik's Cube, where you can solve it in several different ways, but ultimately there's only one solution at the end."
## Themes
In a 2012 interview outlining the path of life depicted, Aronofsky stated that "ultimately the film is about coming to terms with your own death" oftentimes driven by love. The film asks such questions as "What if you could live forever?" and depicts one man's journey to overcome death. Related to this path, Darren Aronofsky described the core of the film as "a very simple love story" about a man and a woman in love, with the woman's life cut short. The director researched people who were dying young, and learned from doctors and caregivers that such patients find new ways of coping. Aronofsky observed that the patients often die more alone because their families cannot recognize what happens with them, calling it "an incredible tragedy":
> Instead of facing this tragedy in terror, she is coming to terms with what is happening to her... Many patients actually start opening up to the possibility of what's happening to them, but there's very little vocabulary to help them deal... We decided to expand it with this woman [Izzi] offering a gift to her husband as a metaphor that tells him where she's come to in her awe inspiring journey towards death. Hopefully through time he'll be able to understand it and basically get where she is.
The Fountain's theme of fear of death is "a movement from darkness into light, from black to white" that traces the journey of a man scared of death and moving toward it. The film begins with a paraphrase of Genesis 3:24, the Biblical passage that reflects The Fall of Man. Hugh Jackman emphasized the importance of the Fall in the film: "The moment Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, humans started to experience life as we all experience it now, which is life and death, poor and wealthy, pain and pleasure, good and evil. We live in a world of duality. Husband, wife, we relate everything. And much of our lives are spent not wanting to die, be poor, experience pain. It's what the movie's about." Aronofsky also interpreted the story of Genesis as the definition of mortality for humanity. He inquired of the Fall, "If they had drank from the Tree of Life [along with the Tree of Knowledge] what would have separated them from their maker? So what makes us human is actually death. It's what makes us special."
Aronofsky's sensibility can be placed between Kubrick's exploration of humanity, and Spielberg's emotionality as he "combines elements of Kubrick’s excess visible in the human condition and leading us toward the limit of existence in obsession or madness, and of Spielberg’s emotion and the wish to leave a ray of hope, regardless of how hopeless the situation might be."
## Production
### Development
Director Darren Aronofsky sought to produce The Fountain after the release of Requiem for a Dream in 2000. In April 2001, he entered negotiations with Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures to direct the then-untitled film with actor Brad Pitt in the lead role. Requiem for a Dream was screened for Pitt, and the preliminary script for The Fountain persuaded the actor to join the project. Aronofsky prepared for production by traveling with a crew to Central America to consult with Mayan experts and to explore the Mexican ruins of Palenque. The group also visited Tikal, a jungle location featured in the 1977 film Star Wars. In addition to the trip, the films Aguirre, the Wrath of God and The Holy Mountain were screened for the crew to inspire it in designing a rainforest set for The Fountain. In June 2001, actress Cate Blanchett entered talks to join Aronofsky's project. Aronofsky, who wanted the film's actual title to be a secret, gave the project the working title of The Last Man. Production was postponed to improve the script and to wait for Blanchett, pregnant when she joined, to give birth to her child in December 2001. The start date for production was tentatively set in summer 2002.
In June 2002, Warner Bros. met with Aronofsky and producer Eric Watson, expressing concerns over an escalating budget and threatening to cease the project unless a co-financier was found. Watson petitioned independent production companies for support and was able to enlist Regency Enterprises for assistance. Production was ultimately set for late October 2002 in Queensland and Sydney, Australia. The film, officially titled The Fountain, was 'greenlit' (approved for production) with a budget of \$70 million, co-financed by Warner Bros. and New Regency, who filled the gap after Village Roadshow withdrew from the project. Preparation for production of The Fountain cost \$18 million. Abruptly, Pitt, whose requested screenplay revisions were not met, left the project seven weeks before the first day of shooting. The actor went on to star as Achilles in director Wolfgang Petersen's Troy. With the studio threatening to shut down the project, Aronofsky sent the script to actor Russell Crowe as a potential replacement for Pitt. However, Crowe, worn out from recently completing Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, declined. In September 2002, Jeff Robinov, President of Production at Warner Bros. Pictures, announced that The Fountain would cease production, with Blanchett receiving compensation for her time and the Australian crew being fired from the halted project. Sets built for the production of the film, including a 10-story Mayan temple, were eventually auctioned off, in addition to props and other items. Pitt said that he was disappointed to leave and added, "I remain encouraged that The Fountain will yet have its day."
Aronofsky began to develop other films. When he looked over the books he used to research for The Fountain, he decided to return to The Fountain, feeling closer to it creatively than the other possible projects. Without a studio and an actor, he decided to write a "no-budget" version of the film, using his experiences filming Pi and Requiem for a Dream with small budgets. In February 2004, Warner Bros. resurrected Aronofsky's project and began to court actor Hugh Jackman to replace Pitt in the lead role. The film received a second greenlight with a budget of \$35 million, in part because of the director's willingness to leave costly set pieces out of the screenplay. In August, actress Rachel Weisz joined Hugh Jackman for the film, filling the vacancy left by Blanchett. Filming lasted 60 days in early 2005 and took place mainly on a sound stage in Montreal.
### Writing
Aronofsky and his friend Ari Handel created the story for The Fountain, and Aronofsky wrote the screenplay. When Aronofsky saw The Matrix in 1999, he considered it a film that redefined the science fiction genre. He sought to make a science fiction film that would explore new territory in the genre like The Matrix and its predecessors Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Aronofsky had in mind a science fiction film that would go beyond the other films whose plots were driven by technology and science. The director said, "We've seen it all. It's not really interesting to audiences anymore. The interesting things are the ideas; the search for God, the search for meaning."
In 1999, when Aronofsky turned 30 years old, his parents were diagnosed with cancer. He began reflecting on human mortality, "That was a really heavy-duty emotional time. I know it's a very young age, but turning thirty marks when your twenties are over and you could start considering, 'Wow, one of these days I'm actually going to die.'" While his parents overcame cancer, he began to focus on the concept of a young man saving a loved one from a life-threatening disease. He shared the concept with Handel, his undergraduate school roommate at Harvard University. Handel earned a Ph.D in neuroscience from New York University but was uncertain about a future in neuroscience. He recalled the discussion, "Darren and I just started talking about the story. We kept wanting to talk more about it as the story kept getting bigger. I decided to make some life choices to continue working with Darren, because it was so much fun."
The director relied on a change of locale to inspire him to write Pi and Requiem for a Dream. For The Fountain, Aronofsky was inspired by a research trip he took to Guatemala with Handel to learn about Mayan history and philosophy. The script for The Fountain was influenced by the accounts of Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano, who wrote examples of myth from an indigenous perspective, particularly Galeano's Genesis trilogy. The film Once Upon a Time in America also served as an influence on the script. Aronofsky, influenced by Bernal Díaz del Castillo's The Conquest of New Spain, applied the narrative in writing the film's conquistador scenes.
Aronofsky realized that since writing in 2000 the battle scene between the armies of Mayans and conquistadors, The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Troy, King Arthur, and other films had featured massive battle scenes. He felt less inclined to mimic the scale and rewrote the battle to be mainly between Jackman's conquistador character and the Mayans. The director realized that, with one man against the army, the rewrite was a suitable metaphor for his film's theme of a man defying odds to do the impossible and conquer death.
The filmmakers researched space travel and Mayan culture, including its history, religion, and spirituality. They attended brain surgeries with the actors. With the research in place, Aronofsky said, "We decided which things we wanted to be purely factual and which things we wanted to bend." The director did not strive to be historically accurate with the various time periods, perceiving the entire film as a setting of a fairy tale. He said, "It was more about painting a relationship between a queen and her warrior, and just using that for more fantasy reasons."
### Casting
Aronofsky saw Hugh Jackman perform as Peter Allen in the Broadway musical The Boy from Oz and was impressed with his performance. The director met with Jackman, who sought "a role that could show a lot of dimension," and cast him into the lead role in The Fountain. Jackman starred previously as the muscular character Wolverine in the X-Men films, so for The Fountain, he exercised to adopt a slimmer figure. Jackman practiced t'ai chi for seven months to demonstrate it in a 30-second scene. He also practiced yoga for over a year to achieve the lotus position for scenes set in space. For these scenes when he is seen in the position in mid-air, he was immersed in a swimming pool and harnessed to a rig that rotated him 360 degrees so his clothes floated freely about him.
Jackman also watched a woman undergo brain tumor surgery and was shaken to see the woman have similar blond hair to his wife: "All I could think of was my wife on that table. As much as I'd read the script and theorized and practiced philosophy, I knew in that moment that I was so not ready for death." For his various characters, the actor assumed a different posture for each persona. As the conquistador, Jackman was upright and forward-leaning to evoke an unstoppable nature. As the scientist, the actor hunched over with a dedicated focus on his character's work, being weighed down by the "world on his shoulders." As the space traveler, Jackman practiced the state of zen but also exhibited a continued persistence in his endeavor.
Jackman suggested that Aronofsky cast Rachel Weisz as his character's wife. The director, who was in a relationship with the actress, had originally hesitated to show the studio signs of favoritism in casting Weisz. With Jackman's earnest recommendation, the actress was cast as Izzi/Isabel. For her role, Weisz read books and first-person accounts about people who had terminal illnesses. The actress also visited hospitals to see young people who were dying and under hospice care. "There were a few days where I was in the headspace where I could say: 'I could go now'," said Weisz.
The Fountain also stars Ellen Burstyn as Dr. Lillian Guzetti, Tom's superior, and Mark Margolis as Father Avila, who accompanies Tomás the conquistador. Burstyn and Margolis appeared in Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, and the director wrote into the script roles for both of them. Sean Patrick Thomas, Donna Murphy, and Ethan Suplee were cast as assistants to Tom's lab work. Cliff Curtis was cast as Captain Ariel, a fellow conquistador, and Stephen McHattie was cast as Grand Inquisitor Silecio, a religious fanatic who threatens the Spanish queen. Seventy extras were cast as Maya warriors, including twenty who had actual Guatemala Mayan backgrounds. One of the twenty, a real-life spiritual leader, was cast as the Maya spiritual leader in the film.
### Design
The film's locations, with the exception of scenes filmed at a museum and at a farmhouse, were built on the Montreal sound stage. Production designer James Chinlund and his crew built sets for The Fountain in a large warehouse in Montreal. The sets included the 16th century jungle settings and the bubble-shaped spacecraft containing the tree of life and its garden. The spacecraft set was placed against greenscreen, and the crew hung colored reflective material, which included green, black, gold, and silver, on three circular tracks around the set. One material would be moved into place instead of the heavy equipment, and with the other materials partitioned off, a light source was used with the preferred material. Silver was used for scenes in which the spacecraft moved through the stars, and gold was used for when it entered the nebula.
In The Fountain, the Tree of Life was a central design and part of the film's three periods. The tree was based on Kabbalah's Sefirot, which depicts a "map" of creation to understand the nature of God and how he created the world ex nihilo (out of nothing). The Sefirot Tree, being two to three hundred feet tall in lore, had to be resized for The Fountain to fit in the camera's frame. Pieces of driftwood and pieces from real trees in Canada were collected for the tree's branches and roots, and sculpted molds of the pieces were applied to a steel frame to create the tree's body. According to production designer James Chinlund, the tree, part of an enormous set surrounded by green screens, and other sets presented difficult logistical problems because of the small budget given to the resurrected project. The tree set itself had been a collaboration between Chinlund, Aronofsky, and cinematographer Matthew Libatique to create the appropriate design, particularly the palette in comparison to the biospheric ship that carries the tree in the astronaut period. Aronofsky described the astronaut period as a homage to David Bowie's "Space Oddity"; the protagonist's name "Tom" originating from the Major Tom of the popular song. Co-writer Ari Handel researched biospherics, such as the Biosphere 2, to help design the ship that carried the protagonist and the tree through space. With respect to the glass-sphered ship's design, Aronofsky argued, "There is no reason a spaceship would be built like a giant truck in space."
Aronofsky and cinematographer Matthew Libatique also discussed using a limited palette of colors, an approach that started with Aronofsky's Pi and continued with Requiem for a Dream. In The Fountain, the primary colors are gold and white. Gold represents "the Mayans, a sort of fool's gold, a false truth"; Aronofsky explained the choice, "When you see gold, it represents materialism and wealth and all these things that distract us from the true journey that we're on." White was chosen to represent mortality and truth. Weisz's characters are white, and wear white or are enveloped in white light to accentuate this presentation. Secondary colors are green, representing the color of life, and red, representing death. The director also used similar geometric constructs in the film to distinguish the three storylines. The 16th century conquistador's tale reflected triangles through pyramids and constellations, the 21st century researcher's period reflected rectangles through doors, windows, and computer screens, and the 26th century contemplative's journey reflected circles and spheres through the spacecraft and stellar bodies.
### Filming and cinematography
Principal photography for The Fountain began on November 22, 2004 and wrapped up on February 23, 2005. Cinematographer Matthew Libatique, who worked with Aronofsky throughout the 1990s, shot The Fountain under Aronofsky's direction. Libatique prepared for over a year for The Fountain when Aronofsky tried to produce the film for the first time. When production restarted on a smaller budget, Libatique felt that the more budget-conscious approach resulted in a better film, "I think the streamlining of the film helped us tell the story more effectively. It's been stripped down to its core, to what it's really about: a search for immortality, when the truth of life is mortality."
Aronofsky planned to have a strong presentation of the thematic movement from darkness into light. He originally sought to show only a silhouette of the man until the second of the film's three acts, but he chose not to be so extreme, wanting to be more communicative to the audience. The movement was presented less aggressively in the film; Jackman's characters are seen in silhouette at the beginning, kept out of key light. In each of the three periods, the lighting on Jackman's characters is initially dim and gradually grows brighter as the storylines unfold. Meanwhile, Weisz's characters are frequently awash with light in the storylines. Libatique described the metaphoric change of the lighting on Jackman's characters, "We follow the arc of the Thomas character as he gets closer and closer to the truth."
Aronofsky preferred to use one camera whenever possible, only using a second camera if the scene was more about the setting and could be shot from two distinctly different axes. Libatique said Aronofsky preferred the eyeline match, "Darren is big on eyelines, and if you sacrifice an eyeline on an angle, he feels it nullifies the shot and de-emphasizes the performances." Aronofsky originally intended to have Jackman's characters always moving in an "unusual" left-to-right direction across the frame, but the plan was complicated by the spacecraft needing to move upward toward a light source.
### Visual effects
When production restarted in 2005, there was a more budget-conscious approach to filming The Fountain, whose original budget was mostly intended for visual effects. Libatique reflected, "Visual effects comprised of a lot of the budget in the original conception. The popcorn moments were in there to justify the budget and bring target audiences into the theater. Ultimately, I think the streamlining of the film helped us tell the story more effectively. It's been stripped down to the core, to what it's really about: a search for immortality, when the truth of life is mortality. I think at the end of the day, the theme of the film will be easier to feel."
To create a death scene, Aronofsky drew from Mayan mythology the description of flowers and butterflies emerging from the bodies of valiant warriors when they die. Aronofsky excluded butterflies from the death scene to minimize the film's computer-generated imagery but kept the effect of flowers bursting from the body.
Jeremy Dawson and Dan Schrecker, who had provided visual effects for Darren Aronofsky's π and Requiem for a Dream, returned to The Fountain to help the director with the film's effects. The pair was assigned the task of creating as little computer-generated imagery as possible, a difficult task with a third of the film taking place in deep space. Aronofsky chose to avoid effects that would make the film look dated in several decades but instead hold up as well as a film like 2001: A Space Odyssey. Dawson said, "Using CG is really the easy route because it's so prevalent and the tools are great. What it did was really force us to come up with creative solutions to solve a lot of our problems."
One creative solution was uncovering Peter Parks, a specialist in macro photography, who had retrieved deep-sea microorganisms and photographed them in 3-D under partial funding from the Bahamas government. Parks brewed chemicals and bacteria together to create reactions that Schrecker and Dawson shot, recording 20,000 feet worth of film over eight weeks. To create the effects, Peter Parks took advantage of fluid dynamics, which affected the behavior of the substances that he photographed. "When these images are projected on a big screen, you feel like you're looking at infinity. That's because the same forces at work in the water—gravitational effects, settlement, refractive indices—are happening in outer space," Parks said. The specialist's talent convinced the film's creative department to go beyond computer-generated imagery and follow Parks' lead. Instead of millions of dollars for a single special effects sequence, Parks generated all the footage for the film for just \$140,000.
The visual-effects company Look Effects worked on 87 shots for The Fountain that included major set extensions, digital mattes, image enhancement, face replacement and blemish removal, as well as animating key elements to the film's story. Henrik Fett, the visual effects supervisor of Look Effects, said, "Darren was quite clear on what he wanted and his intent to greatly minimize the use of computer graphics... [and] I think the results are outstanding."
### Music
Clint Mansell—the composer for Aronofsky's previous films Pi and Requiem for a Dream—reprised his role for The Fountain. The San Francisco-based string quartet Kronos Quartet—who previously performed for the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack—and Scottish post-rock band Mogwai also contributed to the film score. Mansell researched possible scores to compose one tying together the three storylines and sought to have an organic feeling to the score and explored implementing orchestral and electronic elements that would have "a real human element to them that breathes." While reading the script, Mansell was reminded of the post-rock music of Mogwai as well as Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Rós and initially planned a score based around percussion before adding the string quartet and choir. The soundtrack was released by Nonesuch Records in 2006 and received numerous award nominations.
## Marketing
When Warner Bros. shut down pre-production of The Fountain in 2002, Aronofsky reserved rights to publish a graphic novel based on the script that was not produced. He said, "I knew it was a hard film to make, and I said at least if Hollywood fucks me over at least I'll make a comic book out of it." He shopped the story to Vertigo Comics and met comic book artist Kent Williams, whose illustrations impressed him. Aronofsky hired Williams to create the graphic novel, and Ari Handel, co-writer for the film, provided Williams with research, photographs, and images on "Mayans, astronomy, pulsars, and all kinds of cool stuff" for the graphic novel's design. Aronofsky gave Williams the freedom to interpret the story as the artist saw fit.
The Fountain was originally scheduled to be released on October 13, 2006, but the film was delayed to create a "long-lead campaign" and generate anticipation via word of mouth. The release date was ultimately set for November 22, 2006. Aronofsky shared his screenplay with eleven artists: Phil Hale, Martin Wilner, Jason Shawn Alexander, Kostas Seremetis, Dave Gibbons, Barron Storey, James Jean, Jim Lee, Olivier Bramanti, Seth Fisher, and Bill Sienkiewicz. He invited them to interpret the screenplay in each one's chosen medium, and the interpretations were intended to be available on the film's website. Aronofsky also published a book about the film that contained production stills, the original script, original art, and observations by the film's creators. The content and research agency Ramp Industry launched The Fountain Remixed, an official website driven by user-generated content. Users could download freely provided audio parts from The Fountain'''s film score, remix the music, and upload the work onto the website to be evaluated by other users.
## Release
The film had its world premiere at the 63rd Venice Film Festival on September 2, 2006. Several critics booed The Fountain at the festival's press screening, while the film received a 10-minute standing ovation at the public screening the following evening. The Fountain was released in 1,472 theaters in the United States and Canada on November 22, 2006, a day before the American Thanksgiving holiday. The film earned \$3,768,702 in the U.S. and Canadian box office during the opening weekend of November 24. The Fountain earned \$10,144,010 in the United States and Canada, and \$5,761,344 in other territories. The film, which had a production budget of \$35 million, grossed \$15,978,422 in theaters worldwide. The box-office performance was considered a flop with the film only earning back 54% of its budget.
## Reception
` Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade C− on scale of A to F. Newsweek reported how people received the film: "Its supporters admire the film's beauty and daring; its detractors find it overblown and hokey."`
Michael Atkinson, writing for Sight & Sound, reviewed Aronofsky's endeavor: "It's difficult to recall another American film that, in pursuing a passionate and personal vision, goes so maddeningly, uproariously wrong." Atkinson said of the narrative, "The erratic and pointless leapfrogging between its storylines is torporific ... all three stories are assembled piecemeal, many of which repeat over and over as flashback and flashforwards." He complained of the numerous motifs, "It's difficult to swallow the amalgamation of Mayan, Biblical, Buddhist, Taoist and New Age iconography, all of it tossed as if into a stew." In contrast, Glenn Kenny of Premiere wrote of the film, "The Fountain is probably the deftest stories-within-stories narrative film I've seen ... By The Fountain's end, the multilayered meta-narrative... resolves (or does it?) into a kind of diegetic Möbius strip, to stunning effect." Kenny called the film "as demanding as it is dazzling" and compared Aronofsky's direction to Stanley Kubrick's "in terms of conceptual audacity and meticulousness of execution." He concluded, "It's a movie that's as deeply felt as it is imagined."
Anthony Lane, reviewing for The New Yorker, called The Fountain "a gorgeous nimbus of confusion." Lane complained about the film's up-close and far-away shots, "What fails to concern or attract Aronofsky is the place where most of us hang out—the in-between, the midshot of everyday existence." He summarized, "The movie may have significant truths to impart, although I have my doubts, but it feels too inexperienced, too unworldly, to have earned the right to them." Roger Ebert, who admired Aronofsky's previous films, conceded in the Chicago Sun-Times that The Fountain was "not a great success." He identified the film's problematic aspects: "too many screens of blinding lights," "too many transitions for their own sake," and "abrupt changes of tone." He believed that the scaling down of the film from Aronofsky's original ambition lost some elements and anticipated a director's cut truer to Aronofsky's vision.
In 2009, Aronofsky reflected on the reception of The Fountain:
> There are a lot of Fountain-haters out [at the Venice Film Festival]. The film's about the fact that it's OK that we die, and we should come to terms with it. But many, many people don't want to think about that, so why pay money for a meditation on losing someone you love? Everything about western culture denies that. It was pre-Obama, smack in the middle of Paris Hilton time. But there has been a serious turn now, people are starting to realise that the party's over, finally. So we can stop thinking about the culture of superficiality, start to remember there are other things going on.
In the book Positive Psychology at the Movies: Using Films to Build Virtues and Character Strengths, Ryan M. Niemiec and Danny Wedding cite the film as one which depicts the development of perspective. "[Jackman's character's] denial and work addiction are obstacles to the development of the strength of perspective, but he is able to confront those obstacles as he develops acceptances and wisdom, represented by themes drawn from both Buddhism (meditation, rebirth, reincarnation) and Christianity (eternal life, faith, and love)."
In 2016, it was listed as number 484 on Empire's 500 Greatest films of all time.
### Home media
The Fountain was released on DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray in the United States on May 15, 2007. The included extras were the theatrical trailer and a six-part featurette gallery about the film's periods and settings. Aronofsky was disappointed with the limited extras available on home video. He reported that Warner Bros. did not want to have the director record a commentary track because it felt the commentary would not help sales. He hoped to petition for the film to be re-released in the Criterion Collection with extras that were not made available on the initial media. Aronofsky recorded a commentary track on his own and made the track available on his personal website. In December 2008, he expressed interest in reassembling The Fountain'', not as a director's cut, but as an alternate story that combined theatrical footage and unused footage. |
3,928,003 | Normal Is the Watchword | 1,161,300,463 | null | [
"2005 American television episodes",
"Veronica Mars (season 2) episodes"
]
| "Normal Is the Watchword" is the season premiere of the second season of the American mystery television series Veronica Mars, and the twenty-third episode overall. Written by series creator Rob Thomas and directed by John Kretchmer, the episode premiered on UPN on September 28, 2005.
The series depicts the adventures of Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) as she deals with life as a high school student while moonlighting as a private detective. In this episode, Veronica reveals the events that transpired over the summer after the resolution of the murder of Lilly Kane (Amanda Seyfried). Meanwhile, Veronica investigates a scam involving students' forged drug tests, and a school bus mysteriously goes off a cliff.
"Normal Is the Watchword" featured several casting changes to the show, including the introduction of Kendall (Charisma Carpenter) and Gia (Krysten Ritter), as well as the promotion of three actors to series regular status. The episode received mostly positive reviews, and Thomas was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for his writing.
## Synopsis
One day before senior year, Veronica is working a job at a restaurant. Soon, a boy named Kelvin (Charles Duckworth) comes into the restaurant and says that he failed his drug test, even though he has been clean for ten months. Veronica sees an interview with her father, Keith (Enrico Colantoni), on TV, and it is revealed that he wrote a book about the Lilly Kane case. The episode then flashes back to the romantic cliffhanger at the end of season one, and it is revealed that Logan was at the door. Logan reveals that the biker gang beat him up after he kicked Weevil (Francis Capra) in the face. Although he woke up with a knife and found one of the gang members was stabbed, Logan tells Veronica that he did not stab the gang member, and Veronica believes him. However, Leo (Max Greenfield) comes and arrests Logan. Wallace (Percy Daggs III) says that he and Meg (Alona Tal) also failed their drug test. Wallace informs Veronica about the details of the drug test, and the episode flashes back to show the details of Veronica and Logan starting to date over the summer. Veronica talks to all the students who were framed in the drug test, and they all say some people might want to harm them. Veronica has become estranged from Meg, and Veronica reveals that Logan was released from prison soon after he was arrested.
Veronica connects the five people who were framed to an incident where a student was publicly harassed in gym class. Keith is still dating Alicia Fennel (Erica Gimpel). Veronica and Wallace spend the night investigating students, and Veronica eventually deduces that Wallace ingested a small amount of an illegal substance, most likely in a gift basket earlier that year. In a flashback, Veronica and Logan make out in the car until the PCH bikers shoot out the car's windows. Veronica conducts a drug test on Wallace and finds that he's clean, which rules out the possibility that his food was spiked.
Veronica asks Keith for help in finding out the names of a company's shareholders, and discovers that the parents of the second-string athletes who have been promoted to starting positions as a result of the failed drug tests are all shareholders in the trading company. Veronica believes that one of the lab assistants was paid off to forge the results. The previous summer, Logan was involved with an arson crime. Logan sunbathes with Dick (Ryan Hansen) and Beaver (Kyle Gallner) poolside, and they ogle at the brothers' stepmother, Kendall Casablancas (Charisma Carpenter). Veronica sets up the parents and has Principal Clemmons listen in, and it is revealed that Duncan is now dating Veronica. In a flashback, Veronica breaks up with Logan. When Logan starts to get angry, Keith barges in and makes him leave. Logan is carrying on a relationship with Kendall.
On a field trip, Veronica meets Gia (Krysten Ritter). Dick arranges a limo ride home for the O-niners, but Veronica and Meg decline and take the school bus. During the ride home, Veronica talks to Meg one more time, but she is still passive-aggressive. Veronica explains to the audience that she and Duncan are dating. At a rest stop, Veronica sees Weevil and they debate about the stabbed gang member. Meanwhile, Veronica's bus drives away without her. Instead, Weevil takes Veronica on his motorcycle before they run across the limo with Duncan, Gia, and the other O-niners in it. They tell Veronica that the field trip bus full of students drove off the cliff and into the sea, and they look over at the crashed bus.
## Production
When it was renewed for a second season, Veronica Mars became the lowest-rated show in network history to be renewed and the only UPN drama from the 2004-05 television season to be renewed. Starting in the second season, Veronica Mars was moved to Wednesday nights, placing it in direct competition with ABC's popular Lost. Rob Thomas said that, "I wish the juggernaut that is Lost wasn't our direct competition." At the same time, Veronica Mars was placed after UPN's America's Next Top Model. On the date of the airing of this episode, Bell and Thomas talked to The New York Times, where Thomas commented, "We let Veronica say things that, if you get all day to think about it, would be the perfect retort."
The episode was originally titled "Urine Trouble", a joking pun on "You're in trouble." The episode's title refers to a phrase said by both Veronica and Wallace, indicating that things are supposedly "normal," though they are not. The episode was written by series creator Rob Thomas and directed by John T. Kretchmer. This episode marks Thomas's fourth writing credit for the series (after "Pilot", "Credit Where Credit's Due", and "Leave It to Beaver") and Kretchmer's fourth directing credit for the series. In the episode, Logan mentions that producers wanted Tara Reid to play Trina Echolls (Alyson Hannigan) in casting for the film adaptation of the Echolls' story. During casting of the role of Trina, Reid was actually almost cast in the part.
In the episode, Logan makes an obscene hand gesture known as the shocker, something that the UPN censors did not notice. Before the filming of "Normal Is the Watchword", Rob Thomas informed actor Teddy Dunn, who played Duncan Kane, that he was planning to remove the character from the show. Dunn has said that he was not too upset by the news, as he almost did not return for the season at all. On his role in the season, Dunn stated, "And so I knew going in that I had a finite amount of episodes, so it was like any other job. It was week-to-week and then I went on my merry way."
The episode features a brief cameo by Julie Chen, wife of UPN executive Leslie Moonves. The cast members did not know important plot information before they received the script for the episode, including who was at Veronica's door and that Veronica and Duncan would resume dating. "Ashes" by Embrace plays during the bus crash scene.
### Casting
"Normal Is the Watchword" introduces several new characters and series regulars to the show. On casting the new season, Thomas explained that he "conceive[d] the show as a one-year mystery" and decided that he needed to introduce and eliminate several characters to be able to create an "equally fascinating mystery" for the series' second season. Thomas felt that he could not bring back the Kanes and the Echolls and "have them all involved in a new mystery"; he needed "new blood". In the opening credits, three new actors are given star billing. Two of these actors, Ryan Hansen as Dick Casablancas and Kyle Gallner as Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas, served as recurring characters in the show's first season. In addition, this episode marks the first credit of Jackie Cook, played by Tessa Thompson, despite the fact that she does not appear in the episode.
Several important recurring characters of the show's second season are also introduced in "Normal Is the Watchword." Kendall Casablancas, portrayed by Charisma Carpenter, best known for her role as Cordelia Chase on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel makes her first appearance in the episode. During casting, Heather Graham was considered for the role. However, Graham was filming Emily's Reasons Why Not. Carpenter said that she wanted to play the role because "the name is really spectacular." The episode also introduces the character of Gia Goodman, played by Krysten Ritter, who would later become known for her roles in Breaking Bad, Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23, and Jessica Jones. Ritter would reprise her role in the film continuation of Veronica Mars and called her role on the series "her first big acting job." Ritter was a fan of Veronica Mars before her role on the show, and she unsuccessfully auditioned for a guest role in the first season. However, the producers enjoyed Ritter's performance, so they told her that she "would be on the show at some point."
## Reception
### Ratings
In its original broadcast, "Normal Is the Watchword" garnered 3.29 million viewers and ranked 97th out of 112 in the weekly rankings. This was an increase over both the previous season's finale, "Leave It to Beaver", which received 2.99 million viewers, and the previous season premiere (the pilot episode), which garnered 2.49 million viewers. At the time, the episode was the highest-rated episode of Veronica Mars in the show's history. However, this ratings high would be surpassed by "One Angry Veronica".
### Reviews
The episode received positive reviews. Rowan Kaiser, writing for The A.V. Club, gave a glowing review, saying that it had all the components that a season premiere should have. After praising many aspects of the episode, the reviewer wrote, "What ties it all together, though, is a storytelling form that indicates complete confidence from the show about what its viewers can deal with. It's half present-day, half-flashback. But the two different halves, combined with Veronica's voiceover, combine to present the information in pleasantly deceptive fashion."
Price Peterson of TV.com also gave a positive review, writing in his episode verdict that "It's frankly amazing how much information this episode packed into 42 minutes while still feeling breezy and funny...The episode also ended with that breathtakingly horrifying ending, a multiple-death shocker that served to remind me just how murder-lite Season 1 was." Television Without Pity gave the episode a "B+". Alan Sepinwall wrote that the season premiere was "a little heavy on the exposition" while also commenting that the same could be said about the pilot episode. Sepinwall went on to state, "I'm really enjoying all the new storylines and characters."
Cynthia Fuchs of PopMatters, gave a positive review, noting the various new storylines and how the characters, especially Veronica, handled this new set of events. "Like most adolescents, Veronica understands and anticipates this mix, even if she doesn't always deal with it in the most effective way. Even if you don't want to pick sides, you're bound to be assessed as having done so. And once you're labeled—09er or not—you can either spend your time fighting rumors or finding alternative measures. Veronica, so precociously and brilliantly aware of alternatives, makes this familiar process seem worth pondering one more time."
BuzzFeed ranked the episode 23rd on its ranking of Veronica Mars episodes, writing "take a close look at this episode; all the answers are right there." On a similar list, TVLine ranked the episode 18th, writing that it was notable for its introduction of characters and the bus crash plot line.
### Accolades
For his work on the episode, Rob Thomas received a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for Best Episodic Drama. However, Thomas lost at the Writers Guild of America Awards 2005 to Lawrence Kaplow for the House episode "Autopsy". |
36,736,357 | The Power of Three (Doctor Who) | 1,137,321,039 | null | [
"2012 British television episodes",
"Doctor Who stories set on Earth",
"Eleventh Doctor episodes",
"Television episodes set in hospitals",
"Television episodes set in the United Kingdom",
"Television episodes written by Chris Chibnall",
"UNIT serials"
]
| "The Power of Three" is the fourth episode of the seventh series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who that aired on BBC One and BBC One HD on 22 September 2012. It was written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Douglas Mackinnon.
In the episode, alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) spends time on Earth with his travelling companions Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and her husband Rory (Arthur Darvill) while he awaits activity from millions of small cubes that appeared overnight.
"The Power of Three" focused on Amy and Rory's point of view and the impact of the Doctor's influence on their lives, as they would be leaving in the next episode. The story was inspired by The Man Who Came to Dinner and the story of the MSC Napoli. The episode also saw the return of UNIT and introduced their new scientific advisor, Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), daughter of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The episode featured brief cameo appearances by Lord Sugar and professor Brian Cox. Despite being the penultimate episode in the first block of the series, "The Power of Three" was the last to be filmed, and was thus the last episode for Gillan and Darvill.
The episode was watched by 7.67 million viewers in the UK. Critical reception to the episode was generally positive, highlighting the emotion and humour, although many critics derided the solution to the plot.
## Plot
Amy and Rory adjust to normal life without travelling with the Eleventh Doctor. One day, billions of small black cubes appear across the globe. The Doctor arrives and he, Amy and Rory are taken to UNIT headquarters, where UNIT's head, Kate Stewart, explains that they have not been able to analyse the cubes' function. The Doctor waits with Amy and Rory for several days to monitor the situation, and gets to know Rory's father, Brian. The Doctor deems the cubes harmless and departs, but instructs Brian to keep watch.
A year passes, with Amy and Rory periodically travelling with the Doctor. Brian, after observing Amy and Rory returning from one trip, asks the Doctor what has happened to his past companions. The Doctor tells some had met a sad fate but he will not let that happen to Amy or Rory. Humanity forgets about the cubes, using them as paperweights or other functions.
A year after their arrival, the cubes start to activate, scanning information networks and act in self-defence. The Doctor fears this was a "slow invasion", and goes with Amy to UNIT while Rory and Brian help at the hospital. All the cubes are now showing the same countdown timer. When they reach zero, the cubes open, but appear empty; however, massive numbers of cardiac arrest cases are reported, killing about a third of humanity. Kate finds the boxes emitted a signal traced to seven sites across the globe, including the hospital Rory works at.
At the hospital, Brian has been taken to a service lift by two orderlies. Rory follows them and discovers the back of it masks a portal to a ship in Earth's orbit. The Doctor and Amy arrive, discover the portal, and join Rory as he frees Brian. The Doctor is confronted by a hologram of a Shakri, who, according to Gallifreyan legend, were self-appointed "pest controllers" in the universe. The Shakri released the cubes to Earth to wipe out humanity and prepare to send out more, but the Doctor reverses the cubes' function, sending a signal that brings those harmed back to life. Feedback from this causes the ship to explode, though the four escape safely.
As Earth recovers, the Doctor prepares to leave alone, but Brian insists he take Amy and Rory on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure, asking "just bring them back safe".
### Continuity
The Doctor tells Brian that a few of his previous companions have died; this is a reference to Sara Kingdom, Katarina, and Adric. At one point, the Doctor, Amy, and Rory relax and eat fish fingers and custard, a reference to "The Eleventh Hour". While this leads Brian to tell the Doctor to "just bring them back safe" at the end of this episode, the Doctor (and therefore Brian) will lose contact with Amy and Rory forever in the next episode. Amy and Rory's meal at the newly opened Savoy hotel is ruined by "a Zygon spaceship parked under the Savoy"; the Zygons previously featured in the Fourth Doctor serial Terror of the Zygons (1975) and would appear again in the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor" (2013). The Tower of London had previously served as a UNIT base in "The Christmas Invasion" and was mentioned as such in "The Sontaran Stratagem". The Doctor also mentions having a metallic dog that could hover; this refers to K9, the robotic dog of the Fourth Doctor.
## Production
The episode's title was originally reported as "Cubed", but was later announced as "The Power of Three". Chris Chibnall had previously written the Doctor Who episodes "42" (2007), "The Hungry Earth"/"Cold Blood" (2010), and the second episode of the seventh series, "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship". He was also a major contributor to the spinoff series Torchwood. Chibnall described "The Power of Three" as "a lovely big Earth invasion story" but different from the ones done before, as it focused on Amy and Rory's time with the Doctor and the impact of him on their lives. He stated it is told more from Amy and Rory's point of view than ever before, and is about celebrating them before they leave in the following episode. Chibnall's brief from showrunner Steven Moffat was to "live with the Doctor — The Man Who Came to Dinner, Doctor Who style." Chibnall was also inspired by the story of the MSC Napoli. Matt Smith put disgust into the Doctor's remark concerning Twitter in the episode, reflecting his real-life decision to stay off the social network.
At Chibnall's request, "The Power of Three" sees the return of UNIT, which first appeared in The Invasion (1968) and became a regular feature during the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) era. The episode reveals that Kate Stewart is now running UNIT; she is the daughter of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and previously appeared in the Reeltime Pictures direct-to-video films Downtime and Dæmos Rising played by Beverley Cressman. Following the death of actor Nicholas Courtney in early 2011, the Doctor learned of the Brigadier's death in the sixth series finale "The Wedding of River Song". Matt Smith enjoyed working with Jemma Redgrave, describing her as "graceful, funny and charming and an absolute delight".
The read-through of "The Power of Three" took place at Roath Lock, Cardiff on 27 April 2012. It was filmed by itself in the series' third production block. Because of this schedule, it was the final episode Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill filmed as Amy and Rory. Their last scene filmed together was getting into the TARDIS with the Doctor after saying farewell to Brian; when the doors closed Gillan, Darvill, and Smith hugged and started crying. Some exterior scenes at Amy and Rory's house were re-shot in June and July 2012, with Darvill briefly returning for the June re-shoot. Producer Marcus Wilson stated that a "hundred" individual cube props were made, with "many more" added with computer-generated imagery (CGI). Amy and the Doctor's conversation outside the Tower of London could not be filmed at the genuine location due to the London Olympics, so it was shot on studio in Cardiff and the live action was combined with other footage to create the illusion. The episode also features cameos from physicist Brian Cox and Lord Sugar, both of whom were long-time fans of the program. Sugar's cameo was in fact filmed on the set of The Apprentice, with director Douglas Mackinnon standing in for the person who was fired.
## Broadcast and reception
"The Power of Three" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One and BBC One HD on 22 September 2012. Overnight ratings showed that it was watched by an audience of 5.49 million live. The final consolidated rating rose to 7.67 million viewers, making it the thirteenth most-watched programme of the week on British television, and the fifth highest rated on BBC One. The episode also received 1.3 million requests on BBC's online iPlayer, placing it fourth for the month on the site behind the first three episodes of the series. It also received an Appreciation Index of 87, considered "excellent".
### Critical reception
"The Power of Three" received generally positive reviews. Dan Martin of The Guardian stated he "bloody loved" the episode, calling it "a nostalgic run through all the best bits of the Russell T Davies era". However, he noted that it "also had the weaknesses of some of [Davies'] adventures – the ending was so underdeveloped that even a magic button couldn't explain it – but 'The Power of Three' was, in every sense, completely gorgeous". Neela Debnath, writing for The Independent, praised the way the episode showed the companion's life outside the TARDIS and celebrated Amy and Rory, as well as the introduction of Kate Stewart and her connection with the Brigadier.
Radio Times reviewer Patrick Mulkern described it as "beautifully made television" and welcomed Kate as a "wonderful addition". However, he stated that he did not "entirely buy the Doctor's solution". Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club graded the episode as a B+. Despite noting the plot was "fairly standard" and "easily foiled", he wrote that the concept of the cubes and "slow invasion" was "a cleverly executed bit of business". IGN's Matt Risley rated "The Power of Three" a score of 8 out of 10, writing that the first three quarters were "simply brilliant" because of the emotion and humour. However, he criticised the "rushed resolution" and the lack of explanation for the aliens at the hospital. Digital Spy reviewer Morgan Jeffery gave the episode four out of five stars, describing it as "an emotional, fun and involving Doctor Who episode" despite the disappointing resolution.
Russell Lewin of SFX gave the episode three and a half out of five stars, naming it as Chibnall's best Doctor Who episode. While he noted that "the ending was potentially always going to be a let down...And it is", there was "much to enjoy beforehand" such as UNIT and the humour. The Daily Telegraph reviewer Gavin Fuller gave it a score of two and a half out of five stars, feeling that it was "treading water" as a lead-in to the following finale. He described the first twenty minutes as "overpadded" and "heavy on exposition but little else", and pointed out the unexplained action at Rory's hospital. However, he enjoyed Amy and the Doctor's conversation and the "countdown element and the mystery of the cubes", but found the explanation unoriginal and the conclusion too easy. |
1,301,827 | Last universal common ancestor | 1,171,185,666 | Most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth | [
"Events in biological evolution",
"Evolutionary biology",
"Genetic genealogy",
"Hypothetical life forms",
"Last common ancestors",
"Origin of life",
"Phylogenetics"
]
| The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is the most recent population from which all organisms now living on Earth share common descent—the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth. This includes all cellular organisms, but not necessarily viruses. The LUCA is not the first life on Earth; it may have lived among a diversity of other organisms whose descendants all died out. Rather LUCA is the most recent form from which all surviving life on Earth is descended.
While no specific fossil evidence of the LUCA exists, the detailed biochemical similarity of all current life makes it plausible. Its characteristics can be inferred from shared features of modern genomes. These genes describe a complex life form with many co-adapted features, including transcription and translation mechanisms to convert information from DNA to mRNA to proteins. The LUCA probably lived in the high-temperature water of deep sea vents near ocean-floor magma flows around 4 billion years ago.
## Historical background
A phylogenetic tree directly portrays the idea of evolution by descent from a single ancestor. An early tree of life was sketched by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in his Philosophie zoologique in 1809. Charles Darwin more famously proposed the theory of universal common descent through an evolutionary process in his book On the Origin of Species in 1859: "Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed." The last sentence of the book begins with a restatement of the hypothesis:
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one ..."
The term "last universal common ancestor" or "LUCA" was first used in the 1990s for such a primordial organism.
## Inferring LUCA's features
### An anaerobic thermophile
In 2016, Madeline C. Weiss and colleagues genetically analyzed 6.1 million protein-coding genes and 286,514 protein clusters from sequenced prokaryotic genomes representing many phylogenetic trees, and identified 355 protein clusters that were probably common to the LUCA. The results "depict LUCA as anaerobic, CO<sub>2</sub>-fixing, H<sub>2</sub>-dependent with a Wood–Ljungdahl pathway (the reductive acetyl-coenzyme A pathway), N<sub>2</sub>-fixing and thermophilic. LUCA's biochemistry was replete with FeS clusters and radical reaction mechanisms." The cofactors also reveal "dependence upon transition metals, flavins, S-adenosyl methionine, coenzyme A, ferredoxin, molybdopterin, corrins and selenium. Its genetic code required nucleoside modifications and S-adenosylmethionine-dependent methylations." The results are rather specific: they show that methanogenic clostridia was basal, near the root of the phylogenetic tree, in the 355 protein lineages examined, and that the LUCA may therefore have inhabited an anaerobic hydrothermal vent setting in a geochemically active environment rich in H<sub>2</sub>, CO<sub>2</sub>, and iron, where ocean water interacted with hot magma beneath the ocean floor. It's even inferred that LUCA also grew from H<sub>2</sub> and CO<sub>2</sub> via the reverse incomplete Krebs cycle. Other metabolic pathways inferred in LUCA are the pentose phosphate pathway, glycolysis, and gluconeogenesis.
While the gross anatomy of the LUCA can only be reconstructed with much uncertainty, its biochemical mechanisms can be described in some detail, based on the "universal" properties currently shared by all independently living organisms on Earth.
The LUCA certainly had genes and a genetic code. Its genetic material was most likely DNA, so that it lived after the RNA world. The DNA was kept double-stranded by an enzyme, DNA polymerase, which recognises the structure and directionality of DNA. The integrity of the DNA was maintained by a group of repair enzymes including DNA topoisomerase. If the genetic code was based on dual-stranded DNA, it was expressed by copying the information to single-stranded RNA. The RNA was produced by a DNA-dependent RNA polymerase using nucleotides similar to those of DNA. It had multiple DNA-binding proteins, such as histone-fold proteins. The genetic code was expressed into proteins. These were assembled from 20 free amino acids by translation of a messenger RNA via a mechanism of ribosomes, transfer RNAs, and a group of related proteins.
The LUCA was likely capable of sexual interaction in the sense that adaptive gene functions were present that promoted the transfer of DNA between individuals of the population to facilitate genetic recombination. Homologous gene products that promote genetic recombination are present in bacteria, archaea and eukaryota, such as the RecA protein in bacteria, the RadA protein in archaea, and the Rad51 and Dmc1 proteins in eukaryota.
As for the cell's gross structure, it contained a water-based cytoplasm effectively enclosed by a lipid bilayer membrane; it was capable of reproducing by cell division. It tended to exclude sodium and concentrate potassium by means of specific ion transporters (or ion pumps). The cell multiplied by duplicating all its contents followed by cellular division. The cell used chemiosmosis to produce energy. It also reduced CO<sub>2</sub> and oxidized H<sub>2</sub> (methanogenesis or acetogenesis) via acetyl-thioesters.
By phylogenetic bracketing, analysis of the presumed LUCA's offspring groups, LUCA appears to have been a small, single-celled organism. It likely had a ring-shaped coil of DNA floating freely within the cell. Morphologically, it would likely not have stood out within a mixed population of small modern-day bacteria. The originator of the three-domain system, Carl Woese, stated that in its genetic machinery, the LUCA would have been a "simpler, more rudimentary entity than the individual ancestors that spawned the three [domains] (and their descendants)".
An alternative to the search for "universal" traits is to use genome analysis to identify phylogenetically ancient genes. This gives a picture of a LUCA that could live in a geochemically harsh environment and is like modern prokaryotes. Analysis of biochemical pathways implies the same sort of chemistry as does phylogenetic analysis. Weiss and colleagues write that "Experiments ... demonstrate that ... acetyl-CoA pathway [chemicals used in anaerobic respiration] formate, methanol, acetyl moieties, and even pyruvate arise spontaneously ... from CO<sub>2</sub>, native metals, and water", a combination present in hydrothermal vents.
An experiment shows that Zn<sup>2+</sup>, Cr<sup>3+</sup>, and Fe can promote 6 of the 11 reactions of an ancient anabolic pathway called the reverse Krebs cycle in acidic conditions which implies that LUCA might have inhabited either hydrothermal vents or acidic metal-rich hydrothermal fields.
Because both bacteria and archaea have differences in the structure of phospholipids and cell wall, ion pumping, most proteins involved in DNA replication, and glycolysis, it is inferred that LUCA had a permeable membrane without an ion pump. The emergence of Na<sup>+</sup>/H<sup>+</sup> antiporters likely lead to the evolution of impermeable membranes present in eukaryotes, archaea, and bacteria. It's stated that "The late and independent evolution of glycolysis but not gluconeogenesis is entirely consistent with LUCA being powered by natural proton gradients across leaky membranes. Several discordant traits are likely to be linked to the late evolution of cell membranes, notably the cell wall, whose synthesis depends on the membrane and DNA replication". Although LUCA likely had DNA, it is unknown if it could replicate DNA and is suggested to "might just have been a chemically stable repository for RNA-based replication". It is likely that the permeable membrane of LUCA was composed of archaeal lipids (isoprenoids) and bacterial lipids (fatty acids). Isoprenoids would have enhanced stabilization of LUCA's membrane in the surrounding extreme habitat. Nick Lane and coauthors state that "The advantages and disadvantages of incorporating isoprenoids into cell membranes in different microenvironments may have driven membrane divergence, with the later biosynthesis of phospholipids giving rise to the unique G1P and G3P headgroups of archaea and bacteria respectively. If so, the properties conferred by membrane isoprenoids place the lipid divide as early as the origin of life".
### Alternative interpretations
Some other researchers have challenged Weiss et al.'s 2016 conclusions. Sarah Berkemer and Shawn McGlynn argue that Weiss et al. undersampled the families of proteins, so that the phylogenetic trees were not complete and failed to describe the evolution of proteins correctly. A phylogenomic and geochemical analysis of a set of proteins that probably traced to the LUCA show that it had K<sup>+</sup>-dependent GTPases and the ionic composition and concentration of its intracellular fluid was seemingly high K<sup>+</sup>/Na<sup>+</sup> ratio, NH<sup>+</sup>
<sub>4</sub>, Fe<sup>2+</sup>, CO<sup>2+</sup>, Ni<sup>2+</sup>, Mg<sup>2+</sup>, Mn<sup>2+</sup>, Zn<sup>2+</sup>, pyrophosphate, and PO<sup>3−</sup>
<sub>4</sub> which would imply a terrestrial hot spring habitat. It possibly had a phosphate-based metabolism. Further, these proteins were unrelated to autotrophy (the ability of an organism to create its own organic matter), suggesting that the LUCA had a heterotrophic lifestyle (consuming organic matter) and that its growth was dependent on organic matter produced by the physical environment. Nick Lane argues that Na<sup>+</sup>/H<sup>+</sup> antiporters could readily explain the low concentration of Na<sup>+</sup> in the LUCA and its descendants. The emergence of LUCA in a terrestrial habitat is stated to not be possible to have occurred due to the ultraviolet irradiation and the Late Heavy Bombardment at the early Earth.
The identification of thermophilic genes in the LUCA has also been criticized, as they may instead represent genes that evolved later in archaea or bacteria, then migrated between these via horizontal gene transfers, as in Woese's 1998 hypothesis. LUCA being a mesophile that relied on H<sub>2</sub> and fixed CO<sub>2</sub> isn't incompatible with it inhabiting close to hydrothermal vents. Further, the presence of the energy-handling enzymes CODH/acetyl-coenzyme A synthase in LUCA could be compatible not only with being an autotroph but also with life as a mixotroph or heterotroph. Weiss et al. 2018 reply that no enzyme defines a trophic lifestyle, and that heterotrophs evolved from autotrophs.
## Age
Studies from 2000 to 2018 have suggested an increasingly ancient time for the LUCA. In 2000, estimates of the LUCA's age ranged from 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago in the Paleoarchean, a few hundred million years before the earliest fossil evidence of life, for which candidates range in age from 3.48 to 4.28 billion years ago. This placed the LUCA shortly after the Late Heavy Asteroid Bombardment which was thought to have repeatedly sterilized Earth's surface. However, a 2018 study from the University of Bristol, applying a molecular clock model, found that the data (102 species, 29 common protein-coding genes, mostly ribosomal) is compatible only with LUCA as early as within 0.001–0.043 billion years of the maximum possible age given by the Earth-sterilizing Moon-forming event about 4.5 billion years ago.
## Root of the tree of life
The most commonly accepted tree of life, based on several molecular studies, has its root between a monophyletic domain Bacteria and a clade formed by Archaea and Eukaryota. A small minority of studies place the root in the domain bacteria, in the phylum Bacillota, or state that the phylum Chloroflexota (formerly Chloroflexi) is basal to a clade with Archaea and Eukaryotes and the rest of bacteria (as proposed by Thomas Cavalier-Smith). Recent genomic analyses recover a two-domain system with the domains Archaea and Bacteria; in this view of the tree of life, Eukaryotes are derived from Archaea.
With the later gene pool of the LUCA's descendants, sharing a common framework of the AT/GC rule and the standard twenty amino acids, horizontal gene transfer would have become feasible and could have been common. In 1998, Carl Woese proposed that no individual organism could be considered a LUCA, and that the genetic heritage of all modern organisms derived through horizontal gene transfer among an ancient community of organisms. Other authors concur that there was a "complex collective genome" at the time of the LUCA, and that horizontal gene transfer was important in the evolution of later groups; Nicolas Glansdorff states that "Of course, LUCA was not living alone at that time (as the African Eve herself) but among many other organisms that have no descendants today." In 2010, based on "the vast array of molecular sequences now available from all domains of life," a "formal test" of universal common ancestry was published. The formal test favored the existence of a universal common ancestor over a wide class of alternative hypotheses that included horizontal gene transfer. Basic biochemical principles make it overwhelmingly likely that all organisms do have a single common ancestor. While the test overwhelmingly favored the existence of a single LUCA, this does not imply that the LUCA was ever alone: Instead, it was the only cell whose descendants survived beyond the Paleoarchean, outcompeting all others.
## LUCA's viruses
Based on how viruses are currently distributed across the bacteria and archaea, the LUCA may well have been prey to multiple viruses, ancestral to those that now have those two domains as their hosts. Furthermore, extensive virus evolution seems to have preceded the LUCA, since the jelly-roll structure of capsid proteins is shared by RNA and DNA viruses across all three domains of life. LUCA's viruses were probably mainly dsDNA viruses in the groups called Duplodnaviria and Varidnaviria. Two other single-stranded DNA virus groups within the Monodnaviria, the Microviridae and the Tubulavirales, likely infected the last bacterial common ancestor. The last archaeal common ancestor was probably host to spindle-shaped viruses. All of these could well have affected the LUCA, in which case each must since have been lost in the host domain where it is no longer extant. By contrast, RNA viruses do not appear to have been important parasites of LUCA, even though straightforward thinking might have envisaged viruses as beginning with RNA viruses directly derived from an RNA world. Instead, by the time the LUCA lived, RNA viruses had probably already been out-competed by DNA viruses.
## See also
- Darwinian threshold – Transition period during the evolution of the first cells
- Last eukaryotic common ancestor – the last common ancestor of animals, plants, and fungi |
22,319,408 | Oskar Gröning | 1,169,272,394 | Accountant in Auschwitz (1921–2018) | [
"1921 births",
"2018 deaths",
"20th-century German criminals",
"Auschwitz concentration camp personnel",
"Criminals from Lower Saxony",
"German prisoners of war in World War II held by the United Kingdom",
"Hitler Youth members",
"Holocaust denial",
"Holocaust trials",
"People from Nienburg, Lower Saxony",
"SS non-commissioned officers",
"Waffen-SS personnel"
]
| Oskar Gröning (10 June 1921 – 9 March 2018) was a German SS Unterscharführer who was stationed at the Auschwitz concentration camp. His responsibilities included counting and sorting the money taken from prisoners, and he was in charge of the personal property of arriving prisoners. On a few occasions he witnessed the procedures of mass killing in the camp. After being transferred from Auschwitz to a combat unit in October 1944, Gröning surrendered to the British at the end of the war; his role in the SS was not discovered. He was eventually transferred to the UK as a prisoner of war and worked as a farm labourer.
Upon his return to Germany, he led a normal life, reluctant to talk about his time in Auschwitz. However, more than 40 years later, after learning about Holocaust denial, he decided to make public his activities at Auschwitz. He openly criticised those who denied the events that he had witnessed and the ideology to which he had subscribed. Gröning was notable as a German willing to make public statements about his experience as an SS soldier, which were self-incriminating and which exposed his life to public scrutiny. In particular, he confessed to stealing jewellery and money from gas chamber victims for his personal benefit.
In September 2014, Gröning was charged by German prosecutors as an accessory to murder in 300,000 cases, for his role at the Auschwitz concentration camp. His trial began in April 2015, after the court had ruled that, at the age of 93, he was still fit to stand trial. The trial was held in Lüneburg, Germany. On 15 July 2015, he was found guilty of knowingly facilitating mass murder and sentenced to four years' imprisonment. Following a number of unsuccessful appeals against the prison sentence, Gröning died on 9 March 2018 while hospitalized before he was set to begin his sentence.
## Early life and education
Gröning was born in June 1921, in Lower Saxony, the son of a skilled textile worker. His mother died when he was four. His father, a nationalist and strict conservative, joined Der Stahlhelm after Germany's defeat in the First World War (during which his father had lost an eye), and his father's anger at how Germany had been treated following the Treaty of Versailles increased as his textile business went bankrupt in 1929 due to insufficient capital.
Gröning stated that his childhood had been one of "discipline, obedience and authority". Gröning was fascinated by military uniforms, and one of his earliest memories was of looking at photos of his grandfather, who served in an elite regiment of the Duchy of Brunswick, on his horse and playing his trumpet. He told Der Spiegel in 2005, that as a child, he played marbles in the street with Anne Selig, the daughter of a Jewish ironmonger whose store was next to his home. When Nazi stormtroopers held up a sign outside the shop saying, "Germans, do not buy from Jews," he said, he was unmoved. He joined the Scharnhorst (the Stahlhelm's youth organisation) as a small boy in the 1930s, and later the Hitler Youth when the Nazis came to power in 1933. Influenced by his family's values, he felt that Nazism was advantageous to Germany and believed that the Nazis "were the people who wanted the best for Germany and who did something about it." He participated in the burning of books written by Jews and other authors that the Nazis considered degenerate in the belief that he was helping Germany free itself from an alien culture, and considered that National Socialism was having a positive effect on the economy, pointing to lower unemployment.
Gröning left school with high marks and began a traineeship as a bank clerk when he was 17, but war was declared in 1939 shortly after he started employment, and eight of the twenty clerks present were immediately conscripted into the army. This allowed the remaining trainees to further their banking careers in a relatively short time; however, despite these opportunities, Gröning and his colleagues were inspired by Germany's quick victories in France and Poland and wanted to contribute.
## SS career
Gröning wanted to join an elite army unit and set his sights on joining the Schutzstaffel. Without his father's knowledge, he did so in 1940 at a hotel where the SS was recruiting. Gröning said that his father was disappointed to learn this when he came home after having joined.
Gröning described himself as a "desk person" and was content with his role in SS salary administration, which granted him both the administrative and military aspects he wanted from a career.
### Auschwitz
#### Arrival
Gröning worked as a bookkeeper for a year until 1942, when the SS ordered that desk jobs were to be reserved for injured veterans, and that fit members in administrative roles were to be subjected to more challenging duties. Gröning and about 22 of his colleagues travelled to Berlin where they reported to one of the SS economic offices.
They were then given a lecture by several high-ranking officers who reminded them of the oath of loyalty they took, which they could prove by doing a difficult task. The task was top secret: Gröning and his fellow SS men had to sign a declaration that they would not disclose it to family or friends, or people not in their unit. Once this had concluded, they were split into smaller groups and taken to various Berlin stations where they boarded a train in the direction of Katowice with orders to report to the commandant of Auschwitz, a place Gröning had not heard of before.
Upon arrival at the main camp, they were given provisional bunks in the SS barracks, warmly greeted by fellow SS men and provided with food. Gröning was surprised at the myriad food items available in addition to basic SS rations. The new arrivals were curious about what function Auschwitz served. They were told that they should find out for themselves because Auschwitz was a special kind of concentration camp. Immediately someone opened the door and shouted "Transport!", causing three or four people to leave the room.
The next day, Gröning and the other arrivals reported to the central SS administrative building and were asked about their background before the war. One of the officers said Gröning's bank clerk skills would be useful, and took him to barracks where the prisoners' money was kept. Gröning was told that when prisoners were registered into the camp, their money was stored here and later returned to them when they left.
It became clear that Auschwitz was not a normal internment camp with above-average SS rations, but that it served an additional function. Gröning was informed that money taken from interned Jews was not actually returned to them. When he inquired further, his colleagues confirmed that the Jews were being systematically exterminated and that this had included the transport of prisoners who had arrived the previous night.
#### Tasks
Gröning's responsibilities included sorting and counting the multitude of currencies taken from arriving deportees, sending it to Berlin, and guarding the belongings of arrivals until they were sorted. He related that he was astonished to learn of the extermination process, but later accepted his part in it, stating that his work became "routine" after several months.
His bureaucratic job did not shield him completely from physical acts of the extermination process: as early as his first day, Gröning saw children hidden on the train and people unable to walk who had remained among the rubbish and debris after the selection process had been completed, being shot. Gröning also heard:
> ...a baby crying. The child was lying on the ramp, wrapped in rags. A mother had left it behind, perhaps because she knew that women with infants were sent to the gas chambers immediately. I saw another SS soldier grab the baby by the legs. The crying had bothered him. He smashed the baby's head against the iron side of a truck until it was silent.
After witnessing this, Gröning claimed, he went to his boss and told him that he could not work at Auschwitz anymore, stating that if the extermination of the Jews is necessary, "then at least it should be done within a certain framework". Gröning claims that his superior officer denied this request citing a document he had signed before being posted, forcing him to continue his work.
One night towards the end of 1942, Gröning and others in their SS barracks on the outskirts of Birkenau were awakened by an alarm. They were told that a number of Jews who were being taken to the gas chambers had escaped and hidden in the woods. They were ordered to take pistols and search the woods. When his group arrived at the extermination area of the camp they saw a farmhouse, in front of which were SS men and the bodies of seven or eight prisoners who had been caught and shot. The SS men told Gröning and his comrades that they could go home, but they decided to remain in the shadows of the woods. They watched as an SS man put on a gas mask and emptied a tin of Zyklon B into a hatch in the cottage wall. Gröning said the humming noise from inside "turned to screaming" for a minute, then to silence. A comrade later showed him the bodies being burnt in a pit. A kapo there told him details of the burning, such as how gases developed in the body and made the burning corpses move.
Gröning claimed that this disrupted the relative tranquillity his job gave him and that he yet again complained to his superior. His boss listened but reminded him of the pledge that he and his fellow SS men made. Gröning thus returned to work. He declared that he manipulated his life at Auschwitz so as to avoid witnessing the camp's most unpalatable aspects.
## After Auschwitz
### Great Britain
Gröning's application to transfer to a unit on the front-line was successful, and in 1944 he joined an SS unit fighting in the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes. He was wounded and sent to a field hospital before rejoining his unit, which eventually surrendered to the British Army.
He realised that declaring "involvement in the concentration camp of Auschwitz would have a negative response", and so tried not to draw attention to it, putting on the form given to him by the British that he worked for the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt instead. He said he did this because "the victor's always right", and that things happened at Auschwitz which "did not always comply with human rights".
Gröning and the rest of his SS colleagues were imprisoned in an old Nazi concentration camp. He was later sent to the UK as a forced labourer in 1946 where he had a "very comfortable life". He ate good food and earned money, and travelled through the Midlands and Scotland giving concerts for four months, singing German hymns and traditional English folk songs to appreciative British audiences.
### Return to Germany
Gröning was released and returned to Germany in 1947 or 1948. Upon being reunited with his wife, he said: "Girl, do both of us a favour: don't ask." He was unable to regain his job at the bank due to having been a member of the SS, so he got a job at a glass factory, working his way up to a management position. He became head of personnel, and was made an honorary judge (a sort of juror) of industrial tribunal cases.
Upon return to Germany, Gröning lived with his father-in-law. At the dinner table, they once made "a silly remark about Auschwitz", implying that he was a "potential or real murderer," whereupon Gröning became enraged, banging his fist on the table and demanding: "This word and this connection are never, ever, to be mentioned again in my presence, otherwise I'll move out!" Gröning said that this request was respected.
#### Views on Holocaust denial
Gröning led a normal middle-class life after the war. A keen stamp collector, he was once at his local philately club's annual meeting, more than 40 years after the war, when he fell into a conversation about politics with the man next to him. The man told him it was "terrible" that Holocaust denial was illegal in Germany, and went on to tell Gröning how so many bodies could not have been burnt, and that the volume of gas that was supposed to have been used would have killed all living things in the vicinity.
Gröning said little in response to these statements, replying only: "I know a little more about that, we should discuss it some time." The man recommended a pamphlet by Holocaust denier Thies Christophersen. Gröning obtained a copy and mailed it to Christophersen, having written his own commentary on it, which included the words:
> I saw everything. The gas chambers, the cremations, the selection process. One and a half million Jews were murdered in Auschwitz. I was there.
Gröning then began receiving phone calls and letters from strangers who tried to tell him Auschwitz was not actually a place for exterminating human beings in gas chambers.
It became apparent that his comments condemning Holocaust denial had been printed in a neo-Nazi magazine, and that most of the anonymous calls and letters were "From people who tried to prove that what I had seen with my own eyes, what I had experienced in Auschwitz was a big, big mistake, a big hallucination on my part because it hadn't happened."
As a result of such comments, Gröning decided to speak openly about his experiences, and publicly denounce people who maintain the events he witnessed never happened. He said his message to Holocaust deniers was:
> I would like you to believe me. I saw the gas chambers. I saw the crematoria. I saw the open fires. I would like you to believe that these atrocities happened, because I was there.
He also wrote memoirs for his family, consisting of 87 pages.
## Later comments
Gröning did not consider himself guilty of any crime, because he was in no way directly involved in the killing. He described his part in the extermination machine as an involuntary "small cog in the gears", which gave him involuntary guilt in turn. Citing his summons to testify against a member of the SS accused of murdering prisoners at Auschwitz, he also said he was innocent in the eyes of the law, pointing to the fact that he spoke as a witness and not as a defendant.
In the BBC book and DVD set Auschwitz: The Nazis and 'The Final Solution''', author Laurence Rees indicates that although Gröning had requested to leave Auschwitz after he witnessed killings, his objection was only on the basis of its practical implementation, and not on the general militaristic principle of the mass extermination of enemies. Gröning said that he thought at the time that it was justified due to all the Nazi propaganda he had been subjected to, in that Germany's enemies were being destroyed, which to him made the tools of their destruction (such as gas chambers) of no particular significance. Because of this, he said his feelings about seeing people and knowing that they had hours to live before being gassed were "very ambiguous".
He explained that children were murdered because, while the children themselves were not the enemy, the danger was the blood within them, in that they could grow up to become dangerous Jews. Rees points to Gröning's ultra-nationalist upbringing as indication of how he was able to justify the extermination of helpless children. Gröning said that the horrors in the gas chambers did eventually dawn on him when he heard the screams.
Rees writes that Gröning described his time at Auschwitz as if he were talking about another Oskar Gröning at Auschwitz—and as a result, the post-war Gröning spoke more candidly about his time there by segregating the Gröning that contributed to the running of a death camp from the modern Gröning that condemns Nazi ideology.
Gröning said that the screams of those in the gas chambers had never left him, and he never returned to Auschwitz because of his shame. He said he felt guilt towards the Jewish people, and for being part of the organisation that committed crimes against them, despite "not having been one of the perpetrators myself". He asked for forgiveness from God and from the Jewish people.
## Criminal charges and trial
In September 2014, it was reported that Gröning, then aged 93, had been charged by state prosecutors with having been an accessory to murder for his role at Auschwitz receiving and processing prisoners and their personal belongings. The indictment stated that Gröning economically advanced Nazi Germany and aided the systematic killing of 300,000 of the 425,000 Hungarian Jews who were deported to Auschwitz by 137 railway transports during the summer of 1944.
Gröning's prosecution has been reported to have been a part of Germany's final effort to bring the last Nazi war-crimes suspects to justice. State prosecutors managed to charge the defendant on a legal precedent set in 2011 by the conviction of the former Sobibor extermination camp guard John Demjanjuk by a court in Munich for his presence as a guard at the camp rather than for a specific act of murder.
The trial commenced on 20 April 2015 at Lüneburg Regional Court (Landgericht). In an opening statement, Gröning asked for forgiveness for his mainly clerical role at Auschwitz in the summer of 1944, by saying: "For me there's no question that I share moral guilt", the 93-year-old told the judges, acknowledging he knew about the gassing of Jews and other prisoners. "I ask for forgiveness. I share morally in the guilt but whether I am guilty under criminal law, you will have to decide."
During the trial, several of the 60 "co-claimants" gave evidence.
Eva Mozes Kor, who was 10 years old when she arrived at Auschwitz, testified that she and her twin sister were used for the cruel medical experiments conducted by Josef Mengele and that she had lost her parents and older sisters in Auschwitz. Kor conversed with and embraced the defendant after giving evidence, while other Holocaust survivors in the courtroom protested against this gesture. Another witness, Max Eisen, who was 15 years old at the time of entry into Auschwitz, described the brutality of the extermination part of the camp, including extracting gold teeth from dead victims. On 12 May 2015, Susan Pollack, an 84-year-old Briton, gave evidence of how she was taken from Hungary to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen; describing the living conditions encountered at Auschwitz, she said: "I was in a barrack with about 800 other girls ... we were losing weight, we weren't able to use our minds anymore".
That same day, Ivor Perl, an 83-year-old Briton who was born in Hungary into a religious Jewish family, also gave evidence; Perl testified that he was 12 years old when he arrived at Auschwitz and that he and his brother lost their parents and seven siblings in the Holocaust. In July, Irene Weiss, an 84-year-old survivor from the United States, testified that her family was torn apart on arrival at Auschwitz in May 1944, during the mass deportation of Hungarian Jews and that she had lost both her parents, four siblings and 13 cousins at Auschwitz.
### Verdict and sentence
On 15 July 2015, he was found guilty of being an accessory to the murder of at least 300,000 Jews. Reacting to the sentence, Auschwitz survivor Kor said that she was "disappointed" adding: "I would like the court to prove to me, a survivor, how four years in jail will benefit anybody." Gröning's defence lawyer, Hans Holtermann, reviewed the decision before planning to appeal.
On 28 November 2016, the appeal was declined by the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH). In August 2017, Gröning was judged to be fit for prison. An appeal to the Federal Constitutional Court also failed. The latter court ruled his age was not a valid reason not to send him to jail.
On 15 January 2018, Gröning applied for pardon as a last measure to avoid imprisonment. The pardon was rejected.
On 9 March 2018, Gröning died while hospitalized before he was to begin his sentence. He was 96.
## See also
- Little Eichmanns
- Reinhold Hanning
- Ursula Haverbeck
- The Accountant of Auschwitz'' |
46,463,019 | Leggetts Creek | 1,138,897,375 | River in the United States of America | [
"Rivers of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania",
"Rivers of Pennsylvania",
"Tributaries of the Lackawanna River"
]
| Leggetts Creek (also known as Legget Creek, Leggett's Gap Creek, Leggits Creek and originally as Liggett's Creek) is a tributary of the Lackawanna River in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is approximately 9.0 miles (14.5 km) long and flows through Scott Township, South Abington Township, and Scranton. The watershed of the creek has an area of 18.5 square miles (48 km<sup>2</sup>). The creek has three named tributaries: Leach Creek, Clover Hill Creek, and Summit Lake Creek. Leggetts Creek is considered to be impaired due to urban development problems, but is not affected by acid mine drainage. The creek is fairly alkaline and is a perennial stream. Its headwaters are in wetlands outside of the Lackawanna Valley and it flows through a water gap known as Leggetts Gap or The Notch. Major lakes in the watershed include the Griffin Reservoir (which is used as a water supply), Summit Lake, and Maple Lake. The creek is a source of flooding in South Abington Township.
A historic Native American path used to pass through the water gap of Leggetts Creek on its way from the headwaters of the Lehigh River to the Great Bend on the Susquehanna River near the Pennsylvania/New York border. Some mining and quarrying operations have been done in the watershed and the Liggett's Gap Railroad was built and was opened, through what was called Liggett's Gap at the time, on April 15, 1851. In the late 19th, 20th, and early 21st centuries, numerous bridges were constructed across the creek. Wild trout naturally reproduce within the creek and several other species have been observed in its waters as well. Some reaches of the creek have a riparian buffer consisting of old growth forests. In other places, there are grasslands or invasive plants. A greenway/connecting trail along the creek was proposed in the Lackawanna River Watershed Conservation Plan.
## Course
Leggetts Creek begins in a wetland in Scott Township. It flows southwest for several tenths of a mile before turning south and flowing alongside Pennsylvania Route 347. After more than a mile, the creek passes near the community of Justus in Scott Township and turns west. After several tenths of a mile, it passes the Griffin Reservoir and enters South Abington Township. From the southwestern end of the reservoir, the creek flows southwest for more than a mile before turning south-southwest and crossing Interstate 81. After some distance, the creek receives Summit Lake Creek, its first named tributary, from the right and turns southeast. For the next few miles, the creek flows alongside US Route 6 and Interstate 81 through a water gap between West Mountain and Bell Mountain. In the water gap, the creek eventually turns south for some distance and enters Scranton before turning south-southeast, leaving the water gap and receiving the tributary Clover Hill Creek from the left. It then turns south-southwest for several tenths of a mile before receiving Leach Creek, its last named tributary, from the right. The creek then turns east for several tenths of a mile before turning north for several hundred feet and then turning east again. After several hundred feet, it reaches its confluence with the Lackawanna River.
Leggetts Creek reaches its confluence with the Lackawanna River 14.36 miles (23.11 km) upriver of its mouth.
### Tributaries
Leggetts Creek has three named direct tributaries: Leach Creek, Clover Hill Creek, and Summit Lake Creek. Leach Creek joins Leggetts Creek 1.00 mile (1.61 km) upstream of its mouth. Its watershed has an area of 2.55 square miles (6.6 km<sup>2</sup>). Summit Lake Creek joins Leggetts Creek 3.90 miles (6.28 km) upstream of its mouth. Its watershed has an area of 3.08 square miles (8.0 km<sup>2</sup>). Leggetts Creek also has a number of first-order tributaries that are locally named, but not officially named.
## Hydrology
Leggetts Creek is considered by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to be impaired due to urban development problems.
It is possible that Leggetts Creek sometimes exceeds its total maximum daily load, especially during low flow conditions and the summer months. There are some mine drainage issues on the creek between Rockwell Avenue and Charles Street. It experiences some flow loss to underground mine voids. In 1978, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources (now known as the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection) estimated that the creek lost 20 to 30 percent of its flow to mines during dry weather. However, the creek is large enough that this does not cause aquatic habitat to be lost. The Chinchilla sewage treatment plant discharges into the creek in the vicinity of Leggetts Gap. In its lower reaches, the creek is impacted by past mining, urban development, and debris. Stormwater also flows into the Lackawanna River via the creek and it is affected by fine sediment. There is one stormwater detention facility in the watershed, at Leggett's Creek Estates.
South Abington Township once applied for a permit to discharge stormwater associated with construction activities into Leggetts Creek and for a permit for "Stormwater Discharges from Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems" into the creek.
Leggetts Creek attains its designated uses. However, its water quality and habitat quality are significantly impacted and it contributes significantly to the degradation of the Lackawanna River. The degradation is mainly due to urbanization, as opposed to abandoned mine drainage. The creek is a perennial stream. In a 2009 study, the creek was described as showing "some degraded conditions".
Leggetts Creek has relatively high levels of total dissolved solids and electrical conductivity. The electrical conductivity of the creek ranged from 538.00 to 979.50 micro-siemens per centimeter, with an average of 677.54 micro-siemens per centimeter. The concentration of dissolved solids ranged from 50.00 to 680.00 milligrams per liter, with an average of 411.96 milligrams per liter. The creek is fairly alkaline, with a pH ranging from 7.64 to 9.23 and averaging 8.20. The concentration of salinity in the creek averages 345 parts per million, but reaches levels as high as 435 parts per million and as low as 280 parts per million. This is within the recommended limit of 1000 parts per million, but a 2013/2014 study nevertheless recommended reducing the salinity of the creek.
The concentration of dissolved oxygen in Leggetts Creek ranges from 28.95% to 236.75%, with an average of 119.27%. The concentration of nitrates in the creek was once found to be 2.50 milligrams per liter and the concentration of phosphates was once found to be 1.58 milligrams per liter. However, in 2001, the concentration of nutrients and sodium in the creek was found to be the highest of tested sites in the area. The concentration of nitrates was 6.3 milligrams per liter and the concentration of nitrogen was 6.87 milligrams per liter. The concentration of orthophosphate was 1.998 milligrams per liter and the total phosphorus concentration was 2.228 milligrams per liter. The sodium concentration was 84.3 milligrams per liter. Little or no overall impairment was observed in 2008.
The peak annual discharge of Leggetts Creek near its mouth has a 10 percent chance of reaching 2180 cubic feet per second. It has a 2 percent chance of reaching 4440 cubic feet per second and a 1 percent chance of reaching 5790 cubic feet per second. The peak annual discharge has a 0.2 percent chance of reaching 10,800 cubic feet per second. The peak annual discharge of the creek upstream of the tributary Leach Creek has a 10 percent chance of reaching 2130 cubic feet per second. It has a 2 percent chance of reaching 4340 cubic feet per second and a 1 percent chance of reaching 5620 cubic feet per second. The peak annual discharge has a 0.2 percent chance of reaching 10,600 cubic feet per second.
The peak annual discharge of Leggetts Creek at Neary Place (Mary Street) has a 10 percent chance of reaching 2470 cubic feet per second. It has a 2 percent chance of reaching 5070 cubic feet per second and a 1 percent chance of reaching 6760 cubic feet per second. The peak annual discharge has a 0.2 percent chance of reaching 12,600 cubic feet per second. The peak annual discharge of the creek at the border between Scranton and South Abington Township has a 10 percent chance of reaching 2130 cubic feet per second. It has a 2 percent chance of reaching 4340 cubic feet per second and a 1 percent chance of reaching 5320 cubic feet per second. The peak annual discharge has a 0.2 percent chance of reaching 9030 cubic feet per second.
## Geography, geology, and climate
The elevation near the mouth of Leggetts Creek is 715 feet (218 m) above sea level. The elevation of the creek's source is between 1,600 and 1,620 feet (490 and 490 m) above sea level. During a 2013 fish population survey, the average stream width of the creek was found to be approximately 18 feet (5.5 m).
Leggetts Creek flows through a water gap known as Leggetts Gap or The Notch. The gap is cut through the West or Lackawanna Mountain Range by the creek. There have been some culm banks along the creek and historic mining operations such as those at the Marvine \#6 Colliery have affected it. The creek's headwaters are in wetlands surrounded by residential development. There is riprap on the creek in Leggetts Gap as it flows near major highways in this stretch. It typically has a natural channel in part of its lower reaches and there are some reaches with gradual slopes. However, in some parts of the creek's lower reaches, fill has been dumped onto its banks, creating steep slopes. The creek has been channelized in South Abington Township.
There are waterfalls and cascades on a reach of Leggetts Creek from the Griffin Reservoir to an intake dam three quarters of a mile downstream. These waterfalls are formed by rock ledges, boulders, and the remains of an old mill. A streambank stabilization project has been carried out on the creek at South Abington Park. The creek flows through 51 pipes, whose sizes range from 3 to 36 inches (7.6 to 91.4 cm). The Keyser Avenue Borehole is in the vicinity of the creek.
The headwaters of Leggetts Creek are outside of the Lackawanna Valley. At Providence, the creek flowed directly southeast prior to the glacial period, reaching the Lackawanna River approximately 0.5 miles (0.80 km) downstream of its current location. However, the course now flows to the east instead. The old course of the creek has been built over. There is a ledge on the north bank of Leggetts Creek in its lower reaches. The creek makes a sharp eastward bend around Providence. From this point downstream to its mouth, it flows through a rocky channel that contains a thick covering of till on its upper walls.
A run of the river dam known as the High Service Dam is on Leggetts Creek in Scranton. The dam is 12 feet (3.7 m) wide.
A rock formation known as the Campbell's Ledge Black Shale occurs in the vicinity of Leggetts Creek. This rock formation contains shale and coal. The ledge on the northern bank of the creek was in the early 1900s noted to contain a large mass (up to a million tons) of sandy till.
In early March 2013, the temperature in the vicinity of Leggetts Creek was once measured to be 42 °F (6 °C). A 2013/2014 study found the water temperature of the creek to range from 0.97 to 22.64 °C (33.75 to 72.75 °F), with an average of 11.62 °C (52.92 °F).
## Watershed
The watershed of Leggetts Creek has an area of 18.5 square miles (48 km<sup>2</sup>). Upstream of the tributary Leach Creek, the watershed has an area of 15.6 square miles (40 km<sup>2</sup>). It is one of the larger tributaries of the Lackawanna River. The mouth of the creek is in the United States Geological Survey quadrangle of Scranton. However, its source is in the quadrangle of Dalton. The creek is a third-order stream and is the third-largest tributary of the Lackawanna River, not counting the East Branch Lackawanna River and the West Branch Lackawanna River. Municipalities that the watershed is in include Scott Township, South Abington Township, Abington Township, Clarks Green, Clarks Summit, Newton Township, Dickson City, and Scranton.
Major land uses in the watershed of Leggetts Creek include high-density residential, neighborhood commercial, and open space.
Lakes in the watershed of Leggetts Creek include the Griffin Reservoir, Maple Lake, and Summit Lake. These bodies of water are in South Abington Township and Scott Township. The Griffin Reservoir supplies water to people in the Leggetts Creek watershed. The creek and the reservoir serve as a supplemental drinking water supply for more than 100,000 people as of the late 20th century. A spring known as Fountain Springs is in the watershed in South Abington Township. The Justus Meadows are in the watershed in Scott Township. Most of the watershed is developed, but there are still a few undeveloped reaches of the creek.
As of the early 2000s, the Theta Company owns some tracts of land in the watershed of Leggetts Creek. These include areas around the Griffin Reservoir and Maple Lake. Some property along the creek's floodplain is owned by the city of Scranton. Additionally, there are parcels of abandoned mine lands in the vicinity of the creek in northern Scranton. These parcels may be developed by the 2020s. The major neighborhoods in the watershed include historic residential neighborhoods that were developed between 1870 and 1920.
Leggetts Creek is a source of flooding in South Abington Township, where it commonly floods low-lying properties.
## History and etymology
Leggetts Creek was entered into the Geographic Names Information System on August 30, 1990. Its identifier in the Geographic Names Information System is 1199030. The creek is also known as Legget Creek, Leggett's Gap Creek, and Leggits Creek. The creek is named after James Leggett, a pioneer who settled there in the 1770s.
A historic Native American path used to pass through the water gap of Leggetts Creek on its way from the headwaters of the Lehigh River to the Great Bend in the Susquehanna River near the Pennsylvania/New York border. Thomas Meredith conceived the idea of a railroad going from the mouth of the creek at Providence to the Great Bend on the Susquehanna River, a distance of 48 miles (77 km), in 1826. Names such as the "Lackawannock and Susquehanna Railroad" and the "Meredith Railroad" were considered, but eventually the name "Leggetts Gap Railroad" was settled on. The railroad was first chartered in 1832, but no progress was made until 1849. The Rockwell Mine at Leggetts Gap was opened in 1854. The Leggetts Creek Colliery was operational in the early 1900s. Additionally, a ledge in the vicinity of the creek was quarried extensively by the early 1900s.
Numerous bridges have been built across Leggetts Creek. A masonry arch bridge with a length of 34.1 feet (10.4 m) carries North Main Street over the creek. A 36.1-foot-long concrete tee beam bridge was built in 1905 and carries Rockwell Avenue across the creek. A 38.1-foot-long concrete tee beam bridge was built in 1936 and carries US Route 11 across the creek. In 1941, a 26.9-foot-long concrete culvert bridge that carries State Route 6006 was constructed over the creek. In 1961, a 32.2-foot-long two-span steel culvert bridge that carries an Interstate 81 ramp was constructed over the creek. A 23.0-foot-long concrete culvert bridge was built in the same year and carries Interstate 81 over the creek.
In 1975, a 48.9-foot-long concrete tee beam bridge was built; this bridge carries Hollow Ave over Leggetts Creek. In 1979, a 37.1-foot-long prestressed box beam or girders bridge was built; it carries Mary Street across the creek. A 44.9-foot-long bridge of the same type was built in the same year and carries Wells Street over the creek. A 43.0-foot-long bridge of a similar type was built in 2009 and carries T-422/Burcher Ave over the creek. A 43.0-foot-long steel stringer/multi-beam or girder bridge was built in 2010 and carries State Route 1027/Layton Road over the creek.
In the late 1960s, a dredging project was proposed on Leggetts Creek to repair the damage caused by acid mine drainage and coal mining. In 1991, the Lackawanna River Corridor Association gathered data on the water chemistry and biological habitats of Leggetts Creek. In 2012, the South Abington Sewer Authority began upgrading its sewage treatment plant to prevent wastewater and nutrient pollution from entering the creek. They also installed new sewer lines, including some that run parallel to or under the creek. PA Trout Unlimited's AMD Technical Assistance Program conducted a survey of the fish population in the creek on November 15, 2013. The Lackawanna Valley Conservancy once received a \$190,000 Growing Greener grant for the Leggetts Creek Greenway.
Historic places in the watershed of Leggetts Creek include Griffins Mills, which are in South Abington. The Aladdin Plating site, which is in the watershed of Leggetts Creek in South Abington, is a Superfund site. In the early 2000s, the Lackawanna River Watershed Conservation Plan recommended that Scranton, South Abington Township, and Scott Township include protection of Leggetts Creek in their zoning plans.
## Biology
Wild trout naturally reproduce in Leggetts Creek from Summit Lake Creek downstream to its mouth, a distance of 3.60 miles (5.79 km). It is stocked with trout and also is inhabited by some non-game species. The drainage basin of the creek upstream of Summit Lake Creek is a Coldwater Fishery and a Migratory Fishery. From Summit Lake Creek downstream to its mouth, the drainage basin is a Trout Stocked Fishery and a Migratory Fishery. In a 2013 fishery survey of the creek, nine brown trout were observed. Their lengths ranged from 84 to 316 millimeters, with an average of 139 millimeters. The vast majority were in the 75 to 99 millimeter bracket. Their population density was 164 per hectare.
In the fishery survey of Leggetts Creek, brown trout and cutlips minnow were the only common species. However, bluegill, eastern blacknose dace, longnose dace, and largemouth bass were all classified as "present" in the creek. Brown bullhead, flatnose minnow, and pumpkinseed were found to be rare.
The plant life around the Griffin Reservoir on Leggetts Creek includes various native trees and understory plants. From the reservoir downstream to an intake pond near Interstate 81, the creek's riparian buffer contains old growth forest, including tulip poplar trees. In addition to tulip popular, hemlock and pine also occur in the Griffin Mills reach of the creek. Near Leggetts Gap, the creek has some riparian buffering. Even in its lower reaches, it has a stable vegetative cover in some areas. However, other areas are full of invasive plants. Major invasive plant species include Japanese knotweed, Norway Maple, and Ailanthus. Overall, the riparian buffer of the creek mainly consists of grassland and forested land.
At three sites on Leggetts Creek, the EPT (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera) Taxa Richness ranges from 4.00 to 6.00. The Total Taxa Richness ranges from 10.00 to 11.00. The Taxa Richness and the EPT Taxa Richness are the total number of macroinvertebrate taxa observed in a sample and the total number of those taxa that are in the three aforementioned orders, respectively. The Percent Intolerance Index ranges from 4.2% to 7.9% and the Beck's Index value ranges from 2.00 to 6.00. These two methods count individuals with PTVs of 0 to 3 and taxa with PTVs of 0 to 2, respectively. The Shannon Diversity Index value ranges from 0.70 to 2.01 and the Hilsenhoff Biotic Index value ranges from 1.24 to 2.85. The former is a method of determining community composition by considering both taxonomic richness and evenness of individuals. The latter is a count of individuals, weighted by pollution tolerance. The IBI Score of the creek ranges from 31.45 at site A2 to 43.39 at site D1. The habitat assessment result of the creek was an "optimal" 192 out of 200 on the reaches where it was analyzed.
## Recreation
A greenway and/or connecting trail along Leggetts Creek was proposed in the Lackawanna River Watershed Conservation Plan in the early 2000s. The greenway would be known as the Leggetts Creek greenway. It could link to the Lackawanna River Heritage Trail and could be extended to link to the Tunkhannock greenway. The South Abington Park and the Leggetts Creek Trail are in Chinchilla and the creek flows through the latter. Trestle Hole Park is also along the creek's lower reaches. The Dutch Gap Little League Field is located at Wells Street.
## See also
- Meadow Brook (Lackawanna River), next tributary of the Lackawanna River going downriver
- Price Creek (Pennsylvania), next tributary of the Lackawanna River going upriver
- List of rivers of Pennsylvania
- List of tributaries of the Lackawanna River |
899 | Actinium | 1,149,256,829 | null | [
"Actinides",
"Actinium",
"Chemical elements",
"Chemical elements with face-centered cubic structure"
]
| Actinium is a chemical element with the symbol Ac and atomic number 89. It was first isolated by Friedrich Oskar Giesel in 1902, who gave it the name emanium; the element got its name by being wrongly identified with a substance André-Louis Debierne found in 1899 and called actinium. Actinium gave the name to the actinide series, a set of 15 elements between actinium and lawrencium in the periodic table. Together with polonium, radium, and radon, actinium was one of the first non-primordial radioactive elements to be isolated.
A soft, silvery-white radioactive metal, actinium reacts rapidly with oxygen and moisture in air forming a white coating of actinium oxide that prevents further oxidation. As with most lanthanides and many actinides, actinium assumes oxidation state +3 in nearly all its chemical compounds. Actinium is found only in traces in uranium and thorium ores as the isotope <sup>227</sup>Ac, which decays with a half-life of 21.772 years, predominantly emitting beta and sometimes alpha particles, and <sup>228</sup>Ac, which is beta active with a half-life of 6.15 hours. One tonne of natural uranium in ore contains about 0.2 milligrams of actinium-227, and one tonne of thorium contains about 5 nanograms of actinium-228. The close similarity of physical and chemical properties of actinium and lanthanum makes separation of actinium from the ore impractical. Instead, the element is prepared, in milligram amounts, by the neutron irradiation of <sup>226</sup>Ra in a nuclear reactor. Owing to its scarcity, high price and radioactivity, actinium has no significant industrial use. Its current applications include a neutron source and an agent for radiation therapy.
## History
André-Louis Debierne, a French chemist, announced the discovery of a new element in 1899. He separated it from pitchblende residues left by Marie and Pierre Curie after they had extracted radium. In 1899, Debierne described the substance as similar to titanium and (in 1900) as similar to thorium. Friedrich Oskar Giesel found in 1902 a substance similar to lanthanum and called it "emanium" in 1904. After a comparison of the substances' half-lives determined by Debierne, Harriet Brooks in 1904, and Otto Hahn and Otto Sackur in 1905, Debierne's chosen name for the new element was retained because it had seniority, despite the contradicting chemical properties he claimed for the element at different times.
Articles published in the 1970s and later suggest that Debierne's results published in 1904 conflict with those reported in 1899 and 1900. Furthermore, the now-known chemistry of actinium precludes its presence as anything other than a minor constituent of Debierne's 1899 and 1900 results; in fact, the chemical properties he reported make it likely that he had, instead, accidentally identified protactinium, which would not be discovered for another fourteen years, only to have it disappear due to its hydrolysis and adsorption onto his laboratory equipment. This has led some authors to advocate that Giesel alone should be credited with the discovery. A less confrontational vision of scientific discovery is proposed by Adloff. He suggests that hindsight criticism of the early publications should be mitigated by the then nascent state of radiochemistry: highlighting the prudence of Debierne's claims in the original papers, he notes that nobody can contend that Debierne's substance did not contain actinium. Debierne, who is now considered by the vast majority of historians as the discoverer, lost interest in the element and left the topic. Giesel, on the other hand, can rightfully be credited with the first preparation of radiochemically pure actinium and with the identification of its atomic number 89.
The name actinium originates from the Ancient Greek aktis, aktinos (ακτίς, ακτίνος), meaning beam or ray. Its symbol Ac is also used in abbreviations of other compounds that have nothing to do with actinium, such as acetyl, acetate and sometimes acetaldehyde.
## Properties
Actinium is a soft, silvery-white, radioactive, metallic element. Its estimated shear modulus is similar to that of lead. Owing to its strong radioactivity, actinium glows in the dark with a pale blue light, which originates from the surrounding air ionized by the emitted energetic particles. Actinium has similar chemical properties to lanthanum and other lanthanides, and therefore these elements are difficult to separate when extracting from uranium ores. Solvent extraction and ion chromatography are commonly used for the separation.
The first element of the actinides, actinium gave the set its name, much as lanthanum had done for the lanthanides. The actinides are much more diverse than the lanthanides and therefore it was not until 1945 that the most significant change to Dmitri Mendeleev's periodic table since the recognition of the lanthanides, the introduction of the actinides, was generally accepted after Glenn T. Seaborg's research on the transuranium elements (although it had been proposed as early as 1892 by British chemist Henry Bassett).
Actinium reacts rapidly with oxygen and moisture in air forming a white coating of actinium oxide that impedes further oxidation. As with most lanthanides and actinides, actinium exists in the oxidation state +3, and the Ac<sup>3+</sup> ions are colorless in solutions. The oxidation state +3 originates from the [Rn] 6d<sup>1</sup>7s<sup>2</sup> electronic configuration of actinium, with three valence electrons that are easily donated to give the stable closed-shell structure of the noble gas radon. Although the 5f orbitals are unoccupied in an actinium atom, it can be used as a valence orbital in actinium complexes and hence it is generally considered the first 5f element by authors working on it. Ac<sup>3+</sup> is the largest of all known tripositive ions and its first coordination sphere contains approximately 10.9 ± 0.5 water molecules.
## Chemical compounds
Due to actinium's intense radioactivity, only a limited number of actinium compounds are known. These include: AcF<sub>3</sub>, AcCl<sub>3</sub>, AcBr<sub>3</sub>, AcOF, AcOCl, AcOBr, Ac<sub>2</sub>S<sub>3</sub>, Ac<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>, AcPO<sub>4</sub> and Ac(NO<sub>3</sub>)<sub>3</sub>. Except for AcPO<sub>4</sub>, they are all similar to the corresponding lanthanum compounds. They all contain actinium in the oxidation state +3. In particular, the lattice constants of the analogous lanthanum and actinium compounds differ by only a few percent.
Here a, b and c are lattice constants, No is space group number and Z is the number of formula units per unit cell. Density was not measured directly but calculated from the lattice parameters.
### Oxides
Actinium oxide (Ac<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>) can be obtained by heating the hydroxide at 500 °C or the oxalate at 1100 °C, in vacuum. Its crystal lattice is isotypic with the oxides of most trivalent rare-earth metals.
### Halides
Actinium trifluoride can be produced either in solution or in solid reaction. The former reaction is carried out at room temperature, by adding hydrofluoric acid to a solution containing actinium ions. In the latter method, actinium metal is treated with hydrogen fluoride vapors at 700 °C in an all-platinum setup. Treating actinium trifluoride with ammonium hydroxide at 900–1000 °C yields oxyfluoride AcOF. Whereas lanthanum oxyfluoride can be easily obtained by burning lanthanum trifluoride in air at 800 °C for an hour, similar treatment of actinium trifluoride yields no AcOF and only results in melting of the initial product.
AcF<sub>3</sub> + 2 NH<sub>3</sub> + H<sub>2</sub>O → AcOF + 2 NH<sub>4</sub>F
Actinium trichloride is obtained by reacting actinium hydroxide or oxalate with carbon tetrachloride vapors at temperatures above 960 °C. Similar to oxyfluoride, actinium oxychloride can be prepared by hydrolyzing actinium trichloride with ammonium hydroxide at 1000 °C. However, in contrast to the oxyfluoride, the oxychloride could well be synthesized by igniting a solution of actinium trichloride in hydrochloric acid with ammonia.
Reaction of aluminium bromide and actinium oxide yields actinium tribromide:
Ac<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> + 2 AlBr<sub>3</sub> → 2 AcBr<sub>3</sub> + Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>
and treating it with ammonium hydroxide at 500 °C results in the oxybromide AcOBr.
### Other compounds
Actinium hydride was obtained by reduction of actinium trichloride with potassium at 300 °C, and its structure was deduced by analogy with the corresponding LaH<sub>2</sub> hydride. The source of hydrogen in the reaction was uncertain.
Mixing monosodium phosphate (NaH<sub>2</sub>PO<sub>4</sub>) with a solution of actinium in hydrochloric acid yields white-colored actinium phosphate hemihydrate (AcPO<sub>4</sub>·0.5H<sub>2</sub>O), and heating actinium oxalate with hydrogen sulfide vapors at 1400 °C for a few minutes results in a black actinium sulfide Ac<sub>2</sub>S<sub>3</sub>. It may possibly be produced by acting with a mixture of hydrogen sulfide and carbon disulfide on actinium oxide at 1000 °C.
## Isotopes
Naturally occurring actinium is composed of two radioactive isotopes; <sup>227</sup>
Ac (from the radioactive family of <sup>235</sup>
U) and <sup>228</sup>
Ac (a granddaughter of <sup>232</sup>
Th). <sup>227</sup>
Ac decays mainly as a beta emitter with a very small energy, but in 1.38% of cases it emits an alpha particle, so it can readily be identified through alpha spectrometry. Thirty-three radioisotopes have been identified, the most stable being <sup>227</sup>
Ac with a half-life of 21.772 years, <sup>225</sup>
Ac with a half-life of 10.0 days and <sup>226</sup>
Ac with a half-life of 29.37 hours. All remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 10 hours and the majority of them have half-lives shorter than one minute. The shortest-lived known isotope of actinium is <sup>217</sup>
Ac (half-life of 69 nanoseconds) which decays through alpha decay. Actinium also has two known meta states. The most significant isotopes for chemistry are <sup>225</sup>Ac, <sup>227</sup>Ac, and <sup>228</sup>Ac.
Purified <sup>227</sup>
Ac comes into equilibrium with its decay products after about a half of year. It decays according to its 21.772-year half-life emitting mostly beta (98.62%) and some alpha particles (1.38%); the successive decay products are part of the actinium series. Owing to the low available amounts, low energy of its beta particles (maximum 44.8 keV) and low intensity of alpha radiation, <sup>227</sup>
Ac is difficult to detect directly by its emission and it is therefore traced via its decay products. The isotopes of actinium range in atomic weight from 204 u (<sup>204</sup>
Ac) to 236 u (<sup>236</sup>
Ac).
## Occurrence and synthesis
Actinium is found only in traces in uranium ores – one tonne of uranium in ore contains about 0.2 milligrams of <sup>227</sup>Ac – and in thorium ores, which contain about 5 nanograms of <sup>228</sup>Ac per one tonne of thorium. The actinium isotope <sup>227</sup>Ac is a transient member of the uranium-actinium series decay chain, which begins with the parent isotope <sup>235</sup>U (or <sup>239</sup>Pu) and ends with the stable lead isotope <sup>207</sup>Pb. The isotope <sup>228</sup>Ac is a transient member of the thorium series decay chain, which begins with the parent isotope <sup>232</sup>Th and ends with the stable lead isotope <sup>208</sup>Pb. Another actinium isotope (<sup>225</sup>Ac) is transiently present in the neptunium series decay chain, beginning with <sup>237</sup>Np (or <sup>233</sup>U) and ending with thallium (<sup>205</sup>Tl) and near-stable bismuth (<sup>209</sup>Bi); even though all primordial <sup>237</sup>Np has decayed away, it is continuously produced by neutron knock-out reactions on natural <sup>238</sup>U.
The low natural concentration, and the close similarity of physical and chemical properties to those of lanthanum and other lanthanides, which are always abundant in actinium-bearing ores, render separation of actinium from the ore impractical, and complete separation was never achieved. Instead, actinium is prepared, in milligram amounts, by the neutron irradiation of <sup>226</sup>Ra in a nuclear reactor.
^{226}\_{88}Ra + ^{1}\_{0}n -\> ^{227}\_{88}Ra -\>[\beta^-][42.2 \\ \ce{min}] ^{227}\_{89}Ac
The reaction yield is about 2% of the radium weight. <sup>227</sup>Ac can further capture neutrons resulting in small amounts of <sup>228</sup>Ac. After the synthesis, actinium is separated from radium and from the products of decay and nuclear fusion, such as thorium, polonium, lead and bismuth. The extraction can be performed with thenoyltrifluoroacetone-benzene solution from an aqueous solution of the radiation products, and the selectivity to a certain element is achieved by adjusting the pH (to about 6.0 for actinium). An alternative procedure is anion exchange with an appropriate resin in nitric acid, which can result in a separation factor of 1,000,000 for radium and actinium vs. thorium in a two-stage process. Actinium can then be separated from radium, with a ratio of about 100, using a low cross-linking cation exchange resin and nitric acid as eluant.
<sup>225</sup>Ac was first produced artificially at the Institute for Transuranium Elements (ITU) in Germany using a cyclotron and at St George Hospital in Sydney using a linac in 2000. This rare isotope has potential applications in radiation therapy and is most efficiently produced by bombarding a radium-226 target with 20–30 MeV deuterium ions. This reaction also yields <sup>226</sup>Ac which however decays with a half-life of 29 hours and thus does not contaminate <sup>225</sup>Ac.
Actinium metal has been prepared by the reduction of actinium fluoride with lithium vapor in vacuum at a temperature between 1100 and 1300 °C. Higher temperatures resulted in evaporation of the product and lower ones lead to an incomplete transformation. Lithium was chosen among other alkali metals because its fluoride is most volatile.
## Applications
Owing to its scarcity, high price and radioactivity, <sup>227</sup>Ac currently has no significant industrial use, but <sup>225</sup>Ac is currently being studied for use in cancer treatments such as targeted alpha therapies. <sup>227</sup>Ac is highly radioactive and was therefore studied for use as an active element of radioisotope thermoelectric generators, for example in spacecraft. The oxide of <sup>227</sup>Ac pressed with beryllium is also an efficient neutron source with the activity exceeding that of the standard americium-beryllium and radium-beryllium pairs. In all those applications, <sup>227</sup>Ac (a beta source) is merely a progenitor which generates alpha-emitting isotopes upon its decay. Beryllium captures alpha particles and emits neutrons owing to its large cross-section for the (α,n) nuclear reaction:
^{9}\_{4}Be + ^{4}\_{2}He -\> ^{12}\_{6}C + ^{1}\_{0}n + \gamma
The <sup>227</sup>AcBe neutron sources can be applied in a neutron probe – a standard device for measuring the quantity of water present in soil, as well as moisture/density for quality control in highway construction. Such probes are also used in well logging applications, in neutron radiography, tomography and other radiochemical investigations.
<sup>225</sup>Ac is applied in medicine to produce <sup>213</sup>Bi in a reusable generator or can be used alone as an agent for radiation therapy, in particular targeted alpha therapy (TAT). This isotope has a half-life of 10 days, making it much more suitable for radiation therapy than <sup>213</sup>Bi (half-life 46 minutes). Additionally, <sup>225</sup>Ac decays to nontoxic <sup>209</sup>Bi rather than stable but toxic lead, which is the final product in the decay chains of several other candidate isotopes, namely <sup>227</sup>Th, <sup>228</sup>Th, and <sup>230</sup>U. Not only <sup>225</sup>Ac itself, but also its daughters, emit alpha particles which kill cancer cells in the body. The major difficulty with application of <sup>225</sup>Ac was that intravenous injection of simple actinium complexes resulted in their accumulation in the bones and liver for a period of tens of years. As a result, after the cancer cells were quickly killed by alpha particles from <sup>225</sup>Ac, the radiation from the actinium and its daughters might induce new mutations. To solve this problem, <sup>225</sup>Ac was bound to a chelating agent, such as citrate, ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) or diethylene triamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA). This reduced actinium accumulation in the bones, but the excretion from the body remained slow. Much better results were obtained with such chelating agents as HEHA (1,4,7,10,13,16-hexaazacyclohexadecane-N,N′,N′′,N′′′,N′′′′,N′′′′′-hexaacetic acid) or DOTA (1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1,4,7,10-tetraacetic acid) coupled to trastuzumab, a monoclonal antibody that interferes with the HER2/neu receptor. The latter delivery combination was tested on mice and proved to be effective against leukemia, lymphoma, breast, ovarian, neuroblastoma and prostate cancers.
The medium half-life of <sup>227</sup>Ac (21.77 years) makes it very convenient radioactive isotope in modeling the slow vertical mixing of oceanic waters. The associated processes cannot be studied with the required accuracy by direct measurements of current velocities (of the order 50 meters per year). However, evaluation of the concentration depth-profiles for different isotopes allows estimating the mixing rates. The physics behind this method is as follows: oceanic waters contain homogeneously dispersed <sup>235</sup>U. Its decay product, <sup>231</sup>Pa, gradually precipitates to the bottom, so that its concentration first increases with depth and then stays nearly constant. <sup>231</sup>Pa decays to <sup>227</sup>Ac; however, the concentration of the latter isotope does not follow the <sup>231</sup>Pa depth profile, but instead increases toward the sea bottom. This occurs because of the mixing processes which raise some additional <sup>227</sup>Ac from the sea bottom. Thus analysis of both <sup>231</sup>Pa and <sup>227</sup>Ac depth profiles allows researchers to model the mixing behavior.
There are theoretical predictions that AcH<sub>x</sub> hydrides (in this case with very high pressure) are a candidate for a near room-temperature superconductor as they have T<sub>c</sub> significantly higher than H3S, possibly near 250 K.
## Precautions
<sup>227</sup>Ac is highly radioactive and experiments with it are carried out in a specially designed laboratory equipped with a tight glove box. When actinium trichloride is administered intravenously to rats, about 33% of actinium is deposited into the bones and 50% into the liver. Its toxicity is comparable to, but slightly lower than that of americium and plutonium. For trace quantities, fume hoods with good aeration suffice; for gram amounts, hot cells with shielding from the intense gamma radiation emitted by <sup>227</sup>Ac are necessary.
## See also
- Actinium series |
4,146,508 | Hiroh Kikai | 1,154,234,261 | Japanese photographer (1945–2020) | [
"1945 births",
"2020 deaths",
"Deaths from cancer in Japan",
"Deaths from lymphoma",
"Hosei University alumni",
"Japanese essayists",
"Japanese photographers",
"People from Yamagata Prefecture",
"Photography in India",
"Photography in Turkey",
"Portrait photographers",
"Street photographers"
]
| Hiroh Kikai (鬼海 弘雄, Kikai Hiroo, 18 March 1945 – 19 October 2020) was a Japanese photographer best known within Japan for four series of monochrome photographs: scenes of buildings in and close to Tokyo, portraits of people in the Asakusa area of Tokyo, and rural and town life in India and Turkey. He pursued each of these for over two decades, and each led to one or more book-length collections.
Although previously a respected name in Japanese photography, Kikai was not widely known until 2004, when the first edition of his book Persona, a collection of Asakusa portraits, won both the Domon Ken Award and Annual Award of the PSJ. In 2009, the ICP and Steidl copublished Asakusa Portraits for an international market.
## Early years
Kikai was born in the village of Daigo (now part of Sagae, Yamagata Prefecture) on 18 March 1945 as the seventh and last child (and fifth son) of the family. He had a happy childhood, from the age of 11 or so preferring to play by himself in the nature that surrounded the village. He graduated from high school in 1963 and worked in Yamagata for a year, and then went to Hosei University in Tokyo to study philosophy. As a student he was keen on the cinema—he particularly enjoyed the films of Andrzej Wajda, who would later contribute essays to some of his books, and Satyajit Ray—and said that he would have worked in film production if it did not require writing, a task he never enjoyed, and money, which he lacked.
Immediately after his graduation in 1968, Kikai worked for two years as a truck driver and for two in a shipyard. Meanwhile, he stayed in touch with his philosophy professor from his university days, Sadayoshi Fukuda, whose interests extended to writing a regular column for the magazine Camera Mainichi; he introduced Kikai to its editor, Shōji Yamagishi, who showed him photographs by Diane Arbus that made a great impact on Kikai. Kikai started to take photographs in 1969. At that time (when somebody fresh out of university could expect to earn ¥40,000 per month), a Hasselblad SLR camera normally cost ¥600,000; Kikai heard of an opportunity to buy one for ¥320,000 and mentioned this to Fukuda, who immediately lent him the money, with no interest, and no date or pressure for repayment. (The loan was eventually repaid.) This Hasselblad 500CM, with its 80 mm lens, was what Kikai used for his portraits thereafter.
## Career
Kikai thought that work on a boat might be photogenic, but, having no experience, could not get a job on one. He was eventually accepted on a boat fishing for tuna when he displayed the scar from an unneeded appendectomy as evidence of one risk fewer that his presence might force the boat into port. He worked on the boat in the Pacific from 6 April until 9 November 1972, with a stop in Manzanillo (Mexico) for provisions. It was during this time that he took his first photographs to be published, in the May 1973 issue of Camera Mainichi. In 1973 he won a prize for his submission to the 14th exhibition of the Japan Advertising Photographers' Association. But Kikai decided that in order to be a photographer he needed darkroom skills, and he returned to Tokyo to work at Doi Technical Photo (1973–76). He became a freelance photographer in 1984, a year after his first solo exhibition and the same year as his second.
Living close to Asakusa (Tokyo), Kikai often went there on his days off, taking photographs of visitors. He stepped up his visits in 1985; a number of collections of his portraits taken there have been published.
Kikai's other long-term photographic projects are of working and residential neighborhoods in and near Tokyo, and of people and scenes in India and Turkey. All these are black and white. However, his occasional diversions included color photographs of the Gotō Islands and even of nudes.
Unusually in Japan, where photographers tend to join or form groups, Kikai was never in any group, preferring to work by himself. When not setting out to take photographs, Kikai did not carry a camera with him. He left photographing his own family to his wife Noriko, and it is she who had the camera if they went on a trip together.
In the early part of his career, Kikai often had to earn money in other ways: after three years' work in the darkroom, he returned to manual labor.
Kikai taught for some time at Musashino Art University, but he was disappointed by the students' lack of sustained effort and therefore quit.
Kikai died of lymphoma on 19 October 2020.
### Asakusa portraits
Kikai had started his Asakusa series of square, monochrome portraits as early as 1973, but after this there was a hiatus until 1985, when he realized that an ideal backdrop would be the plain red walls of Sensō-ji. At that time, the great majority of his Asakusa portraits adopted further constraints: the single subject stands directly in front of the camera (originally a Minolta Autocord TLR, later the Hasselblad), looking directly at it, and is shown from around the knees upwards. Kikai might wait at the temple for four or five hours, hoping to see somebody he wanted to photograph, and three or four days might pass without a single photograph; but he might photograph three people in a single day, and he photographed over six hundred people in this way. He believed that to have a plain backdrop and a direct confrontation with the subject allows the viewer to see the subject as a whole, and as somebody on whom time is marked, without any distracting or limiting specificity.
Though Kikai started to photograph in Asakusa simply because it was near where he then lived, he continued because of the nature of the place and its visitors. Once a bustling and fashionable area, Asakusa long ago lost this status. If it were as popular and crowded as it was before the war, Kikai said, he would go somewhere else.
Published in 1987, Ōtachi no shōzō / Ecce Homo was the first collection of these portraits. It is a large-format book with portraits made in Asakusa in 1985 to '86. Kikai won the 1988 Newcomer's Award of the Photographic Society of Japan (PSJ) for this book and the third Ina Nobuo Award for the accompanying exhibition.
In 1995, a number of portraits from the series were shown together with the works of eleven other photographers in Tokyo/City of Photos, one of a pair of opening exhibitions for the purpose-made building of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.
Ya-Chimata, a second collection of the portraits made in Asakusa, was published a year later.
Persona (2003) is a further collection. A few are from Kikai's earliest work, but most postdate anything in the earlier books. Several of the subjects appear twice or more often, so the reader sees the effect of time. The book format is unusually large for a photograph collection in Japan, and the plates were printed via quadtone. The book won the 23rd Domon Ken Award and 2004 Annual Award of the PSJ. A smaller-format edition with additional photographs followed two years later.
Asakusa Portraits (2008) is a large collection edited by the International Center of Photography (New York), published in conjunction with the ICP's exhibition of recent Japanese photography and art Heavy Light. Kikai's contribution to this exhibition was well received, and Asakusa Portraits won praise for its photography and also (from Paul Smith) for the vernacular fashion of those photographed.
### Portraits of spaces
Kikai said that people and scenery are two sides of the same coin. When tired of waiting (or photographing) in Asakusa, he would walk as far as 20 km looking for urban scenes of interest where he could make "portraits of spaces". A day's walk might take two or three hours for less than a single roll of 120 film. He generally photographed between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., and avoided photographing when people were outside as their presence would transform the photographs into mere snapshots, easily understood; even without people, they are the images or reflections of life. Kikai might find a scene that he wanted to photograph and then wait there and only photograph it when something unexpected occurred in the frame. After development, he did not bother with contact prints, instead judging a photograph by the negative alone.
Samples from this series appeared in various magazines from at least as early as 1976. Each photograph is simply captioned with the approximate address (in Japanese script) and year.
Tōkyō meiro / Tokyo Labyrinth (1999) presents portraits of unpeopled spaces in Tokyo (and occasionally the adjacent town of Kawasaki). There are individual shopfronts, rows of shops and residential streets. Most of the buildings are unpretentious. Like the Asakusa series, these portraits are monochrome and square, taken via a standard lens on 120 film.
Tōkyō mutan / Labyrinthos (2007)—based on an essay/photograph series that ran in the monthly Sōshi (草思) from March 2004 to July 2005 and then in the web series "Tokyo Polka"—presents more of the same. Between a single nude in a shopfront display from 1978 and a very young boy photographed in December 2006 (the latter appearing to share the Sensō-ji backdrop of Persona), are square monochrome views of Tokyo and Kawasaki, compositions that seem casual and rather disorderly, mostly of unpeopled scenes showing signs of intensive and recent use. The book also has Kikai's essays from "Tokyo Polka", essays that dwell on the inhabitants of Tokyo as observed during walks or on the train.
Tokyo View (2016) is a large-format collection, mostly of photographs that also appear in one or other of the earlier books (or Tōkyō pōtoreito / Tokyo Portraits).
### India
Kikai said that going to India felt like a return to the Yamagata of his youth, and a release from life in Tokyo. His photography there was much less planned or formal than his portraits of people or places in Tokyo: after an early start with color 120 film, he used black and white 35 mm film in India—and laughingly said that he would use 35 mm in Tokyo if the city were more interesting and did not make him feel unhappy.
India, a large-format book published in 1992, presents photographs taken in India (and to a much lesser extent Bangladesh) over a period totalling rather more than a year and ranging from 1982 to 1990. It won high praise from the critic Kazuo Nishii, who commented that the India of Kikai's work seems perpetually overcast, and that in their ambiguity his photographs seem to benefit from the work done in the Asakusa portrait series. The book won Kikai the 1993 Society of Photography Award.
Shiawase / Shanti (2001) is a collection of photographs that concentrates on children, most of which were taken in Allahabad, Benares, Calcutta, Puri and Delhi in 2000. It won the Grand Prix of the second Photo City Sagamihara Festival.
### Turkey
Wanting to explore somewhere that (in contrast to India) was cold, as well as a Muslim land where Asian and European cultures meet, in 1994 Kikai made the first of six visits to Turkey, where he stayed for a total of nine months. His monochrome photographs of Turkey appeared in the magazine Asahi Camera, and his colour photographs on its website, before the publication in January 2011 of his large book Anatolia, a compilation of his monochrome work.
### Photography elsewhere
Kikai was one of thirteen Japanese photographers invited by EU–Japan Fest to photograph the twenty-six nations of the European Union; he spent twenty-one days in Malta in September 2005 and a short period in Portugal in October 2004, travelling widely in both countries. In color, these photographs are a departure from his earlier work. Most are more or less candid photographs of people. The collection was published in a book titled In-between 8.
Series of color photographs from short visits to Cuba (2007) and Taiwan (2013) have appeared in Asahi Camera.
### Writing
Kikai's essays have appeared in periodicals and within some of his own photobooks. They have also been collected in four books, in which they are illustrated by reproductions of relevant photographs.
Indo ya Gassan ("India and Gassan", 1999) is a collection of essays about and photographs of India. Gassan is a mountain in central Yamagata close to where Kikai was brought up; Kikai muses on India and compares it with the Yamagata of his youth.
Me to kaze no kioku ("Memories of the eye and the wind", 2012) collects essays published in Yamagata Shinbun (山形新聞) since 2006; Dare omo sukoshi suki ni naru hi: Memekuri bōbiroku ("Days when you come to like anyone a little: An image-turning aide-memoire", 2015) collects essays published in Bungakukai (文學界) since 2011; Kutsuzoku no herikata ("Ways to wear down shoe rubber", 2016) is a fourth collection.
## Exhibitions
Supplementary English titles in parentheses are nonce translations for this article; those outside parentheses and in quotation marks were used at the time.
- [A]: Asakusa portraits
- [I]: India
- [S]: Portraits of spaces
- [T]: Turkey
### Selected solo exhibitions
- "Nagi: Machinaka no kōkei" (凪:町中の光景, Calm: Town scenes). [S] Konishiroku Photo Gallery (Shinjuku, Tokyo), August–September 1983.
- "Indo kikō" (インド紀行, India travelogue). [I] Doi Photo Plaza Shibuya (Shibuya, Tokyo), August 1984; Art Plaza (Fukuoka), August 1984; Gallery Antomeru (Sendai), September 1984; Yamagata, 1984.
- "Ōtachi no shōzō (Sensōji keidai)" (王たちの肖像(浅草寺境内), Portraits of kings [in the grounds of Sensō-ji]). [A] Ginza Nikon Salon (Ginza, Tokyo), September 1988.
- "Dai-13 Ina Nobuo shō jushō sakuhinten: Kikai Hiroo 'Ōtachi no shōzō (Sensōji keidai)' " (第13伊奈信男賞受賞作品展・鬼海弘雄「王たちの肖像(浅草寺境内)」, Exhibition of works winning the 13th Ina Nobuo Award: Hiroh Kikai, Portraits of kings [in the grounds of Sensō-ji]). [A] Ginza Nikon Salon (Ginza, Tokyo); Osaka; Kyoto; etc., 1988–89.
- The Hitachi Collection of Contemporary Japanese Photography, Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona. 1989.
- "Dai-13-kai Ina Nobuo shō jushō sakuhinten: Kikai Hiroo 'Kanshō: Machi no katachi' " (第13回伊奈信男賞受賞作品展・鬼海弘雄「観照:町のかたち」, Exhibition of works winning the 13th Ina Nobuo Award: Hiroh Kikai, Meditation: Town shapes). [S] Osaka Nikon Salon, February 1990; Ginza Nikon Salon (Ginza, Tokyo), March 1990; Kyoto; etc., 1990.
- "Ecce Homo". [A] Robert Koch Gallery (San Francisco), 1993.
- "Indo kikō" (インド紀行, India travelogue). [I] Shōmeidō Gallery (Kodaira), 1998.
- "Persona (1)". [A] Centrum Sztuki i Techniki Japońskiej "Manggha" (Kraków), 1999.
- "Shashin to insatsu hyōgen" (写真と印刷表現, Photographs and printing expression). [S] Mitsumura Art Plaza (Ōsaki, Tokyo), February–March 2000.
- "Persona (2)". [A] Centrum Sztuki i Techniki Japońskiej "Manggha" (Kraków), November–December 2002.
- "Persona". [A] The Third Gallery Aya (Osaka), October 2003.
- "Persona". [A] Domon Ken Photography Museum (Sakata), September–November 2004.
- "Persona". [A] Ginza Nikon Salon (Tokyo); Osaka, 2004.
- "Persona". [A] Galeria Fotografii PF, Centrum Kultury "Zamek" (Poznań), February–March 2005.
- "Persona". [A] Shōmeidō Gallery (Kodaira) January 2005.
- "Perusona" (ぺるそな). [A] Ginza Nikon Salon (Ginza, Tokyo), February–March 2006; Osaka Nikon Salon (Osaka), April 2006.
- "Tōkyō mutan" (東京夢譚, Tokyo dreams). [S] Ginza Nikon Salon (Ginza, Tokyo), September 2007; Osaka Nikon Salon (Osaka), October 2007.
- "Tokyo Labyrinth". [S] Yancey Richardson Gallery (New York City), September–October 2008.
- "Jinsei gekijō" (人生劇場, Human theatre). [A] Gallery Raku, Kyoto University of Art and Design, Kyoto, March 2009.
- "Persona". [A] Yancey Richardson Gallery (New York City), May–July 2009.
- "Asakusai portrék". [A] Liget Gallery (Budapest), November–December 2010.
- "Anatoria e no purosesu" (アナトリアへのプロセス). [T] Aoyama Book Center (Omotesandō, Tokyo), January 2011.
- "Tōkyō pōtoreito" (東京ポートレイト) / "Tokyo portraits". [A, S] Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (Ebisu, Tokyo), August–October 2011.
- "Anatoria" (アナトリア). [T] M2 (Shinjuku, Tokyo), August 2011.
- "Persona". [A, S, I, T] Yamagata Museum of Art (Yamagata), December 2011 – January 2012.
- "Tokyo Labyrinth". [S] Zen Foto Gallery (Roppongi, Tokyo), May 2013.
- "Persona" / "Perusona" (ペルソナ). [A] 14th Documentary Photo Festival Miyazaki, Miyazaki Prefectural Art Museum, August–September 2013.
- "Asakusa Portraits (1973–2008) et India (1982–2008)". [A, I] In between Gallery (Paris), November 2013.
- "India 1982–2011". [I] Canon Gallery S (Shinagawa, Tokyo), May–June 2014.
- "Retratos de Asakusa". [A] , Promoción del Arte (Madrid), September–November 2014.
- "India 1982–2011". [I] The Museum of Art, Ehime (Matsuyama, Ehime), September–October 2014.
- "Tôkyô: voyage à Asakusa". [A, S] Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale, Paris 6. October 2015.
- "India 1979–2016" [I] Fujifilm Photo Salon (Tokyo), May–June 2017.
- 《人物》鬼海弘雄的肖像摄影. [A] See+ Art Space / Gallery (Beijing), December 2017 – February 2018.
- "Persona". [A] Photo Gallery Blue Hole (Katagami, Akita), August 2018 – January 2019.
- "Persona". [A] Kihoku town office (鬼北町役場庁舎), Kihoku, Ehime, February 2019.
- "Persona". [A] Sagae City Museum of Art, Sagae, Yamagata, April–June 2019.
- "Persona: The Final Chapter" / "Persona saishūshō" (Persona 最終章). [A] Irie Taikichi Memorial Museum of Photography Nara City, September–October 2019.
- "Persona: The Final Chapter 最終章". [A] In between Gallery (Paris), November–December 2019.
- "Ōtachi no shōzō" (王たちの肖像, Portraits of kings). [A] (Tokyo), June–August 2020.
### Selected group exhibitions
- "The Hitachi Collection of Contemporary Japanese Photography". Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 1988.
- "Nyū dokyumentsu 1990" (ニュー・ドキュメンツ 1990) / "New Documents 1990". Museum of Modern Art, Toyama (Toyama), 1990.
- "Shashin toshi Tōkyō" (写真都市Tokyo) / "Tokyo/City of Photos". [A] (Other photographers exhibited were Takanobu Hayashi, Ryūji Miyamoto, Daidō Moriyama, Shigeichi Nagano, Ikkō Narahara, Mitsugu Ōnishi, Masato Seto, Issei Suda, Akihide Tamura, Tokuko Ushioda, and Hiroshi Yamazaki.) Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 1995.
- "Shashin wa nani o katareru ka" (写真は何を語れるか。What can photographs say?). [I] Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, June; Osaka Umeda Canon Salon, July; Fukuoka Canon Salon, August; Nagoya Canon Salon, September; Sapporo Canon Salon, October; Sendai Canon Salon, November 1997.
- "Berlin–Tokyo". Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 2006.
- "Tōkyō meiro / Andesu Kuero" (東京迷路・アンデスケロ村) / "Tokyo Labyrinth / Andes Qero". [S] (With Yoshiharu Sekino, who exhibited photographs taken of the Q'ero.) Shōmeidō Gallery (Kodaira), July 2007.
- "Heavy Light: Recent Photography and Video from Japan". [A] International Center of Photography (New York), May–September 2008.
- "Sander's Children". [A] Danziger Projects, New York, 2008.
- Mit anderen Augen. Das Porträt in der zeitgenössischen Fotografie = With Different Eyes: The Portrait in Contemporary Photography. [A] Die Photografische Sammlung/, Cologne, 26 February – 29 May 2016; Kunstmuseum Bonn, 25 February – 8 May 2016.
- "Faces from Places". [A] L. Parker Stephenson Photographs, Manhattan, 6 May – 16 July 2016. With Mike Disfarmer, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, J. D. 'Okhai Ojeikere, Malick Sidibé, and Jacques Sonck.
## Permanent collections
- Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography: 17 photographs from the series Ōtachi no shōzō (later known as Persona or Asakusa Portraits), 1985–86.
- Museum of Modern Art, Toyama (Japan)
- Domon Ken Photography Museum (Sakata, Yamagata, Japan)
- Neue Nationalgalerie (Berlin)
- Walther Collection (Neu-Ulm, Germany / New York): 16 photographs from the series Asakusa Portraits
- Center for Creative Photography (University of Arizona, Tucson)
- Hood Museum of Art (Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire)
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Texas)
- Museum of the International Center of Photography (New York)
- Mead Art Museum (Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts)
- Philadelphia Museum of Art (Pennsylvania)
## Publications
### Books by Kikai
- Ōtachi no shōzō: Sensō-ji keidai (王たちの肖像:浅草寺境内) / Ecce homo: Portraits of kings. Yokohama: Yatate, 1987. . Photograph collection, with captions in Japanese and English, and an essay by Sadayoshi Fukuda. There are forty-one monochrome plates.
- India. Tokyo: Misuzu Shobō, 1992. . Photograph collection, with text (by Kikai and Munesuke Mita) in Japanese and English, and captions in English. There are 106 monochrome plates (all "landscape" format).
- Ya-Chimata: Ōtachi no kairō (や・ちまた:王たちの回廊, Ya-Chimata: A gallery of kings). Tokyo: Misuzu Shobō, 1996. . Photograph collection, with text (by Kikai and ten other writers) in Japanese only. There are 183 monochrome plates.
- Tōkyō meiro (東京迷路) / Tokyo Labyrinth. Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1999. . Photograph collection, with text (by Andrzej Wajda, Genpei Akasegawa, and Suehiro Tanemura) in Japanese only. There are 108 monochrome plates.
- Indo ya Gassan (印度や月山, India and Gassan). Tokyo: Hakusuisha, 1999. . Thirty essays and forty-one photographs; text in Japanese only. The monochrome photographs are a mixture of "landscape" (across two pages) and "portrait" (on single pages).
- Shiawase: Indo daichi no kodomo-tachi (しあわせ:インド大地の子どもたち) / Shanti: Children of India. Tokyo: Fukuinkan, 2001. . Photograph collection (all monochrome): thirteen "landscape" photographs across both pages; and ninety-four "portrait". There are no captions, and the text is in Japanese only.
- Persona. Tokyo: Sōshisha, 2003. . Photograph collection, with captions and text (by Andrzej Wajda, Suehiro Tanemura, and Kikai) in both Japanese and English. Between an additional plate at the front and back, there are twelve plates in a prefatory section (photographs taken well before the others), and in the body of the book twenty-eight plates four to a page and 138 plates on their own pages.
- Perusona (ぺるそな) / Persona. Tokyo: Sōshisha, 2005. . Second, popular edition of the 2003 Persona in a smaller format. There are additional essays and photographs by Kikai; captions in both Japanese and English, other text in Japanese only. The twelve prefatory plates of the first edition and 191 plates of the main series are each presented on a separate page; there are also three more plates of photographs outside the series.
- In-between 8: Kikai Hiroo Porutogaru, Maruta (In-between 8 鬼海弘雄 ポルトガル、マルタ) / In-between, 8: Hiroh Kikai, Portugal, Malta. Tokyo: EU–Japan Fest Japan Committee, 2005. . One of a series of 14 books (). Photograph collection; captions and text in both Japanese and English. There are twenty-eight colour photographs of Portugal and twenty-seven of Malta.
- Tōkyō mutan (東京夢譚) / Labyrinthos. Tokyo: Sōshisha, 2007. . Collection of 118 monochrome photographs and essays; captions (for each, the approximate address and the year) and essays are in Japanese only.
- Asakusa Portraits. New York: International Center of Photography; Göttingen: Steidl, 2008. . Collection of monochrome photographs; captions and texts in English only. With an interview of Kikai by Noriko Fuku, essays by Kikai (translated from Perusona) and an essay on Asakusa by Hiromichi Hosoma [Wikidata].
- Anatoria (アナトリア) / Anatolia. Tokyo: Crevis, 2011. . Collection of 140 monochrome photographs (all "landscape" format) of Turkey (not only Anatolia). With afterwords by Toshiyuki Horie and Kikai.
- Tōkyō pōtoreito (東京ポートレイト) / Tokyo Portraits. Tokyo: Crevis, 2011. . Exhibition catalogue of over 150 monochrome photographs of the "Asakusa portraits" and "portraits of spaces" series. Afterwords (by Shinji Ishii [Wikidata], Iwao Matsuyama [Wikidata], and Nobuyuki Okabe [岡部信幸]) in Japanese only; captions in Japanese and English.
- Me to kaze no kioku: Shashin o meguru esē (眼と風の記憶 写真をめぐるエセー). Tokyo: Iwanami, 2012. . Essay collection.
- Seken no hito (世間のひと). Chikuma Bunko. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 2014. . A bunkobon anthology of the Asakusa portrait series.
- Dare o mo sukoshi suki ni naru hi: Memekuri bōbiroku (誰をも少し好きになる日 眼めくり忘備録). Tokyo: Bungei shunjū, 2015. . Essay collection.
- Naxie jianjian xihuan shang ren de rizi (那些渐渐喜欢上人的日子 视线所至备忘录). Hunan: 浦睿文化·湖南文艺出版社, 2019. . Translation into Chinese by 连子心.
- Tokyo View. Kyoto: Kazetabi-sha, 2016. A large-format collection of 117 monochrome photographs of the "portraits of spaces" series. Captions in Japanese and English; afterword by in Japanese only.
- Kutsuzoku no herikata (靴族の減り方). Tokyo: Chikumashobo, 2016. . Essay collection, contains 32 full-page plates from the "portraits of spaces" series.
- India 1979–2016. Tokyo: Crevis, 2017. . Black and white plates, mostly one to a page, with captions in Japanese. With a preface by Kikai and an essay by Randy Taguchi [Wikidata]; all in Japanese only.
- Persona saishūshō 2005–2018 (Persona 最終章 2005–2018) / Persona: The Final Chapter, 2005–2018. Tokyo: Chikumashobo, 2019. . 205 captioned black and white plates, one to a page; with essays by Kikai and Toshiyuki Horie; all both in Japanese and in English translation.
- Kotoba wo utsusu: Kikai Hiroo taidanshū (ことばを写す 鬼海弘雄対談集, Portraying words: Hiroh Kikai interview collection). Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2019. . Interviews by Kikai of Taichi Yamada, Nobuyoshi Araki, Toshiko Hirata [Wikidata], Shūsuke Michio [Wikidata], Randy Taguchi, Shigeru Aoki [Wikidata], Toshiyuki Horie and Natsuki Ikezawa; edited by Jun'ichirō Yamaoka [Wikidata].
- Shanti: Persona in India. Tokyo: Chikumashobo, 2019. . 168 captioned black and white plates, one to a page; with essays by Kikai and Shinji Ishii; all both in Japanese and in English translation.
- Ōtachi no shōzō (王たちの肖像, "Portraits of kings"). JCII Photo Salon Library 346. Tokyo: JCII Photo Salon, 2020. . Photographs from the series later known as "Asakusa portraits", from 1973 to 1986; 22 photographs, one per page; plus four photographs on each of four pages.
### Other books with contributions by Kikai
- Shashin toshi Tōkyō (写真都市Tokyo) / Tokyo/City of Photos. Tokyo: Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 1995. Catalogue of an exhibition held in 1995. Plates 113–29, admirably printed, are from Kikai's series of Asakusa portraits. Captions and texts in both Japanese and English.
- Literatura na świecie (Warsaw, ISSN 0324-8305) number 1–3, 2002. This special issue on Japanese literature, Japonia, is illustrated with photographs by Kikai, taken from Ya-Chimata and Tōkyō meiro / Tokyo Labyrinth. Text in Polish.
- Ueda Makoto. Shūgō jūtaku monogatari (集合住宅物語, The story of collective housing). Tokyo: Misuzu, 2004. . A book about collective housing in Japan from the Dōjunkai buildings onward, with 165 illustrative color photographs, all by Kikai. (Some monochrome photographs are older and are by other photographers.) The text, by Ueda, is in Japanese only. Content previously (1997–2001) published in Tokyojin.
- In-between: 13-nin no shashinka 25-kakoku (In-between 13人の写真家 25ヶ国) / In-between: 13 photographers, 25 nations. Tokyo: EU–Japan Fest Japan Committee, 2005. . Kikai is one of the thirteen in this supplementary collection of photographs in six themes ("Stones and walls", "Words", etc.); captions and text in both Japanese and English.
- Miyako Harumi. Messēji (メッセージ) / The Message. Tokyo: Juritsusha, 2006. . A book of which about half consists of quotations from interviews with the enka singer Harumi Miyako, and the other half of color photographs by Kikai. The photographs are not described or identified; a handful are of Miyako but most are of sea and provincial views. (In many, the scenes are recognizably of the Kumano area just west of Kumanogawa, Wakayama.) The text is all in Japanese.
- Heavy Light: Recent Photography and Video from Japan. New York: International Center of Photography; Göttingen: Steidl, 2008. . Captions and texts in English only.
- Higashi-Nihon dai-jishin: Shashinka 17-nin no shiten (東日本大地震 写真家17人の視点, The great east Japan earthquake: The perspectives of 17 photographers). Special compilation by Asahi Camera. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 2011. . A collection of photographs of the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Text in Japanese only. Kikai contributes six pages: Sōma in early June, and three towns in Miyagi in late August.
- Kikai Hirô and . Tôkyô: voyage à Asakusa. Atlantique, Éditions de l'Actualité Scientifique Poitou-Charentes, 2015. . An introduction to the work of Kikai, in French and Japanese.
- Gabriele Conrath-Scholl and Stephan Berg, eds. Mit anderen Augen. Das Porträt in der zeitgenössischen Fotografie = With Different Eyes: The Portrait in Contemporary Photography. Cologne: Snoeck, 2016. . Catalogue of the exhibition. |
59,405,247 | Acadele | 1,116,906,068 | null | [
"2018 singles",
"2018 songs",
"Delia Matache songs",
"LGBT-related songs",
"Romanian songs",
"Songs written by Alexandru Cotoi"
]
| "Acadele" (Romanian: Lollipops) is a song recorded by Romanian singer Delia, and digitally released on 5 November 2018 through Cat Music as a single from her fifth studio album 7 (2020). Alex Cotoi produced the song and co-wrote it with Delia. "Acadele" is a trap song, which is a departure from Delia's previous pop works. In its candy-themed lyrics, she discusses female empowerment and references the LGBT community in Romania. She also alludes to the 2018 Romanian constitutional referendum regarding the constitutional definition of a family.
An accompanying music video for "Acadele" was uploaded onto Delia's official YouTube channel on 4 November 2018, and was directed by Alex Ceaușu. Several scenes of the clip feature candy; several kilograms of multiple sugar-based confectionery were used for the video shooting, including M&M's and marshmallows. In one scene, Delia wears a multicolored anorak reading "Love sees no colour", a reference to the lyrics' LGBT message. She performed "Acadele" live in several venues, including on the eighth season of X Factor Romania and for the Romanian radio station Radio ZU.
## Background and composition
"Acadele" was written by Delia and Alex Cotoi, while production was handled by Cotoi. It was made available for digital download on 5 November 2018 by Cat Music. Musically, "Acadele" is a trap song and is a departure from Delia's previous pop music. Its lyrics contain several subtexts and connotations, with the singer saying: "Many people have read behind the lines and each understood the text differently, [...] it has some accents you either catch or not. Or you're just thinking about sugar." Apart from the track's candy theme, the song discusses women's predisposition to diets and features a female empowerment message towards "voluptuous women with attitude".
Known as a supporter of LGBT rights, Delia references the controversy around the LGBT community in Romania by repeating "Boicot, boicot" ("boycott, boycott") throughout "Acadele". She further alludes to the 2018 Romanian constitutional referendum regarding the constitutional definition of marriage in the line: "În dulcele stil clasic şi deloc tradiţional/Noi n-o ardem în plastic, noi facem totul natural" ("In the sweets, classic style and not at all traditional/We don't [do it] in plastic, we do everything natural").
## Music video and promotion
An accompanying music video for "Acadele" was uploaded onto Delia's YouTube channel on 4 November 2018. Alex Ceaușu acted as its director and director of photography, while Luca-s Art Film and Radu Selaru were hired as its producers. Upon its release, the clip was trending on YouTube in Romania, and a Facebook filter was also launched, allowing users to "recreate [its] atmosphere".
Nearly every scene of the music video displays candy; apart from some stage props, 500 kg of sugar were used for the clip alongside 10 kg of M&M's, 15 kg of marshmallows, 20 kg of candy, 30 kg of cake, 100 cupcakes and 150 lollipops. Delia recalls, "All [candies] were real and bought in industrial quantities [...]. I have not touched anything, I have only eaten some jellies." During the video, she performs choreography with background dancers, while wearing yellow sneakers, tied hair and a multicolored sequined anorak which reads "Love sees no colour", alluding to the lyrics' LGBT message. She is also shown residing in a pool created out of sugar filled with multicolored balls. Interspersed shots show backup dancers and Delia eating candy, as well as a flashing sign reading "Girls".
An editor of Spynews praised Delia's appearance in the video and the dancing as "sexy", allowing the viewer to "develop a rich imagination". For further promotion of "Acadele", Delia performed it live several times. She sang the track on 5 November for Romanian radio station Radio ZU, as well as on 6 November 2018 on Romanian talk show Prietenii de la 11. Delia named her concert tour "Acadelia" after "Acadele"; during the song's performance, several dancers emerged from a giant cake. On 9 December 2018, the singer—as a juror—appeared on the first live show of the eighth season of X Factor Romania to sing "Acadele". In September 2019, Grigore Gherman covered the song and impersonated Delia on Te cunosc de undeva!.
## Track listing
- Digital download
1. "Acadele" – 2:43
## Release history |
62,533,584 | Bonnie & Clyde (Loredana and Mozzik song) | 1,171,409,347 | 2018 single by Loredana and Mozzik | [
"2018 singles",
"2018 songs",
"Albanian-language songs",
"German-language songs",
"Hip hop songs",
"Loredana Zefi songs",
"Mozzik songs",
"Rhythm and blues songs",
"Song recordings produced by Macloud",
"Song recordings produced by Miksu",
"Songs written by Loredana Zefi"
]
| "Bonnie & Clyde" is a song by Swiss rapper Loredana and Kosovo-Albanian rapper Mozzik. The song was written by Loredana and Mozzik along with German producers Macloud and Miksu, who also handled the production. It was independently released as a single for digital download and streaming on 14 September 2018. An Albanian and German-language uptempo hip hop and R&B song, it contains Balkan elements. Inspired by Bonnie and Clyde, the song is lyrically about both rappers confessing that they only are after the money. The accompanying music video was uploaded to YouTube in September 2018. Music critics generally received "Bonnie & Clyde" with favorable reviews, complimenting the music and lyrics as well as the rappers' collaboration. The song was a commercial success, reaching number two in both Austria and Switzerland, as well as number three in Germany. It has been also awarded gold certifications by the Austrian International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI Austria) and German Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI).
## Background and composition
Prior to the release of "Bonnie & Clyde", Loredana signed a contract with the German subsidiary of Sony Music in September 2018 and announced the release of an upcoming single. Then, "Bonnie & Clyde" was made available for digital download and streaming on 14 September 2018. The single, with its title alluding to the American criminal couple Bonnie and Clyde, marked the first collaboration between the couple Loredana and Mozzik. The song was written by Loredana, Mozzik, Macloud (Laurin Auth) and Miksu (Joshua Allery), with the production handled by the latter two. Musically, "Bonnie & Clyde" is an uptempo hip hop and R&B-described song, which incorporates Balkan elements. Performed in German with some lyrics by Mozzik in Albanian, both rappers lyrically confess that they only are after the money.
## Reception and promotion
"Bonnie & Clyde" received mainly positive reviews upon its release. Martin Seebacher from Red Bull complimented the song's Balkan and uptempo sounds, stating that it is a "perfect" symbiosis of "classic and hip hop". Mira Weingart from the same website praised Mozzik's Albanian-language lyrics, labelling them as "smooth", and wrote that "even if you do not understand it, you want to bounce and party to it". Yma Nowak from Hiphop De found Loredana's rhyming techniques to be "catchy", while the staff of laut.de further described them as "simple". "Bonnie & Clyde" reached number two in both Austria and Switzerland, having since received a gold certification in the former country from the Austrian International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI Austria). In Germany, the single experienced similar success, peaking at number three on the Official German Charts, and received a gold certification there from the German Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI). Loredana uploaded the music video for "Bonnie & Clyde" to her YouTube channel on 14 September 2018. Produced by Bilal Hadzic and Mohamed Elbouhlali, the video received 11 million YouTube views in less than a week.
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from Spotify.
- Loredana – songwriting, vocals
- Mozzik (Gramoz Aliu) – songwriting, vocals
- Macloud (Laurin Auth) – songwriting, producing
- Miksu (Joshua Allery) – songwriting, producing
## Track listing
- Digital download and streaming
1. "Bonnie & Clyde" – 2:55
## Charts
## Certifications
## Release history |
14,891,663 | Dunston Power Station | 1,149,602,845 | Coal-fired power station in England | [
"1910 establishments in England",
"1981 disestablishments in England",
"Buildings and structures demolished in 1986",
"Coal-fired power stations in England",
"Demolished buildings and structures in England",
"Demolished power stations in the United Kingdom",
"Gateshead",
"Power stations in North East England"
]
| Sometimes confused with the nearby Stella power stations.
Dunston Power Station refers to a pair of adjacent coal-fired power stations in the North East of England, now demolished. They were built on the south bank of the River Tyne, in the western outskirts of Dunston in Gateshead. The two stations were built on a site which is now occupied by the MetroCentre. The first power station built on the site was known as Dunston A Power Station, and the second, which gradually replaced it between 1933 and 1950, was known as Dunston B Power Station. The A Station was, in its time, one of the largest in the country, and as well as burning coal had early open cycle gas turbine units. The B Station was the first of a new power station design, and stood as a landmark on the Tyne for over 50 years. From the A Station's opening in 1910 until the B Station's demolition in 1986, they collectively operated from the early days of electricity generation in the United Kingdom, through the industry's nationalisation, and until a decade before its privatisation.
Dunston A had a generating capacity of 48.85 megawatts (MW) in 1955, and Dunston B had a generating capacity of 300 MW. Electricity from the stations powered an area covering Northumberland, County Durham, Cumberland, Yorkshire and as far north as Galashiels in Scotland.
## Dunston A Power Station
### History
With the expansion of the electric supply industry in the early 1900s, power stations were built to supply homes with electric lighting. Around Newcastle upon Tyne this led to the construction of power stations at Lemington, The Close and Carville. Two supply companies built the stations, the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Electric Supply Company (NESCo) to the east of Newcastle, and the Newcastle and District Electric Lighting Company (DisCo) to the west. To meet an increasing demand for electricity, NESCo commissioned Dunston Power Station (later Dunston A Power Station) on the Derwent Haugh, a large flood plain to the west of Gateshead, to balance the supply of the Newcastle area with the Carville station. Construction of the new station began in 1908, the work undertaken by the company of Sir Robert McAlpine. They completed the construction in the short time of 20 months, and this was to be their first in a large number of power station constructions, following the decline of the railway industry. In 1910, the station was opened and began generating electricity.
### Design and specification
The station was of a similar design to other local power stations at Carville and Lemington, and was a large triple-gabled brick building. However Dunston A was built several years after the other local stations, and so because of advances in power station design, was larger and was able to produce more electricity than the others. The station was originally equipped with two turbo-alternators rated at 7.2 megawatts (MW), made by AEG of Germany, and two turbo alternators rated at 6.25 MW and 13.2 MW, made by Brown Boveri of Switzerland, for a total generating capacity of 33.85 MW. The turbo alternators were supplied with steam from 24 coal burning Babcock & Wilcox marine water-tube boilers.
#### Low temperature carbonisation plant
In 1925, NESCo set up separate plant at the power station for the low temperature carbonisation treatment of coal, before being burned in boilers and the steam used for electricity generation. The treatment plant was manufactured by Babcock & Wilcox, and set up in a self-contained boiler house which contained four boilers, four retorts and pulverising mills. The building was also fitted with gas-stripping and by-product plants. The carbonising plant could handle up to 100 tonnes of coal per day, while its boilers produced 78,000 lb of steam per hour. This plant was extended in 1931.
#### Gas turbine plant
Between 1947 and November 1955, the station was extended, and a 15 MW Parsons gas turbine turbo alternator was installed, bringing the capacity of the station up to 48.85 MW. The gas was supplied by pipe line from the Norwood Coke Works, 1.5 mi (2.4 km) away in the Team Valley.
The electricity output from the A station was as follows.
## Dunston B Power Station
As part of a transition from the 40 Hertz (Hz) system, used by the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Electric Supply Company, to the 50 Hz system, used by the new UK National Grid, which took place in 1932, a new power station was built to replace the A power station.
### Design and specification
The new Dunston B Power Station was designed by consulting engineers Merz & McLellan. Its design was different from the design of other power stations at the time because it enclosed the machinery in a steel frame clad with glass. This was a departure from the usual power station designs, which normally enclosed the machinery in a concrete or brick wall. Dunston B is thought to be the first power station in the UK and possibly even the world to be built in this way. The station was also the first in the world to use metal clad switchgear at a voltage as high as 66,000 V.
Construction of the new power station started in 1930, but the Second World War delayed its full completion until 1951. The station was opened in stages throughout its construction, as generating units were able to be put into production while the other sections were still under construction. The first units were commissioned in January 1933.
The new station had a capacity of 300 megawatts (MW), produced by six 50 MW generating sets. These were made by C. A. Parsons and Company and were the largest machines ever constructed under Charles Algernon Parsons' supervision.
The station's units were the first application of reheated steam in steam turbines in the world, an improvement which gave them a heat consumption of only 9,280 BTU per kilowatt hour, the most efficient system in the UK. In 1939 the station was said to be "at the head of all the Power Stations in Great Britain as regards thermal efficiency." The station remained one of Britain's most efficient systems until the 1950s.
The stations' buildings were around 100 ft (30 m) tall. Flue gas was discharged through six 250 ft (76 m) tall chimneys, one for each of the station's six generating units. The station was fitted with two electrostatic precipitators in 1953, one completed in June that year and the other in September. They were fitted to reduce smoke and pollution from the station.
### Operations
The plant's water system was cooled by using the nearby River Tyne, rather than using a cooling tower system. Coal for the station was supplied from various coal mines in the North Durham coalfields, and was brought to the station by train, on what was a freight only line. Since the station's closure, this line has been upgraded for use by passenger trains and is now used as part of the Newcastle & Carlisle Railway. Once delivered to the station, coal was shunted by CEGB No. 15 "Eustace Forth", which was built by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns in 1942, and No. 13 "The Barra", which was built by Hawthorn Leslie & Company in 1928. These two engines are now stored at National Railway Museum Shildon and Tanfield Railway respectively.
Various ships disposed of the station's ash waste, by carrying the fly ash down the river and dumping it in the North Sea. These vessels included "Bobby Shaftoe", "Bessie Surtees" and "Hexhamshire Lass", which were also used by the nearby Stella power stations; as well as a number of tugs towing hopper barges, including "Mildred".
In 1971 the station had an installed capacity of 282.5 MW comprising two 52 MW and four 44 MW generator sets. The boilers had an output capacity of 2,250,000 pounds per hour (283.4 kg/s) of steam at 600 psi (41.4 bar) and 427/454 °C. In 1971 the station delivered 508.83 GWh of electricity.
The electricity generating capacity and output of Dunston B power station are shown in the tables. Separate figures are given for the Part I plant (1933–39) and the part II plant (1949–50).
## Closure, demolition and present
In its time, Dunston B Power Station ranked consistently in England's leading stations, both in terms of thermal efficiency and cost per unit of electricity. However, the station eventually became outdated, and notification of its partial closure was given in October 1975, with some units being closed the following October. It was then only used as a stand-by station, operating only at peak electrical demand times. Finally, after some units having been in operation for about 40 years, the station ceased to generate electricity on 26 October 1981. At the time of closure, only 98 MW of the station's capacity was in use.
The station was demolished in 1986 to make way for the MetroCentre, which became Europe's largest shopping and leisure centre. The land on which the MetroCentre was built was bought for only £100,000, because the site was water-logged and had been used for dumping ash produced by the power station. American warehouse club chain Costco have since built a store on the actual site of the power station. The power station's large indoor sub-station still stands alongside it, as the only trace of the site's former use.
Due to the closure of Dunston power station, along with the later closures of the power stations at Stella and Blyth, the northern part of North East England has become heavily dependent upon the National Grid for electrical supply. However, in the south of the region there are still two large power stations at Hartlepool and Teesside, meaning that the south of the region does not depend upon the National Grid for electrical supply as much as the north of the region.
## Visual and cultural impact
The power station's six chimneys were a prominent local landmark, visible from along a 8.6-mile (13.8 km) stretch of the Tyne valley running from Bensham in Gateshead to Heddon-on-the-Wall in Northumberland.
When in operation, the B station briefly featured in Get Carter, a 1971 crime film starring Michael Caine. Dunston B appears as part of the film's backdrop, viewed from the now demolished Frank Street in Benwell, as the funeral cortège of the main character's brother Frank leaves a house on the street.
The station was also a popular subject for photographers. It featured in the work of documentary and press photographer Bert Hardy, who photographed it from Benwell, using it as a backdrop whilst photographing a mother and child. It was also photographed by Welsh documentary photographer Jimmy Forsyth (photographer) as part of his Scotswood Road collection.
## See also
- List of power stations in England
- Timeline of the UK electricity supply industry
- Energy use and conservation in the United Kingdom
- Electricity Act 1947
- Electricity Act 1957
- Northern Electric |
6,934,045 | HMS Nile (1888) | 1,171,213,026 | British Trafalgar-class battleship | [
"1888 ships",
"Ships built in Pembroke Dock",
"Trafalgar-class battleships",
"Victorian-era battleships of the United Kingdom"
]
| HMS Nile was one of two Trafalgar-class ironclad battleships built for the Royal Navy during the 1880s. Late deliveries of her main guns delayed her commissioning until 1891 and she spent most of the decade with the Mediterranean Fleet. Nile returned home in 1898 and became the coast guard ship at Devonport for five years before she was placed in reserve in 1903. The ship was sold for scrap in 1912 and broken up at Swansea, Wales.
## Design and description
The design of the Trafalgar-class ships was derived from the layout of the earlier ironclad battleship Dreadnought and the Admiral class, coupled with the heavy armour of the preceding Victoria class. The Trafalgars displaced 12,590 long tons (12,790 t); the addition of more armour and ammunition during construction added an additional 650 long tons (660 t) of weight and increased their draught by a foot (0.3 m) below their designed waterline. They had a length between perpendiculars of 345 feet (105.2 m), a beam of 73 feet (22.3 m), and a draught of 28 feet 6 inches (8.7 m). Nile's crew consisted of 537 officers and ratings in 1903 and 527 two years later. The low freeboard of the Trafalgars made them very wet and they could not maintain full speed except in a calm.
The ships were powered by a pair of three-cylinder, vertical inverted, triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft, which were designed to produce a total of 12,000 indicated horsepower (8,900 kW) and a maximum speed of 16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph) using steam provided by six cylindrical boilers with forced draught. During her sea trials, Nile slightly exceeded this with a speed of 16.88 knots (31.26 km/h; 19.43 mph) from 12,102 ihp (9,024 kW). The Trafalgar class carried a maximum of 1,100 long tons (1,118 t) of coal which gave them a range of 6,300 nautical miles (11,700 km; 7,200 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).
### Armament and armour
The Trafalgar-class ships' main armament consisted of four breech-loading (BL) 13.5-inch (343 mm) guns mounted in two twin-gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure. Each gun was provided with 80 rounds. The muzzles of these guns were only 3 feet 6 inches (1 m) above the deck, and were very hard to fight in a seaway due to the spray breaking over the forward turret.
Their secondary armament was originally planned to consist of eight BL 5-inch (127 mm) guns, but these were replaced during construction by six quick-firing (QF) 4.7-inch (120 mm) guns. 200 rounds per gun were carried by the ships. Eight QF 6-pounder 2.2 in (57 mm) and nine QF 3-pounder 1.9 in (47 mm) Hotchkiss guns were fitted for defence against torpedo boats. The ships carried four 14-inch (356 mm) torpedo tubes and another pair were added in August 1890.
The Trafalgars' armour scheme was similar to that of Dreadnought, although the waterline belt of compound armour did not cover the complete length of the ship and a 3-inch (76 mm) deck extended fore and aft of the armoured citadel to the bow and stern. The belt was 230 feet (70.1 m) long and was 20–14 inches (508–356 mm) thick; it was closed off by traverse 16–14-inch (406–356 mm) bulkheads. Above it was a strake of 18–16-inch (457–406 mm) armour that covered the bases of the gun turrets. Another strake above that protected the secondary armament and was 5–4 inches (127–102 mm) thick. The sides of the gun turrets were 18 inches thick and the conning tower was protected by 14-inch plates.
## Construction and career
Nile, named after the Battle of the Nile, was the third ship of her name to serve in the Royal Navy. She was laid down on 8 April 1886 by Pembroke Dockyard. The ship was launched on 27 March 1888 by Lady Maud Hamilton, wife of Lord George Hamilton, First Lord of the Admiralty. She was completed in July 1890, although her main guns were not delivered until the following year, at a cost of £885,718.
After delivery, she was commissioned at Portsmouth on 30 June 1891 for manoeuvres, following which she was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet. When the battleships Victoria and Camperdown collided on 22 June 1893, Nile was next astern and it was only through the skillful manoeuvring of Captain Gerard Noel that his ship was not also involved in the collision. Nile had her 4.7-inch guns replaced by QF 6-inch (152 mm) guns in 1896. She came home in January 1898 to become the port guardship at Devonport, and Captain Robert Sidney Rolleston was in command in June 1902. She took part in the fleet review held at Spithead on 16 August 1902 for the coronation of King Edward VII. She paid off at Devonport in February 1903, when her captain and crew transferred to HMS Royal Oak which took her place in the Home Fleet. The Nile was relegated to the reserve at Devonport, where she remained until she was sold on 9 July 1912 for £34,000 to be broken up at Swansea by Thos. W. Ward. |
57,484,673 | Si Prat | 1,145,651,976 | Legendary Thai poet | [
"17th-century Thai people",
"17th-century poets",
"Legendary Thai people",
"People from the Ayutthaya Kingdom",
"Thai poets"
]
| Si Prat (Thai: ศรีปราชญ์) is a legendary Thai poet believed to have served King Narai during the 17th century. According to traditional tellings, he was subsequently banished to South Thailand as a result of his personal indiscretions and executed after having an affair with the wife of a provincial governor.
Si Prat is regarded as one of the foremost Thai poets of the Ayutthaya period and epitomizes the genius court poet during the kingdom's golden age of literature. The 131-stanza poem Kamsuan Samut (c. 1680), regarded as a seminal work from the era, has traditionally been attributed to him, as is the Anirut Kham Chan. However, the attributions have been questioned by late 20th-century literary scholarship, and the historical existence of Si Prat is nowadays regarded as a myth by most academics.
## Biography
### Career
According to tradition, Si Prat was born Si in 1650, the son of the court astrologer, poet, and royal teacher Phra Horathibodi. He demonstrated a flair for writing from a young age. The story goes that one day when Si was twelve years old, his father had been tasked by King Narai to finish a poem for him due to writer's block. Unable to complete the task right away, Si's father brought the work home, and next morning found that the missing lines had been filled in by his young son. Impressed by the sharp writing but also worried that his son had overstepped his place, Si's father reluctantly submitted the poem to the King, who was very pleased and accepted Si into his court as a royal page. One legend has it that during a hunting expedition, Si was accorded the title "Si Prat", which means "great scholar", by King Narai after composing a few lines that pleased him greatly.
Si Prat's career as a court poet coincided with what is dubbed the "Golden Age of Thai literature". In his early years, he is believed to have written the Anirut Kham Chan ("The Tale of Anirut"), a parallel to the story of Aniruddha in the Puranas which has been described by Thomas J. Hudak as a "masterpiece of punning and word play". Many anecdotes tell of Si Prat engaging in improvised oral poetry with members of the court, such as guardsmen and royal concubines, sometimes flirting with the latter. At age 27, he was discovered to have had an affair with Thao Si Chulalak, one of Narai's consorts. This was punishable by death, but out of respect for Si Prat's father, the King commuted his sentence and banished him to Nakhon Si Thammarat in the south instead. On his way to exile, Si Prat is believed to have penned the Kamsuan Samut ("Ocean Lament") or Kamsuan Si Prat ("The Mourning of Si Prat"), a nirat poem which follows the speaker as he flees from Ayutthaya with a heavy heart. It has been described as a masterpiece of Thai literature.
### Death
In Nakhon Si Thammarat, Si Prat became established as a poet, and was often invited to the governor's residence. In 1683, at 31 years of age, he was found to be having an affair with one of the governor's minor wives. Ignorant of Si Prat's reputation in the royal palace, the governor promptly had Si Prat executed.
Legend has it that while blindfolded and tied to the post for his beheading, Si Prat used his toe to write a khlong poem in the sand. This poem cursed those who wrongly condemned him to face the same sword. A few months later, Narai, wishing to pardon Si Prat, learned of his death and accordingly had the governor executed with the same sword.
> > {\| \|- \|style="padding-left:2em"\|ธรณีนี่นี้\|\|style="width:2em"\| \|\|เป็นพยาน \|- \|เราก็ศิษย์อาจารย์\|\| \|\|หนึ่งบ้าง \|- \|เราผิดท่านประหาร\|\| \|\|เราชอบ \|- \|เราบ่ผิดท่านมล้าง\|\| \|\|ดาบนี้คืนสนองฯ
> > Bear me witness, ye Earth, Spite not God's image in man. If wrong I did, let this sword fall true and sharper, If wronged I am, let it strike back the striker.
The poem has since become one of the best known verses attributed to Si Prat. A pond within the modern day grounds of Kanlayaneesithammarat School in Nakhon Si Thammarat is known as "Sa Lang Dap Sri Prat" ("Washing Sri Prat's Sword Pond") and is allegedly where the executioner washed his sword after executing him, though this has been disputed by local historian Khun Athet Khadi, who argued that it is a later pond from 1905. Nevertheless, a statue of the poet was erected at the school in 2009.
## Historicity
The earliest written accounts of Si Prat's existence are found in Khamhaikan Khun Luang Ha Wat and Khamhaikan Chao Krung Kao, documents derived from an original Mon chronicle compiled from the testimony of Siamese captives following the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767. These documents focus on his banishment and death, but state that they happened during the reign of King Suriyenthrathibodi, several decades later than Narai. The detailed biography which gives explicit years for Si Prat's birth and death and places his lifetime during Narai's reign was written by Phraya Pariyattithammathada (Phae Talalak) and published as a cremation volume titled Tamnan Si Prat ("The Legend of Si Prat") in 1919. The work, based in large part on oral tradition, has been criticized by later scholars; Chetana Nagavajara described it as "unabashed myth-making".
One of the early doubters of the historicity of the Si Prat legend was P. Na Pramuanmak (pen name of Prince Chand Chirayu Rajani), who edited and published a version of Kamsuan Si Prat in 1959, noting that its language was much earlier than the time of King Narai. A 2006 volume, edited by Sujit Wongthes, follows the same thought, suggesting that Kamsuan Samut was from the early Ayutthaya period, and that Si Prat was a folktale figure much like the trickster Si Thanonchai. Earlier in 1947, Sumonajati Swasdikul suggested that Si Prat may have been a title shared by many. Winai Pongsripian, who made a detailed analysis of Kamsuan Samut in 2010, believes that the events ascribed to Si Prat's life may have been actual events of court gossip which later came to be attached to the name, while Na Pramuanmak and Gilles Delouche have explained the name's mention in the testimony documents as deliberate misinformation or an attempt to create a mythical poet figure to rival the Burmese Nawade.
Although there is now scholarly consensus that Kamsuan Samut and the other works traditionally attributed to Si Prat were not written by him, and that he probably did not exist as commonly told, this consensus has not spread far outside of academic circles. The general public remains familiar with the traditional version of the Si Prat story, thanks in part to its popularization by the Fine Arts Department and its inclusion in school curricula since the 1970s. But whether seen as a historical figure or a fictional creation, Si Prat is regarded as a symbol of creative genius, the great poet from an idealized period of literary flourishing. |
33,280,803 | Hurricane Lidia (1993) | 1,171,665,998 | Category 4 Pacific hurricane in 1993 | [
"1993 Pacific hurricane season",
"1993 in Mexico",
"Category 4 Pacific hurricanes",
"Pacific hurricanes in Mexico"
]
| Hurricane Lidia was the strongest tropical cyclone of the 1993 Pacific hurricane season. Forming from a tropical wave on September 8, Lidia steadily organized and became a hurricane on September 10. The hurricane continued to strengthen while developing a well-defined eye, and peaked as a Category 4 hurricane on September 11. However, it weakened considerably before making landfall in Sinaloa as a Category 2 storm. Lidia dissipated near Austin on September 14 and was later absorbed by a cold front. Across Mexico, the hurricane killed seven people; over 100,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes. A total of 160 homes were destroyed and 10,000 people were left homeless because of the storm. In the United States, five people suffered injuries and storm damage totaled \$8 million (1993 USD).
## Meteorological history
A westward-moving tropical wave left the coast of Africa on August 24. Initially, shower activity along the wave axis was minimal, although it increased somewhat as the system approached the southern Lesser Antilles. It moved through the southwestern Caribbean Sea on September 3 and 4 without showing any signs of organization. The wave quickly emerged into the Pacific Ocean as it tracked just south of Central America. After September 7, shower activity began to increase and the cloud pattern became more organized. At this time, the disturbance was located about 200 mi (320 km) south of Salina Cruz. Following another drastic improvement in organization, the development well-defined banding features and a well-defined atmospheric circulation, the disturbance was upgraded into a tropical depression later on September 8. Based on ship reports of near gale-force winds far from its center, the depression was upgraded into Tropical Storm Lidia overnight, as it was presumed that stronger winds existed closer to the center.
At the time of the upgrade, Tropical Storm Lidia was moving to the northwest at around 10 mph (16 km/h) and was located about 300 mi (485 km) south-southwest of Salina Cruz. After briefly leveling off in intensity, Lidia resumed intensification later that day. The system developed very deep convection and a well-defined outflow, both signs of an incoming phase of rapid deepening; consequently, Lidia was forecast to reach Category 2 intensity on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale (SSHWS) within 48 hours, Shortly thereafter, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) upgraded Lidia into a hurricane; the basis of the upgrade being a ship reporting a pressure of 989 mbar (29.2 inHg) on the northeast portion of the circulation. At the time, Lidia was expected to parallel the Mexican Pacific coast before eventually decaying over cooler waters. Late on September 9, an eye became apparent in visible satellite imagery, which prompted the NHC to re-assess the intensity at 105 mph (169 km/h), despite Dvorak classifications suggesting that Lidia was significantly weaker. Six hours later, Lidia obtained major hurricane intensity (Category 3 or higher on the SSHS). It was also around this time in which Lidia's forecast track began to change, with the now expected to threaten the Baja California Peninsula due to an interaction with a cut-off low offshore the peninsula. Continuing to rapidly intensify, Hurricane Lidia reached its peak wind speed of 150 mph (240 km/h) at 12:00 UTC on September 11. At the time of peak intensity, Lidia exhibited a well-defined eye surrounded by very cold cloud top temperatures.
Cloud tops near the eye began to warm on the evening of September 11, and despite being located over ocean temperatures of 82 °F (28 °C) ocean temperatures, which typically is favorable for strengthening, Lidia began to lose strength. Because of two troughs, one over the northern Gulf of California and another over the Southwestern United States, Hurricane Lidia also began to recurve northeast on a trajectory towards mainland Mexico. The hurricane had begun to weaken significantly, and 24 hours following its peak, Lidia was only a mid-level Category 2 hurricane. Lidia made landfall near Culiacán in central Sinaloa at 18:00 UTC on September 13 with winds of 100 mph (160 km/h). Shortly after landfall, Hurricane Lidia began to accelerate northeastward. Lidia weakened to a depression just after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The depression dissipated near Austin on September 14, although the remnants of the cyclone were absorbed by a cold front.
## Preparations, impact, and aftermath
### Mexico
A tropical storm warning was issued from Acapulco to Cabo Corrientes, Jalisco at 2100 UTC September 21, but was discontinued 18 hours later. On 0300 UTC September 12 a hurricane warning was issued for areas below La Paz. Twelve hours later, a tropical storm warning was issued for the remaining portion of Baja California Sur. The same day, a hurricane warning was issued for a large area of the mainland. However, all watches and warnings were discontinued on September 13 as the system had moved inland over Mexico.
Although no reports of tropical storm force winds over land were received by the NHC, it is estimated that near-hurricane-force winds occurred near Mazatlán. The following locations received more than 8 in (200 mm) of rain; 12.72 in (323 mm) fell in La Cruz/Elota, 12.3 inches (310 mm) fell in Ayolta, 8.7 in (220 mm) fell in La Cruz, and 8.3 in (210 mm) was recorded in Digue La Primeva. Seven deaths are fully attributed to the storm and 41 people perished in combination of Tropical Storm Beatriz, Hurricane Gert, and Lidia. In addition, one injury were reported. One person in Sinaloa was electrocuted, and another person died in Durango during the collapse of a dwelling. Three fishing boats were reported missing at sea. More than 10,000 people were homeless, and damage was widespread in both of the states. Hundreds of shanty-homes near Mazatlán were toppled, and 100 houses were destroyed in La Cruz. In Durango, 16 homes were destroyed and 4,000 were damaged. In some areas of Nayarit, flooding destroyed several areas of agriculture. Near Culiacán, 1,200 head of cattle were killed, and a 150-foot (46 m) television tower was blown over. Utility poles, snapped trees and branches, and shredded billboards littered streets. Water, telephone, and electricity were cut off. Due to lack of power, gas stations were unable to pump. Many windows were smashed and widespread power and cell phone service outages were recorded. However, the hurricane avoided the more populated areas of the country, thus greatly reducing damage. About 100,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes. During the aftermath of the storm, army troops provided blankets and food to the homeless.
### United States
The remnants of Lidia, in combination of a cold front, prompted a tornado watch and flash flood watch for much of Texas. In Texas, six tornadoes were reported, with one of them causing over \$8 million (1993 USD) in damage. The Dallas–Fort Worth area was hit hard. Strong winds, tornadoes and torrential downpours left broken trees, damaged buildings, and minor injuries in the wake of the storm. Johnson, Denton, Collin, Tarrant, and Dallas counties were the hardest hit. In northern Arlington, five people were injured when a roof was torn off of a hotel.
## See also
- Other storms of the same name
- List of Pacific hurricanes
- List of Category 4 Pacific hurricanes
- Hurricane Lane (2006)
- Hurricane Rosa (1994)
- Hurricane Waldo (1985) |
5,742,429 | Angelo Emo | 1,158,443,558 | Venetian admiral (1731–1792) | [
"1731 births",
"1792 deaths",
"18th-century Venetian people",
"People involved in anti-piracy efforts",
"Procurators of Saint Mark",
"Provveditori Generali da Mar",
"Republic of Venice admirals"
]
| Angelo Emo (3 January 1731 – 1 March 1792) was a Venetian noble, administrator, and admiral. He is notable for his reforms of the Venetian navy and his naval campaigns, being regarded as the last great admiral of the Venetian Republic.
The scion of a distinguished family, Emo received an excellent education, and began his naval career as a cadet in 1752. He was quickly recognized for his ability and given his first command of a ship of the line two years later. In 1758, he was sent to cover the return of a trade convoy from London at the head of a squadron of three ships. Adverse weather resulted in a near-shipwreck for his ships, which suffered heavy casualties. In this episode, Emo gave proof of his determination and seamanship, earning acclaim both abroad and at home. Returning to Venice in 1759, over the following years he alternated between naval commands and administrative appointments in Venice, in which he invariably pursued modernizing and reformist policies. As naval commander, he led the Venetian fleet in shows of force against the Barbary states, as well as shadowing the Russian fleet in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774.
In 1775, he proposed naval reforms based on the practices of the British Royal Navy, but was not able to convert them into practice until 1782, when he was given control of the Arsenal of Venice: new techniques were introduced, training and pay were improved, and new warships were constructed. In 1784–1785 Emo led the Venetian fleet in a series of raids on the harbours of the Beylik of Tunis in retaliation for corsair attacks on Venetian-flagged shipping, but his requests for a landing to capture Tunis were rejected. He spent the last years of his life in anti-piracy patrols, and died after a brief illness on 1 March 1792. His body was returned to Venice, where he received a hero's funeral, and a funerary monument by the sculptor Antonio Canova was commissioned in his honour.
## Biography
### Early life and career
Angelo Emo was born in Venice on 3 January 1731, at the Palazzo Emo, in the parish of San Simeone Piccolo. He hailed from a distinguished aristocratic family. His father, Giovanni di Gabriele, had reached the position of Procurator of Saint Mark, the highest distinction for a Venetian citizen below that of Doge of Venice. His mother was Lucia Lombardo. Of mediocre stature, slight build and pale complexion, Emo stood out for his wide forehead, thick eyebrows, and large eyes. Historical accounts portray him in later life as a difficult, stubborn and haughty character. Emo was educated at the Jesuit college in Brescia, before returning to Venice, where which his father chose as his tutors the scholars Giovanni Battista Bilesimo [it], Jacopo Stellini, and Carlo Lodoli. The beneficiary of an excellent humanistic education, the young Emo was an ardent student of Venetian history, whose military achievements he sought to emulate, as well as the ancient Roman historian Tacitus, who became his favourite author.
Beginning the traditional Venetian cursus honorum, in 1752 Emo entered service in the Venetian navy as a Nobile di Nave (gentleman cadet). In the same year, he went on his first sea voyage, escorting the Venetian trade convoy to Smyrna. Emo proved a quick learner in naval matters, and his first commander remarked on his promise as a naval officer. Within two years he had been promoted to captain (Governatore di Nave) of a first-rate 74-gun ship of the line, the Sant'Ignazio. In this command, Emo tested a new mast configuration by emulating English models, and distinguished himself in escort duties of the trade convoys to Smyrna, repelling the attacks of pirates. He then commanded the second-rate Speranza of 58 guns.
### Voyage of the San Carlo
During the 18th century, the Venetian maritime trade, that had once dominated the Mediterranean, was in decline. The wealthy patricians preferred reliable investments in their estates in the Terraferma to the hazards of the sea, the emergence of new commercial centres such as Livorno and Trieste siphoned traffic off from Venice, attacks by pirates were a constant threat, and the Genoese, Dutch and English merchants had come to dominate the westward routes into the Atlantic. Attacks by the Barbary pirates of the Ottoman-aligned principalities of Algiers and Tunis, as well as raids by the smaller pirate towns of Bar (Antivari) and Ulcinj (Dulcigno) were also a constant threat. The main task of the Venetian fleet, based at Corfu, was to safeguard Venetian shipping against such attacks. The interruption caused by the War of the Austrian Succession had allowed the Venetian government, which remained neutral, the opportunity to try and seize back a share of trade with the Atlantic ports of Western Europe, equipping new and better ships and providing subsidies to merchants. Venetian successes proved ephemeral, as the end of the war in 1748 had allowed the English and Dutch traders to resume their voyages, but for some time the Venetian government continued to attempt to revive its Atlantic trade.
As part of these attempts, in 1758 Emo was charged to lead an expedition to Lisbon, in order to cover the return of six Venetian merchantmen from London and protect them from Barbary pirate attacks. He was given a squadron of three ships, comprising the 66-gun first-rate San Carlo [it], the second-rate (also designated a 'large frigate') San Vincenzo of 58 guns, and the 28-gun frigate Costanza. Emo's squadron left Corfu on 27 September 1758. Three days later, it reached Malta, where it gathered intelligence on the Barbary pirates, and in vain tried to find a competent pilot who knew the waters up to Lisbon.
Emo set sail westward in mid-October. Contrary winds delayed the voyage near Malaga, before the Venetians were able to cross the Strait of Gibraltar and make for Lisbon. Unfortunately for Emo, his pilot mistook Cape da Roca for Cape Espichel, and almost wrecked the San Carlo by drawing near the shore. Emo realized the mistake and tried to correct course, but the heavy wind made the manoeuvre difficult. Emo had to reduce sail, and had to go through three sets of sails as they were ripped apart by the wind. The San Carlo managed to clear the Berlengas islands, but the other two vessels were left behind in the process. After two days of struggle with the wind, Emo anchored at the mouth of the Mondego River, but almost immediately the ship lost its tiller. A new tiller was laboriously installed, but it broke apart during the night, followed soon after by the entire rudder. Some of his officers panicked and suggested beaching the ship, but Emo managed to restore discipline. He made contact with the shore, and with the help of the British vice-consul at Figueira arranged for Portuguese ships to tow the San Carlo to Lisbon.
At Cape da Roca, a hard easterly wind forced the towing vessels to abandon the effort. The San Carlo was left to drift rudderless for several days, while the crew tried to jury-rig a new rudder. The Costanza, also heavily damaged and leaking water, was sighted and the two ships remained in contact for a day, before they drifted apart again. Water supplies on board the San Carlo ran low. A makeshift rudder was installed, which allowed the ship to once again reach the Cape da Roca, before yet another violent wind came from the south and drove the San Carlo to the north. The new rudder had to be cut free, and only with great difficulty, by sailing stern first, did the crew narrowly avoid a shipwreck at the Berlengas.
The crew by this time had been reduced by accident, illness and fatigue from 590 to some 130 men. Although the ship suffered damage to its masts and rigging, it managed to reach a spot further north of its original anchorage at the mouth of the Mondego. This time, Emo went ashore in person and obtained the help of the local Portuguese governor. It took 17 days for a new rudder to be constructed, and five more for it to be installed on the ship, whose effective crew was down to 70, most of whom were inexperienced and exhausted soldiers. Accidents continued while Emo tried out his repaired ship, but at long last he was able to turn it south to Lisbon, entering the Tagus River on 5 February 1759. There he found his other two ships: the San Vincenzo had got in on 8 December, and the Costanza on 22 December.
At Lisbon, where Emo's struggle with the elements and misfortune had been followed with great interest, he was received by King Joseph I with the honours due to an ambassador. Taking charge of the Venetian merchant ships from London, he returned home via Genoa and Naples with little incident, reaching Corfu in mid-July 1759. Over the course of the voyage, the San Carlo had no fewer than 250 dead, while the San Vincenzo suffered 90 dead and the Costanza four. 76 more crewmen (from an original total crew of 1236 for the entire squadron) deserted. Emo's conduct during the voyage gave proof of his seamanship and command skills, earning acclaim from the government on his return to Venice in August.
### Rise to high command and state offices
Following Venetian tradition, a military appointment was followed by a civilian one. Thus in 1760 Emo was Provvedditore della Sanità (health commissioner), and until 1767 Emo alternated between anti-piracy commands and public office in Venice. As Savio ed Esecutore alle Acque (water commissioner) in 1761–62, he commissioned a plan of the Venetian Lagoon, which was completed in six months. So accurate was this plan that it continued in use until well into the 19th century. In 1763 he was elected to the higher command rank of Patron delle Navi (rear admiral of the sailing fleet) and charged with anti-piracy operations in the Adriatic Sea.
### Show of force at Algiers
In 1765 Emo was promoted to Almirante (vice admiral of the sailing fleet). In 1767 the Dey of Algiers tried to extort an increase in the annual sums sent to safeguard Venetian shipping from pirate attacks, and took Venetian ships and their crews captive. Emo sailed to Algiers and threatened to bombard the city. The Dey released the ships and their crews, paid reparations, and renewed the treaty with Venice to its previous terms.
The Republic honoured Emo with appointment to the Order of the Golden Stole, and sent Emo's brother, Luigi, to convey him the Order's insignia. On 12 June 1768, he was raised to Capitano delle Navi, full admiral of the sailing fleet.
### Russo-Turkish War
When the Russian fleet under Alexei Orlov arrived in the Mediterranean in 1770 as part of the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, Emo led a Venetian squadron to cruise in the Aegean, to shadow the Russians, and protect Venetian and French subjects and commercial interests in the area. Emo fulfilled his instructions in exemplary fashion, providing constant updates on Russian operations and perceptive reports on Russian strategy during the war. The conflict also saw raids by the pirates of Ulcinj, ostensibly acting as subjects of the Ottoman Sultan, against the Venetian Ionian Islands. Emo pursued them at Kythira (Cerigo) and recovered two captured ships.
Emo's fleet suffered heavy losses when it was caught in a storm near Cape Matapan on 19 December 1771: half his squadron, the 74-gun Corriera and the 28-gun frigate Tolleranza, foundered off Elos, the former with almost all hands. Emo's own flagship, the 74-gun Ercole, only survived by cutting her masts. Emo himself was swept into the sea during the manoeuvre and was rescued with difficulty by his crew. Distraught over what he perceived as a personal failure, Emo offered to donate his private fortune to make up for the losses.
Emo's naval command expired in 1772. He entered the Venetian Senate, as well as going abroad, visiting the courts of Frederick II of Prussia and Maria Theresa of Austria. Elected several times as censor, he worked to revive the manufacture of Murano glass.
Emo was named to a seven-member commission to examine reforms for the Venetian navy in March 1775. Although the parlous state of the Venetian navy was well known and had been a subject of debate and reform proposals for decades, nothing had been achieved. Emo authored the commission's report, the Scrittura sul sistemare la marina da guerra in cui eravi il cav. Emo e dettata dal cav. Emo stesso. The report recommended reforms on the model of the British Royal Navy, but although the commission numbered some influential senators, again its proposals failed to be taken up.
In 1776–1778, again in the post of Savio alle Acque, Emo was responsible for several maintenance works around the Lagoon, on the Brenta River, the Terraglio road, and the canal of Cava.
### Demonstration off Tripoli
Emo again received a naval command on 18 July 1778, being elected Capitano delle Navi, with the heavy frigate Sirena [it] as his flagship. His mission was to confront the Pashalik of Tripolitania, who tried to exploit the "right of search" accorded to them by treaty on Venetian shipping beyond the agreed-upon limits. Emo led his fleet in a demonstration of force in front of Tripoli, leading the pasha to conclude a new peace agreement with the Republic. Emo's appointment was renewed for the year after, but in the event it was not required for him to set sail.
In 1779, as a Savio alla Mercanzia (trade commissioner), Emo promoted reforms such as the reduction of tax on silk, the opening of new shops at Šibenik (Sebenico) and the transfer of the Venetian consulate in Egypt from Cairo to the port city of Alexandria. In 1780 he was a Provveditore ai Beni Inculti (commissioner on uncultivated lands) and laid out plans for the draining of the Adige marshlands around Verona, a project begun already by Zaccaria Betti. However, once again due to lack of funds, the plans were not carried out.
### Director of the Arsenal and naval reforms
During the January 1782 visit of the Grand Duke Paul (the future Tsar Paul I of Russia) to Venice, Emo personally educated Paul on the details of the Venetian naval apparatus. When Venice resolved to send a permanent envoy to Saint Petersburg shortly after, Emo's name was on top of the list, but he managed to avoid the costly and unattractive appointment by pleading ill health. In 1783 Emo led the negotiations with the Habsburg envoy Philipp von Cobenzl on freedom of navigation in Istria and Dalmatia.
In 1782–1784 Emo served as one of the three directors of the Venetian Arsenal (Inquisitore all'Arsenale). The Arsenal was a vital institution for the Republic, being responsible for the building and maintenance of all state ships and related equipment, but had fallen into decline. Assisted by the reformist senator Francesco Pesaro, during his tenure Emo restored and reformed the Arsenal. He imported new models of ships from England and France, introduced copper sheathing of warships to improve their speed and reduce the maintenance costs, and improved the methods for the manufacture of hawsers and rigging. He also increased the salaries of non-noble officers, introduced a theoretical training for naval cadets, as well as a publicly funded welfare scheme for invalid and aged sailors. Using his own position as a senator and his connections in the Republic's government, Emo secured funds for the construction of new warships: 15 were laid down after his tenure and until the end of the Republic in 1797.
### Naval campaigns against Tunis
On 6 March 1784 Emo was elected as Capitano Straordinario delle Navi (commander-in-chief of the sailing fleet) of a naval expedition against the Beylik of Tunis. The warlike new Bey, Hammuda ibn Ali, had become embroiled in a quarrel with the Republic that quickly escalated to warfare. When a Venetian ship laden with goods from Tunis was burned by the authorities in Malta due to it being infected with the plague, the Bey asked for an enormous compensation, and when the Venetian admiral Andrea Querini tried to negotiate, he was assaulted by a riot staged by the Bey. On 21 June, Emo sailed from Venice on a slow voyage to Corfu, where he was joined by more ships. His fleet comprised a few ships of the line, including Emo's flagship, the 64-gun Fama [it], a few xebecs, two bomb vessels, and a galiot. The fleet sailed for Tunis on 12 August.
Emo's squadron anchored at Cape Carthage, five miles from the city of Tunis, on 1 September. The Tunisian fleet, geared towards piracy against merchantmen, did not sail to oppose the Venetians, who were able to infiltrate the harbour of La Goulette during the night of the 3rd/4th and retake a Neapolitan merchant ship just captured by the pirates. After replenishing water and supplies in Sardinia, Emo sailed for Sousse, which he bombarded on 5–7 and 12 October, before the autumn storms forced him to return to winter in Trapani in Sicily and Malta.
Emo returned to the Tunisian shore in April 1785, anchoring at La Goulette. Negotiations with the Bey of Tunis failed, and Emo sailed back to Malta and Sicily. The Venetian fleet again bombarded Sousse intermittently (21 July 27 and 31 July – 4 August) due to the bad weather, but with meagre results. Sfax followed (15–17 August), before the fleet retired to Trapani again. After receiving reinforcements from Venice that raised his fleet to five first-rate ships of the line, one light frigate, two xebecs, one galiot, and the two bomb-vessels, Emo returned to La Goulette. It was here that Emo employed floating batteries of his own invention: large floats made of empty barrels, fortified with wet sandbags, and equipped with 40-pound guns and mortars. Along with the bomb-vessels, this gave the Venetians the ability to hit the settlements behind the sea walls during the nights of 3, 5, and 10 October. As the Bey remained obdurate, Emo dismantled his rafts and returned to Trapani.
As the Bey continued to insist on his previous demands, Emo returned to the Tunisian coast in early 1786, attacking Sfax (on 6, 18, and 22 March 30 April and 4 May). The Tunisians had prepared for his arrival, repairing their walls and installing heavy guns, leading to intense artillery duels between the city and the fleet. Emo too had appreciated the effect of his floating batteries, and had built more of them, with still heavier mortars; in nightly operations they were led up to the sea walls, and bombarded the city's interior with such devastating effect that the inhabitants of Sfax pleaded with the Bey to resume negotiations, to little effect. The Venetian fleet retired to Malta, where the news that Emo had been elected Procurator of Saint Mark on 28 May reached the fleet, an event that was celebrated for three days and nights. With the Bey still refusing to negotiate, Emo attacked Bizerte from 30 July to 10 August, and then, from 26 September to 6 October, Sousse, which now was left almost entirely in ruins.
These operations not only caused great damage and casualties in these cities, but also confined the Tunisian pirate fleet to its harbours. They also made Emo famous throughout Europe, where the images of his firework-like night bombardments kindled the imagination. Nevertheless, they failed to achieve their principal objective, namely to force the Bey of Tunis to the negotiating table. Venice, like the other European naval powers, preferred to reach an agreement with the pirates, including the annual payments, than engage in long, and far more expensive, military campaigns that would be required to thoroughly deal with the pirate threat. Thus Emo's requests of a 10,000-man expeditionary force with which to assault and capture the city of Tunis, were rejected by the Venetian Senate.
### Final years and death
In early 1787 the Senate recalled Emo with the bulk of his fleet, leaving only a small squadron under the Patron delle Navi Tommaso Condulmer to patrol the Tunisian coast. Emo's recall was likely connected to the imminent outbreak of another war between Russia and the Ottomans. Some alarm was caused by an Ottoman fleet that appeared off the coasts of Albania in August, but Emo, who shadowed its movements with a far more formidable force, was not worried. In the event, the Ottoman fleet's mission was merely to overawe the rebellious Pasha of Scutari; having accomplished that, it returned to its base in early 1788. Until 1791, Emo spent his time in anti-piracy cruises off the western coasts of Greece, with the exception of a foray into the Aegean in 1790 that brought him to Paros. For his efforts in combating the Tunisian pirates, the nobles of Zakynthos (Zante) awarded him with a golden sword and a medal.
In late 1790, the Senate named Emo Provveditore Generale da Mar, but did not entrust him with leading the fleet against the Tunisian coast. With the French Revolution under way in Europe, the Senate was loath to become embroiled in a prolonged conflict, and preferred peace. The Senate feared that Emo's aggressive nature would hamper these efforts, and instead placed Condulmer, promoted to Capitano delle Navi, in charge of the naval blockade and peace negotiations. In 1791, the Venetian government decided on a final show of force, reuniting the fleet of Emo with the squadron of Condulmer. The combined fleet demonstrated off the Tunisian coast from late August until returning to Malta in December. Hospitalized after a lung infection, Emo died at La Valetta, Malta on 1 March 1792. The story circulated that he had died from a bilious attack after learning that a peace, mostly disadvantageous to Venice, had been concluded with Tunis without his being consulted.
Celebrated as a great naval hero, his body was embalmed and carried to Venice on board his flagship, the Fama. The sculptor Antonio Canova was charged with erecting a monument to Emo. Completed in 1794, it is in the second armoury of the Venetian Arsenal. Canova was honoured by the Republic with a medal for this monument, the last such medal issued by the Republic before its end. His funeral took place at St Mark's on 17 April, and he was buried at the church of Santa Maria dei Servi. A funerary monument was erected over his tomb by Canova's teacher, Giovanni Ferrari, initially at Santa Maria dei Servi, then moved to San Martino, and finally, from 1817, to San Biagio.
## Legacy
Following the death of his older brother, Alvise Emo, in 1790, Angelo Emo's death also meant the end of the San Simeon Piccolo branch of the Emo family.
Already at the time of Emo's death, his loss was seen as a heavy blow and symptom of the Republic's decline. Emo's reputation was enhanced further by 19th-century historians of Venice, keen on romanticizing the final decades of the Republic: Girolamo Dandolo calls him "the last roar issued by the Lion of St. Mark on the sea", while for Samuele Romanin he might have been able to "shake [the Republic] from the disastrous abandonment" and "inspire in her the strength and energy" that she sorely lacked in the final years of its existence. For Romanin, Emo was the last of the great military commanders of the Venetian navy, and indeed of the Republic, which "may indeed be said to have herself descended with him into the sepulchre". After him, the Venetian navy would no longer be called upon to fight.
His sudden death also led to rumours that he had been poisoned. Dandolo insisted that this was the case, and identified his deputy Condulmer, ambitious not only to succeed him, but also to conclude a peace treaty with the Barbary states, as the culprit. This has been convincingly disproved by modern historian Alvise Zorzi. |
46,037 | Porpoise | 1,171,501,025 | Small cetacean of the family Phocoenidae | [
"Animals that use echolocation",
"Extant Miocene first appearances",
"Langhian first appearances",
"Porpoises",
"Taxa named by John Edward Gray"
]
| Porpoises (/ˈpɔːrpəsɪz/) are a group of fully aquatic marine mammals, all of which are classified under the family Phocoenidae, parvorder Odontoceti (toothed whales). Although similar in appearance to dolphins, they are more closely related to narwhals and belugas than to the true dolphins. There are eight extant species of porpoise, all among the smallest of the toothed whales. Porpoises are distinguished from dolphins by their flattened, spade-shaped teeth distinct from the conical teeth of dolphins, and lack of a pronounced beak, although some dolphins (e.g. Hector's dolphin) also lack a pronounced beak. Porpoises, and other cetaceans, belong to the clade Cetartiodactyla with even-toed ungulates.
Porpoises range in size from the vaquita, at 1.4 metres (4 feet 7 inches) in length and 54 kilograms (119 pounds) in weight, to the Dall's porpoise, at 2.3 m (7 ft 7 in) and 220 kg (490 lb). Several species exhibit sexual dimorphism in that the females are larger than males. They have streamlined bodies and two limbs that are modified into flippers. Porpoises use echolocation as their primary sensory system. Some species are well adapted for diving to great depths. As all cetaceans, they have a layer of fat, or blubber, under the skin to keep them warm in cold water.
Porpoises are abundant and found in a multitude of environments, including rivers (finless porpoise), coastal and shelf waters (harbour porpoise, vaquita) and open ocean (Dall's porpoise and spectacled porpoise), covering all water temperatures from tropical (Sea of Cortez, vaquita) to polar (Greenland, harbour porpoise). Porpoises feed largely on fish and squid, much like the rest of the odontocetes. Little is known about reproductive behaviour. Females may have one calf every year under favourable conditions. Calves are typically born in the spring and summer months and remain dependent on the female until the following spring. Porpoises produce ultrasonic clicks, which are used for both navigation (echolocation) and social communication. In contrast to many dolphin species, porpoises do not form large social groups.
Porpoises were, and still are, hunted by some countries by means of drive hunting. Larger threats to porpoises include extensive bycatch in gill nets, competition for food from fisheries, and marine pollution, in particular heavy metals and organochlorides. The vaquita is nearly extinct due to bycatch in gill nets, with a predicted population of fewer than a dozen individuals. Since the extinction of the baiji, the vaquita is considered the most endangered cetacean. Some species of porpoises have been and are kept in captivity and trained for research, education and public display.
## Taxonomy and evolution
Porpoises, along with whales and dolphins, are descendants of land-living ungulates (hoofed animals) that first entered the oceans around 50 million years ago (Mya). During the Miocene (23 to 5 Mya), mammals were fairly modern, meaning they seldom changed physiologically from the time. The cetaceans diversified, and fossil evidence suggests porpoises and dolphins diverged from their last common ancestor around 15 Mya. The oldest fossils are known from the shallow seas around the North Pacific, with animals spreading to the European coasts and Southern Hemisphere only much later, during the Pliocene.
- ORDER Artiodactyla
- Infraorder Cetacea
- Parvorder Odontoceti toothed whales
- Superfamily Delphinoidea
- Family Phocoenidae – porpoises
- Genus †Haborophocoena
- H. toyoshimai
- Genus Neophocaena
- N. phocaeniodes – Indo-Pacific finless porpoise
- N. sunameri – East Asian finless porpoise
- N. asiaeorientalis – Yangtze finless porpoise
- Genus †Numataphocoena
- N. yamashitai
- Genus Phocoena
- P. phocoena – harbour porpoise
- P. sinus – vaquita
- P. dioptrica – spectacled porpoise
- P. spinipinnis – Burmeister's porpoise
- Genus Phocoenoides
- P. dalli – Dall's porpoise
- Genus †Semirostrum
- S.ceruttii
- Genus †Septemtriocetus
- S. bosselaersii
- Genus †Piscolithax
- P. aenigmaticus
- P. longirostris
- P. boreios
- P. tedfordi
Recently discovered hybrids between male harbour porpoises and female Dall's porpoises indicate the two species may actually be members of the same genus.
## Biology
### Anatomy
Porpoises have a bulbous head, no external ear flaps, a non-flexible neck, a torpedo shaped body, limbs modified into flippers, and a tail fin. Their skull has small eye orbits, small, blunt snouts, and eyes placed on the sides of the head. Porpoises range in size from the 1.4 m (4 ft 7 in) and 54 kg (119 lb) Vaquita to the 2.3 m (7 ft 7 in) and 220 kg (490 lb) Dall's porpoise. Overall, they tend to be dwarfed by other cetaceans. Almost all species have female-biased sexual dimorphism, with the females being larger than the males, although those physical differences are generally small; one exception is Dall's porpoise.
Odontocetes possess teeth with cementum cells overlying dentine cells. Unlike human teeth, which are composed mostly of enamel on the portion of the tooth outside of the gum, whale teeth have cementum outside the gum. Porpoises have a three-chambered stomach, including a fore-stomach and fundic and pyloric chambers. Porpoises, like other odontocetes, possess only one blowhole. Breathing involves expelling stale air from the blowhole, forming an upward, steamy spout, followed by inhaling fresh air into the lungs. All porpoises have a thick layer of blubber. This blubber can help with insulation from the harsh underwater climate, protection to some extent as predators would have a hard time getting through a thick layer of fat, and energy for leaner times. Calves are born with only a thin layer of blubber, but rapidly gain a thick layer from the milk, which has a very high fat content.
### Locomotion
Porpoises have two flippers on the front and a tail fin. Their flippers contain four digits. Although porpoises do not possess fully developed hind limbs, they possess discrete rudimentary appendages, which may contain feet and digits. Porpoises are fast swimmers in comparison to seals, which typically cruise at 9–28 km/h (5–15 kn). The fusing of the neck vertebrae, while increasing stability when swimming at high speeds, decreases flexibility, making it impossible for them to turn their head. When swimming, they move their tail fin and lower body up and down, propelling themselves through vertical movement, while their flippers are mainly used for steering. Flipper movement is continuous. Some species log out of the water, which may allow them to travel faster, and sometimes they porpoise out of the water, meaning jump out of the water. Their skeletal anatomy allows them to be fast swimmers. They have a very well defined and triangular dorsal fin, allowing them to steer better in the water. Unlike their dolphin counterparts, they are adapted for coastal shores, bays, and estuaries.
### Senses
The porpoise ear has specific adaptations to the marine environment. In humans, the middle ear works as an impedance equaliser between the outside air's low impedance and the cochlear fluid's high impedance. In whales, and other marine mammals, there is no great difference between the outer and inner environments. Instead of sound passing through the outer ear to the middle ear, porpoises receive sound through the throat, from which it passes through a low-impedance fat-filled cavity to the inner ear. The porpoise ear is acoustically isolated from the skull by air-filled sinus pockets, which allow for greater directional hearing underwater. Odontocetes send out high frequency clicks from an organ known as a melon. This melon consists of fat, and the skull of any such creature containing a melon will have a large depression. The large bulge on top of the porpoises head is caused by the melon.
The porpoise eye is relatively small for its size, yet they do retain a good degree of eyesight. As well as this, the eyes of a porpoise are placed on the sides of its head, so their vision consists of two fields, rather than a binocular view like humans have. When porpoises surface, their lens and cornea correct the nearsightedness that results from the refraction of light; their eyes contain both rod and cone cells, meaning they can see in both dim and bright light. Porpoises do, however, lack short wavelength sensitive visual pigments in their cone cells indicating a more limited capacity for colour vision than most mammals. Most porpoises have slightly flattened eyeballs, enlarged pupils (which shrink as they surface to prevent damage), slightly flattened corneas and a tapetum lucidum; these adaptations allow for large amounts of light to pass through the eye and, therefore, they are able to form a very clear image of the surrounding area.
The olfactory lobes are absent in porpoises, suggesting that they have no sense of smell.
Porpoises are not thought to have a good sense of taste, as their taste buds are atrophied or missing altogether. However, some have preferences between different kinds of fish, indicating some sort of attachment to taste.
### Sleep
Unlike most animals, porpoises are conscious breathers. All mammals sleep, but porpoises cannot afford to become unconscious for long because they may drown. While knowledge of sleep in wild cetaceans is limited, porpoises in captivity have been recorded to sleep with one side of their brain at a time, so that they may swim, breathe consciously, and avoid both predators and social contact during their period of rest.
This means that the brain hemispheres take turns alternating between slow wave sleep and being awake. While one hemisphere displays slow waves, the other displays wake patterns on an electroencephalogram. It has been suggested that the brainstem controls this activity. All the while, porpoises also employ a minimal amount of suppressed REM sleep while swimming.
The same neural systems that regulate sleep in bihemispheric mammals are used in harbor porpoises. Cetaceans use many of the same neurotransmitters that other mammals use, although they have a significantly higher number. Although the way porpoises sleep is different from other mammals, they use the same neural mechanisms and pathways. One key difference is that porpoises seem to inhibit REM sleep more than most mammals, likely to prevent losing muscle tone and thus decreasing the risk of drowning or suffering from hypothermia. Porpoises differ from other mammals in terms of the neurons that regulate their sleep-wake cycle, however, the sleep-wake cycle overall is surprisingly similar to other mammals. This shows that despite differences in sleeping patterns, the sleep wake mechanism is conserved across species. The anatomy of the cetacean brain varies slightly from that of other mammals, with the area governing sleep-wake cycles (caudal to the posterior commissures) being significantly larger.
It is difficult to use traditional methods to determine whether a porpoise is sleeping, since half of the brain is awake at any given time. Parabolic dives have been shown to potentially be correlated to sleeping periods in porpoises, with decreased bioacoustics being transmitted during these periods. This means that during parabolic dives, porpoises generally do not employ echolocation clicks (about fifty percent of the time). This may be related to the side of the brain that is asleep. For instance, the left hemisphere signals to the right side of the brain, which controls the production of echolocation clicks. Thus, when the left side of the brain is asleep, echolocation cannot be produced.
Along with using less bioacoustics, porpoises roll less, use a lower vertical descent rate, and are overall less active while performing parabolic dives. Parabolic dives have shown to be of shallow depth and use a low amount of energy. These are different behaviors than the those displayed during foraging dives. Moreover, these behaviors are consistent with stereotypical sleeping behavior.
Interestingly, parabolic dives are more common during the daytime than during the nighttime and only take up a small amount of a wild porpoise's total time, as opposed to the time spent sleeping in other mammals. Meanwhile, captive cetaceans have been shown to spend up to fifty percent of their time sleeping and up to sixty-six percent of their time resting. A thought that deserves further consideration is that wild porpoises spend a significant fraction of their time near the surface of the water, and it is difficult to determine if this time is being spent resting or sleeping.
## Behaviour
### Life cycle
Porpoises are fully aquatic creatures. Females deliver a single calf after a gestation period lasting about a year. Calving takes place entirely under water, with the foetus positioned for tail-first delivery to help prevent drowning. Females have mammary glands, but the shape of a newborn calf's mouth does not allow it to obtain a seal around the nipple— instead of the calf sucking milk, the mother squirts milk into the calf's mouth. This milk contains high amounts of fat, which aids in the development of blubber; it contains so much fat that it has the consistency of toothpaste. The calves are weaned at about 11 months of age. Males play no part in rearing calves. The calf is dependent for one to two years, and maturity occurs after seven to ten years, all varying between species. This mode of reproduction produces few offspring, but increases the probability of each one surviving.
### Diet
Porpoises eat a wide variety of creatures. The stomach contents of harbour porpoises suggests that they mainly feed on benthic fish, and sometimes pelagic fish. They may also eat benthic invertebrates. In rare cases, algae, such as Ulva lactuca, is consumed. Atlantic porpoises are thought to follow the seasonal migration of bait fish, like herring, and their diet varies between seasons. The stomach contents of Dall's porpoises reveal that they mainly feed on cephalopods and bait fish, like capelin and sardines. Their stomachs also contained some deep-sea benthic organisms.
The finless porpoise is known to also follow seasonal migrations. It is known that populations in the mouth of the Indus River migrate to the sea from April through October to feed on the annual spawning of prawns. In Japan, sightings of small pods of them herding sand lance onto shore are common year-round.
Little is known about the diets of other species of porpoises. A dissection of three Burmeister's porpoises shows that they consume shrimp and euphausiids (krill). A dissection of a beached Vaquita showed remains of squid and grunts. Nothing is known about the diet of the spectacled porpoise.
## Interactions with humans
### Research history
In Aristotle's time, the 4th century BCE, porpoises were regarded as fish due to their superficial similarity. Aristotle, however, could already see many physiological and anatomical similarities with the terrestrial vertebrates, such as blood (circulation), lungs, uterus and fin anatomy. His detailed descriptions were assimilated by the Romans, but mixed with a more accurate knowledge of the dolphins, as mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his "Natural history". In the art of this and subsequent periods, porpoises are portrayed with a long snout (typical of dolphins) and a high-arched head. The harbour porpoise was one of the most accessible species for early cetologists, because it could be seen very close to land, inhabiting shallow coastal areas of Europe. Much of the findings that apply to all cetaceans were first discovered in porpoises. One of the first anatomical descriptions of the airways of the whales on the basis of a harbor porpoise dates from 1671 by John Ray. It nevertheless referred to the porpoise as a fish, most likely not in the modern-day sense, where it refers to a zoological group, but the older reference as simply a creature of the sea (cf. for example star-fish, cuttle-fish, jelly-fish and whale-fish).
### In captivity
Harbour porpoises have historically been kept in captivity, under the assumption that they would fare better than their dolphin counterparts due to their smaller size and shallow-water habitats. Up until the 1980s, they were consistently short-lived. Harbour porpoises have a very long captive history, with poorly documented attempts as early as the 15th century, and better documented starting in the 1860s and 1870s in London Zoo, the now-closed Brighton Aquarium & Dolphinarium, and a zoo in Germany. At least 150 harbour porpoises have been kept worldwide, but only about 20 were actively caught for captivity. The captive history is best documented from Denmark where about 100 harbour porpoises have been kept, most in the 1960s and 1970s. All but two were incidental catches in fishing nets or strandings. Nearly half of these died within a month of diseases caught before they were captured or from damage sustained during capture. Up until 1984, none lived for more than 14 months. Attempts to rehabilitate seven rescued individuals in 1986 only resulted in three that could be released 6 months later. Very few have been brought into captivity later, but they have lived considerably longer. In recent decades, the only place keeping the species in Denmark is the Fjord & Bælt Centre, where three rescues have been kept, along with their offspring. Among the three rescues, one (father of world's first harbour porpoise born in captivity) lived for 20 years in captivity and another 15 years, while the third (mother of first born in captivity) is the world's oldest known harbour porpoise, being 28 years old in 2023. The typical age reached in the wild is 14 years or less. Very few harbour porpoises have been born in captivity. Historically, harbour porpoises were often kept singly and those who were together often were not mature or of the same sex. Disregarding one born more than 100 years ago that was the result of a pregnant female being brought into captivity, the world's first full captive breeding was in 2007 in the Fjord & Bælt Centre, followed by another in 2009 in the Dolfinarium Harderwijk, the Netherlands. In addition to the few kept in Europe, harbour porpoise were displayed at the Vancouver Aquarium (Canada) until recently. This was a female that had beached herself onto Horseshoe Bay in 2008 and a male that had done the same in 2011. They died in 2017 and 2016 respectively.
Finless porpoises have commonly been kept in Japan, as well as China and Indonesia. As of 1984, ninety-four in total had been in captivity in Japan, eleven in China, and at least two in Indonesia. As of 1986, three establishments in Japan had bred them, and there had been five recorded births. Three calves died moments after their birth, but two survived for several years. This breeding success, combined with the results with harbour porpoise in Denmark and the Netherlands, proved that porpoises can be successfully bred in captivity, and this could open up new conservation options. The reopened Miyajima Public Aquarium (Japan) houses three finless porpoises. As part of an attempt of saving the narrow-ridged (or Yangtze) finless porpoise, several are kept in the Baiji Dolphinarium in China. After having been kept in captivity for 9 years, the first breeding happened in 2005.
Small numbers of Dall's porpoises have been kept in captivity in both the United States and Japan, with the most recent being in the 1980s. The first recorded instance of a Dall's taken for an aquarium was in 1956 captured off Catalina Island in southern California. Dall's porpoises consistently failed to thrive in captivity. These animals often repeatedly ran into the walls of their enclosures, refused food, and exhibited skin sloughing. Almost all Dall's porpoises introduced to aquaria died shortly after, typically within days. Only two have lived for more than 60 days: a male reached 15 months at Marineland of the Pacific and another 21 months at a United States Navy facility.
As part of last-ditch effort of saving the extremely rare vaquita (the tiny remaining population is rapidly declining because of bycatch in gillnets), there have been attempts of transferring some to captivity. The first and only caught for captivity were two females in 2017. Both became distressed and were rapidly released, but one of them died in the process. Soon after the project was abandoned.
Only a single Burmeister's porpoise and a single spectacled porpoise have been kept in captivity. Both were stranded individuals that only survived a few days after their rescue.
### Threats
#### Hunting
Porpoises and other smaller cetaceans have traditionally been hunted in many areas, at least in Asia, Europe and North America, for their meat and blubber. A dominant hunting technique is drive hunting, where a pod of animals is driven together with boats and usually into a bay or onto a beach. Their escape is prevented by closing off the route to the ocean with other boats or nets. This type of fishery for harbour porpoises is best documented from the Danish Straits, where it occurred until the end of the 19th century (it was banned in 1899), and again during the shortages in World War I and World War II. The Inuit in the Arctic hunt harbour porpoises by shooting and drive hunt for Dall's porpoise still takes place in Japan. The number of individuals taken each year is in the thousands, although a quota of around 17,000 per year is in effect today making it the largest direct hunt of any cetacean species in the world and the sustainability of the hunt has been questioned.
#### Fishing
Porpoises are highly affected by bycatch. Many porpoises, mainly the vaquita, are subject to great mortality due to gillnetting. Although it is the world's most endangered marine cetacean, the vaquita continues to be caught in small-mesh gillnet fisheries throughout much of its range. Incidental mortality caused by the fleet of El Golfo de Santa Clara was estimated to be at around 39 vaquitas per year, which is over 17% of the population size. Harbour porpoises also suffer drowning by gillnetting, but on a less threatening scale due to their high population; their mortality rate per year increases a mere 5% due to this.
The fishing market, historically has always had a porpoise bycatch. Today, the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 has enforced the use of safer fishing equipment to reduce bycatch.
#### Environmental hazards
Porpoises are very sensitive to anthropogenic disturbances, and are keystone species, which can indicate the overall health of the marine environment. Populations of harbor porpoises in the North and Baltic Seas are under increasing pressure from anthropogenic causes such as offshore construction, ship traffic, fishing, and military exercises. Increasing pollution is a serious problem for marine mammals. Heavy metals and plastic waste are not biodegradable, and sometimes cetaceans consume these hazardous materials, mistaking them for food items. As a result, the animals are more susceptible to diseases and have fewer offspring. Harbour porpoises from the English Channel were found to have accumulated heavy metals.
The military and geologists employ strong sonar and produce an increases in noise in the oceans. Marine mammals that make use of biosonar for orientation and communication are not only hindered by the extra noise, but may race to the surface in panic. This may lead to a bubbling out of blood gases, and the animal then dies because the blood vessels become blocked, so-called decompression sickness. This effect, of course, only occurs in porpoises that dive to great depths, such as Dall's porpoise.
Additionally, civilian vessels produce sonar waves to measure the depth of the body of water in which they are. Similar to the navy, some boats produce waves that attract porpoises, while others may repel them. The problem with the waves that attract is that the animal may be injured or even killed by being hit by the vessel or its propeller.
### Conservation
The harbour porpoise, spectacled porpoise, Burmeister's porpoise, and Dall's porpoise are all listed on Appendix II of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS). In addition, the Harbour porpoise is covered by the Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic, North East Atlantic, Irish and North Seas (ASCOBANS), the Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans in the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Area (ACCOBAMS) and the Memorandum of Understanding Concerning the Conservation of the Manatee and Small Cetaceans of Western Africa and Macaronesia. Their conservation statuses are either at least concern or data deficient.
As of 2014, only 505 Yangtze finless porpoises remained in the main section of the Yangtze, with an alarming population density in Ezhou and Zhenjiang. While many threatened species decline rate slows after their classification, population decline rates of the porpoise are actually accelerating. While population decline tracked from 1994 to 2008 has been pegged at a rate of 6.06% annually, from 2006 to 2012, the porpoise population decreased by more than half. Finless porpoise population decrease of 69.8% in just a 22-year span from 1976 to 2000. 5.3%. A majority of factors of this population decline are being driven by the massive growth in Chinese industry since 1990 which caused increased shipping and pollution and ultimately environmental degradation. Some of these can be seen in damming of the river as well as illegal fishing activity. To protect the species, China's Ministry of Agriculture classified the species as being National First Grade Key Protected Wild Animal, the strictest classification by law, meaning it is illegal to bring harm to a porpoise. Protective measures in the Tian-e-Zhou Oxbow Nature Reserve has increased its population of porpoises from five to forty in 25 years. The Chinese Academy of Science's Wuhan Institute of Hydrobiology has been working with the World Wildlife Fund to ensure the future for this subspecies, and have placed five porpoises in another well-protected area, the He-wang-miao oxbow. Five protected natural reserves have been established in areas of the highest population density and mortality rates with measures being taken to ban patrolling and harmful fishing gear in those areas. There have also been efforts to study porpoise biology to help specialize conservation through captivation breeding. The Baiji Dolphinarium, was established in 1992 at the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan which allowing the study of behavioral and biological factors affecting the finless porpoise, specifically breeding biology like seasonal changes in reproductive hormones and breeding behavior.
Because vaquitas are indigenous to the Gulf of California, Mexico is leading conservation efforts with the creation of the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA), which has tried to prevent the accidental deaths of vaquitas by outlawing the use of fishing nets within the vaquita's habitat. CIRVA has worked together with the CITES, the Endangered Species Act, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) to nurse the vaquita population back to a point at which they can sustain themselves. CIRVA concluded in 2000 that between 39 and 84 individuals are killed each year by such gillnets. To try to prevent extinction, the Mexican government has created a nature reserve covering the upper part of the Gulf of California and the Colorado River delta. They have also placed a temporary ban on fishing, with compensation to those affected, that may pose a threat to the vaquita.
## See also
- List of individual cetaceans |
8,736,026 | Eidsiva Arena | 1,160,273,488 | Arena | [
"1988 establishments in Norway",
"Curling in Norway",
"Curling venues",
"Handball venues in Norway",
"Indoor ice hockey venues in Norway",
"Lillehammer IK",
"Sports venues completed in 1988",
"Sports venues in Lillehammer",
"Venues of the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics"
]
| Eidsiva Arena, also known as Kristins Hall, is an arena located at Stampesletta in Lillehammer, Norway. It consist of an ice rink, a combined handball and floorball court, and a curling rink. The venue, owned and operated by the Lillehammer Municipality, opened in 1988 and cost 65 million Norwegian krone (NOK) to build. One of the motivations for its construction was to help Lillehammer's bid to be selected as the host of the 1994 Winter Olympics. The ice rink has a capacity for 3,194 spectators and is the home rink of GET-ligaen hockey club Lillehammer IK. Eidsiva Arena is located next to the larger Håkons Hall, which opened in 1993. During the 1994 Winter Olympics, Kristins Hall was a training rink, and subsequently hosted the ice sledge hockey tournament at the 1994 Winter Paralympics. The venue also co-hosted Group B of the 1989 World Ice Hockey Championships.
During the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics, it hosted the Curling and the Ice hockey competitions.
## Construction
Plans for an ice rink in Lillehammer started in the 1980s with the Lillehammer bid for the 1992 Winter Olympics. In 1985, Lillehammer Municipal Council accepted an agreement with the Norwegian Confederation of Sports (NIF), which offered to finance 50 percent of a new multi-use arena in Lillehammer. Combined with the construction of the skiing resort Hafjell, it was part of a plan to document the construction of new venues in and around Lillehammer to help the town secure the right to host the Olympics. The construction received NOK 25 million in state grants. To promote the Olympic bid, the venue was given priority by NIF in their recommendation for use of public grants. In May 1987, the municipal council stated that they did not want to apply to host the B-Group of the 1989 World Ice Hockey Championships, because they feared the venue would not be completed by November 1987. NIF President Hans B. Skaset stated that this could jeopardize the entire Olympic bid if Lillehammer withdrew from arranging such a small event. The decision was changed a week later. The venue opened in December 1988 and cost NOK 65 million.
After Lillehammer was awarded the 1994 Winter Olympics in 1988, it became necessary to build a larger venue to hold the Olympic ice hockey matches. The name of the arena was decided by the Lillehammer Municipal Council in October 1988, as part of a broader branding policy, based on the history of the Birkebeiner. Originally the administration had suggested the new larger hall be named Håkons Hall, after Haakon Haakonarson, later king of Norway, while the smaller hall would be named Sveres Hall, for Sverre Sigurdsson. During the political debate, a number of female councilors suggested that the smaller hall be named Kristins Hall, for Sigurdsson's daughter Kristina Sverresdotter, which was passed by the city council. Kristin and Håkon would be used to name the mascots for the Olympics. Kristins Hall has had small renovations throughout the years, including an upgrade in 2007 which included new ice hockey sideboards, a new ice machine, a new lighting system, and a new handball floor. On April 25, 2018, Lillehammer IK was given permission to sell the name "Kristins Hall" to an investing company in the upcoming future, this may allow the financial support for a potential jumbotron or new seating. In December 2018, new lighting was introduced in the rafters of the arena, allowing a more exciting atmosphere for the spectators.
On January 31, 2019, Lillehammer IK along with the Lillehammer Municipal Council completed a deal with Eidsiva Energi for 6 million NOK (1,2 million for 5 years) to give the name rights to Eidisva. The new arena name is Eidsiva Arena and the deal will commence on May 1, 2019. The deal will start a renovation process in Kristins Hall, including a new roof, new seating and a video scoreboard.
## Facilities
The municipally owns and operates venue is located at Stampesletta, about 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) from the town center of Lillehammer, Norway. With a gross area of 9,000 square meters (97,000 sq ft), it consists of three main sections: an ice hockey rink, a combined handball and floorball court, and a curling rink. The venue has eight locker rooms, of which two are designed for judges and referees, a weight room, a 100-meter (330 ft) long, four-track sprint track, meeting rooms, three kiosks, VIP facilities and a cafeteria. The handball hall has an artificial surface measuring 22 by 44 meters (72 by 144 ft).
The ice rink is certified by the Norwegian Ice Hockey Association to hold 3,197 spectators, but can accommodate up to 4,000 people in special circumstances. The cooling and heating systems for Håkons Hall and Eidsiva Arena are connected, allowing them to function as energy reserves for each other.
## Tenants and events
The ice rink is the home of Lillehammer IK, which plays in GET-ligaen, the premier ice hockey league in Norway. During the season, they play one to two home games per week, typically attracting crowds of 1,000 to 1,500 spectators. They inaugurated the arena in December 1988 with a game against Oshaug. The ice rink is also used by the Norwegian College of Elite Sport in Lillehammer and Lillehammer Kunstløpklubb. The handball court is used by Lillehammer Innebandyklubb and Lillehammerstudentenes IL, while the curling rink is used by Lillehammer Curlingklubb. The venue is owned and operated by Lillehammer Municipality.
The official opening of the venue took place on 12 December 1988, when Norway played ice hockey against West Germany. Kristins Hall held two more Norwegian friendly internationals during the season, before it was host to the B-Group during the 1989 World Ice Hockey Championships. Ten games were played in Lillehammer, including the opening game between Norway and Japan, while 18 games were played in Oslo. During the 1994 Winter Olympics, Kristins Hall was used as a training venue for the ice hockey teams, which played their games at Håkons Hall and Gjøvik Olympic Cavern Hall. During the 1994 Winter Paralympics, Kristins Hall hosted the ice sledge hockey tournament. The arena was used once again for the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics, where it hosted the curling and ice hockey competitions. For this, the arena expanded their curling rink to satisfy international requirements, and incremented their spectator capacity.
## See also
- List of indoor arenas in Norway
- List of indoor ice rinks in Norway |
45,658,141 | Looking Forward (1910 film) | 1,156,261,573 | null | [
"1910 comedy-drama films",
"1910 films",
"1910 lost films",
"1910s American films",
"1910s English-language films",
"American black-and-white films",
"American comedy-drama short films",
"American silent short films",
"Films based on short fiction",
"Films based on works by James Oliver Curwood",
"Lost American films",
"Lost comedy-drama films",
"Silent American comedy-drama films",
"Thanhouser Company films"
]
| Looking Forward is a 1910 American silent short drama produced by the Thanhouser Company. Adapted from James Oliver Curwood's short story of the same name, the film follows a young chemist named Jack Goodwin. He discovers a chemical compound that puts a person into a state of sleep for a determined period of time and decides to test it upon himself. The first test is a success and Jack makes arrangements for his sleep of a hundred years, in a state similar to suspended animation. When he awakes in 2010 into a world ruled by women, he woos the female mayor. Jack joins a society to campaign for men's rights. The society ends up before the female mayor who jails all of them, save for Jack who she proposes to. Jack accepts on the condition that men are given back their rights and she accepts. The cast and production credits of the film are not known, but Theodore Marston was not the director. The film was released on December 20, 1910. The film is presumed lost.
## Plot
The film focuses on Jack Goodwin, a young chemistry student who has discovered a novel compound that allows a person to be put in a state of sleep for any length of time. The compound causes an effect similar to suspended animation, with no ill-effects or bodily changes. Jack tests the compound on himself for a period of a week and desires to test it for a century. In preparation for this, he obtains a safety deposit vault and provides instructions to be presented before the mayor in a hundred years. Jack's experiment works and he awakes in the year 2010 to a very different future. Transportation has been radically changed to pneumatic tubes allowing him to be transported to the mayor. The woman mayor takes an interest in him and invites her over to her home. In the intervening years, the world has become ruled by women and Jack is now out of place, but the two fall in love. Her father is an advocate for men's rights and Jack joins their society. The group soon appears before the mayor and she sends all of them to jail through the pneumatic tube, except for Jack. She proposes to him, but Jack only consents if the rights of men would be granted. The mayor is true to her word and signs a decree to give the men their liberty. During the ceremony, she attempts to lead Jack to the altar, but Jack shows her that the man must lead. When the bridal veil is placed on Jack, he places it on his new wife.
## Cast
- Frank H. Crane
- William Russell
## Production
The scenario is adapted from James Oliver Curwood's short story of the same name. The writer of the scenario is unknown, but it was most likely Lloyd Lonergan. He was an experienced newspaperman employed by The New York Evening World while writing scripts for the Thanhouser productions. The film director is unknown, but it may have been Barry O'Neil or Lucius J. Henderson. Sometimes the directional credit is given to Theodore Marston. The apparent origin of this error is from the American Film-Index 1908–1915. Film historian Q. David Bowers consulted one of the co-authors of the book, Gunnar Lundquist, and confirmed that the credit of Marston was in error. Theodore Marston worked with Pathé, Kinemacolor, Vitagraph and other companies, but there is no record of Marston working with Thanhouser. This error has persisted in several works including The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Cameramen employed by the company during this era included Blair Smith, Carl Louis Gregory, and Alfred H. Moses, Jr. though none are specifically credited. The role of the cameraman was uncredited in 1910 productions.
The cast credits are unknown, but many 1910 Thanhouser productions are fragmentary. In late 1910, the Thanhouser company released a list of the important personalities in their films. The list includes G.W. Abbe, Justus D. Barnes, Frank H. Crane, Irene Crane, Marie Eline, Violet Heming, Martin J. Faust, Thomas Fortune, George Middleton, Grace Moore, John W. Noble, Anna Rosemond, Mrs. George Walters.
Musical accompaniment for the silent films were not provided by the studios, and the Thanhouser productions were no exception. The musical program for the screenings were decided and played by the individual accompanists. At times, musical accompaniments were shared in trade journals, but for Looking Forward a dispute serves to provide one musical credit provided by Mrs. Buttery of Pennsylvania. In responding to an editorial in The Moving Picture World, Mrs. Buttery stated that "John Took Me Home to See His Mother" was played during film at some unstated point.
## Release and reception
The single reel comedy, approximately 1,000 feet long, was released on December 20, 1910. The New York Dramatic Mirror stated, "Here is a rather exaggerated farce with a good many laughs in it. It has for its basis recent cartoons, but has original treatment. The male members of the cast seemed to enjoy their roles, perhaps for the reason that it is a man's picture; the laugh seems on the ladies." A more contemporary analysis of the film was covered in a paper by Eric Dewberry, who credits this film as Thanhouser's first film portraying suffragists. Dewberry writes that the film presents the idea of a woman mayor, something which was not farfetched for women to find to be humorous. Despite Jack's lack of power in the new era which he awakes to, he managed to win the heart of a powerful woman and easily restore the rights of men. Taken one way, the film seems to advance the idea that women of power are controlled by their hearts. Dewing writes, "On the one hand it mocks many female suffrage "fighting tactics," as suffragists, in an attempt to not appear too extremist and alienable, exploited conservative ideas of feminine virtue in order to assert their citizenship and reform desires. In the film, the man assumes effeminate passions to woo the Mayor. On the other hand, those sympathetic to the cause can see this as proof that these tactics can work in politics. The film also toys with the fears men harbored concerning the loss of power over females in public spaces, a threat to masculinity and manhood." The film is also believed to have been the first adaptation of Curwood's work.
## See also
- List of American films of 1910 |
54,743,966 | OMG (Camila Cabello song) | 1,149,340,541 | null | [
"2017 songs",
"Camila Cabello songs",
"Quavo songs",
"Song recordings produced by Stargate (record producers)",
"Songs written by Camila Cabello",
"Songs written by Charli XCX",
"Songs written by Mikkel Storleer Eriksen",
"Songs written by Noonie Bao",
"Songs written by Quavo",
"Songs written by Tor Erik Hermansen"
]
| "OMG" is a song recorded by Cuban-American singer Camila Cabello featuring American rapper Quavo. It was released on August 3, 2017 as a promotional single alongside "Havana", from her debut studio album Camila (2018), originally titled The Hurting. The Healing. The Loving. "OMG" was ultimately removed from the final track listing. The song was written by the artists, Charli XCX, Noonie Bao, Sasha Sloan, and its producers Stargate. "OMG" has a slow, trap production that is characterized by use of double hi-hat rolls, flute flows and a smooth bass. In the lyrics, Cabello praises the appearance of her love interest while Quavo responds to her affirmation in his verses, where he also added a line from his Migos's song "Bad and Boujee" (2016). The song was included as part of Cabello's set list for Bruno Mars's 24K Magic World Tour, where she served as an opening act.
Music critics complimented the track's club-friendly sound while others perceived Cabello's versatility for performing verses written by Charli XCX as well as her dynamic with Quavo. On its first full tracking-week, "OMG" entered the top 100 on charts from several countries, including the U.S, UK, Scotland, Australia and Portugal. It was most successful in Spain, where it reached a peak of 16, spending two consecutive weeks on chart. In Canada, "OMG" received a platinum certification for 80,000 copies sold in the country.
## Background and release
In December 2016, singer Camila Cabello departed from the group Fifth Harmony to focus on her solo career. She started the recording sessions for her solo debut album in early 2017. She said that the album would be classified in a very personal level where she could explore her own experiences, and initially named it The Hurting. The Healing. The Loving. She wanted the album to tell "the story of [her] journey from darkness into light, from a time when she was lost to a time when she found herself again". To achieve her desired sound, she collaborated with some notable producers, including the Norwegian production duo Stargate–composed by Tor Erik Hermansen and Mikkel Storleer Eriksen.
During sessions with Stargate, Cabello met the British singer Charli XCX who helped her to brainstorm ideas for the lyrics. Together, they created some "emotional" and "deep" records like "Scar Tissues" to match the "Hurting" concept planned for the album, although while talking to XCX, Cabello had the idea to write something that was just "fun" and "not really take[n] too seriously". "OMG" was recorded at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles and later mixed by Serban Ghenea at Mixstar Studios, Virginia Beach. It features a guest appearance by rapper Quavo–better known as one of the members of the rap trio Migos– also credited as one of the track's writers.
Prior to its release, the singer debuted the song during her private performance at Chicago's B96 Pepsi SummerBash on June 24, 2017. She worked as an opening act for Bruno Mars on his 24K Magic World Tour from July 20 to August 22, 2017. During the shows, she performed “OMG” and other then-unreleased tracks such as "Havana", "Inside Out" and "Never Be the Same". On July 30, she announced a "Summer Double Feature" release in a picture posted on her Twitter account, where she revealed a release date for "OMG" and "Havana", both released simultaneously as promotional singles on August 3, 2017. The song was originally intended to be on her debut album; however, after changing the name of the album to Camila, she revealed that "OMG" was ultimately removed from the final track list. It happened due to the unexpected success of "Havana", which made Cabello sign with Frank Dukes' management company called Electric Feel, with Dukes executively producing the record. As a result, the album's original concept of hurting, healing, and loving was substituted in favor of the newly recorded material.
## Composition and lyrics
"OMG" is a hip hop-inspired song; it comprises a trap drum beat with hi-hat rolls, flute flows and atmospheric bass beneath a "smooth", rap-like croon from Cabello and Quavo with auto-tuned effects. Its chorus was described as "appealing" by Chris DeVille from Stereogum, in which Cabello sings, “Oh my God! You look good today", with Quavo responding on the background. In the verses, Cabello mentions being from Miami and "causing trouble in L.A", while appreciating the physicality of her love interest. Quavo similarly raps about his intentions with a woman he is in love with, while making references to the Migos' 2016 single "Bad and Boujee". In an interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1, she explained: "I just wanted to create a song of my own, that wasn't that deep, that was just fun and confident. Also like role reversal, when we were writing it we wrote it as this girl squad anthem about just pulling up to the boys and just having that swagger."
## Critical reception
Nick Maslow of Entertainment Weekly for example, described the song as an "attitude-filled club-banger". Praising Charli XCX's songwriting, Ross McNeilage of MTV UK felt that her "bold energy" can definitely be heard in the performer's verses, and considered the track a "cocky trap-pop banger for the clubs". Much's Allison Browsher thought the "sexy tune" is "perfect for anyone looking for a sultry pump up track". Writing for XXL, Peter Berry commented that Cabello's verse contains "quick-fire flexes and a cadence" not unlike that of Quavo, sounding like as if they could have been written by Quavo himself. Other critics responded moderately to "OMG". Mike Wass from Idolator, who regarded it as a "basic banger" in comparison to "Havana", while Arielle Tschinker from the same publication classified it as a "decent slow jam", although she perceived a lack of "sparkle and attitude" that Cabello had with Fifth Harmony.
## Commercial performance
"OMG" debuted at number 81 on the Billboard Hot 100 on August 27, 2017 along with "Havana" which entered at number 99. It gave Cabello her fifth and sixth solo entries on the component chart. That same week, "OMG" started at 19 on Digital Songs chart, selling 20,000 digital downloads on its first full tracking-week as reported by Billboard. In Canada, "OMG" reached 53 on the Canadian Hot 100. It was later certified gold by the Music Canada association on May 30, 2018, denoting shipments of 80,000 copies. The song also entered the charts in European countries with numbers done on its first week, debuting inside top 100 in two Official Charts components, the UK Singles Charts, where it debuted at its peak position of number 67 and peaked at 31 on Official Scottish Singles Charts. It achieved its highest position in Spain where it debuted at 16 and spent two consecutive weeks on charts.
## Live performances
"OMG" was debut performed on in San Jose on July 20, 2017, featured on the set list of Cabello's opening act for Bruno Mars' 24K Magic World Tour, along with Cabello's three other then unreleased songs, "Havana", "Never Be the Same", and "Inside Out". Cabello performed the "OMG / DNA" crossover, featuring the Kendrick Lamar "DNA" dancebreak, on Billboard Hot 100 Music Festival, WiLD 94.9's and HOT 99.5's Jingle Ball.
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from Tidal.
Recording and management
- Recorded at Westlake Recording Studios (Los Angeles, California)
- Mixed at MixStar Studios (Virginia Beach, Virginia)
- Mastered at Sterling Sound (New York City, New York)
- Published by Sony/ATV Songs LLC (BMI) and EMI April Music Inc. (ASCAP)
- Quavo appears courtesy of 300 Entertainment and Atlantic Records
Personnel
- Camila Cabello – lead vocals, songwriting
- Quavo – guest vocals, songwriting
- Stargate – songwriting, production
- Charli XCX – songwriting
- Noonie Bao – songwriting
- Sasha Sloan – songwriting
- Serban Ghenea – mixing
- John Hanes – mixing, engineering
- Chris Gehringer – mastering
## Charts
## Certifications |
26,050,866 | Andorra at the 2010 Winter Olympics | 1,138,587,480 | Andorra at the 2010 Winter Olympics | [
"2010 in Andorran sport",
"Andorra at the Winter Olympics by year",
"Nations at the 2010 Winter Olympics"
]
| Andorra sent a delegation to compete in the 2010 Winter Olympics held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, from 12 to 28 February 2010. Andorra has never won an Olympic medal, despite appearing at every Winter and Summer Games since 1976. The Andorran delegation to these Olympics consisted of six athletes, four in alpine skiing, one in cross-country skiing, and one in snowboarding, the last being Lluís Marin Tarroch, the first snowboarder to represent Andorra at the Olympics. He placed 34th in his only event, and failed to advance to the quarterfinals as a result. Francesc Soulié, the first Andorran cross-country skier to compete at the Games, made his second Olympics appearance, achieving a 47th place finish in the best of his three events. The four alpine skiers that competed recorded six DNFs in their thirteen combined events, though Mireia Gutiérrez recorded a team-high 24th-place result in her best event.
## Background
The Winter Olympics were first held in 1924, and since then had grown to include 86 events covering 7 different winter sports. The Andorran Olympic Committee was recognized by the International Olympic Committee on 31 December 1974. They first participated in Olympic competition at the 1976 Winter Olympics and have taken part in every Summer and Winter Olympics since. Coming into 2010, Andorra had never won a medal in either the Summer or Winter Olympics. Competition in Vancouver, British Columbia, lasted from 12 to 28 February 2010. The bidding process to host the competition was won by Vancouver on the second ballot, defeating eventual 2018 hosts Pyongchang. Andorra's delegation made up six of the 2,626 total athletes competing, with 82 nations represented.
The Andorran delegation to Vancouver consisted of six athletes, four in alpine skiing, one in cross-country skiing, and one in snowboarding. Lluís Marin Tarroch, the snowboarder, was chosen as the flag bearer for the opening ceremony, while alpine skier Mireia Gutiérrez was selected to carry the flag for the closing ceremony. Alpine skiers Sofie Juarez, Kevin Esteve Rigail, and Roger Vidosa, and cross-country skier Francesc Soulié, comprised the rest of the Andorran delegation.
## Alpine skiing
The Andorran alpine skiing team consisted of four members: Mireia Gutiérrez, in her first Games at age 21, Sofie Juarez, in her first Games at age 18, Kevin Esteve Rigail, in his first Games at age 20, and Roger Vidosa, in his second Games at age 25. On the women's side, Gutiérrez competed in four events, while Juarez competed in two. Both women competed in the giant slalom, though neither finished the race; the latter was not able to finish her other event, the slalom, either. Gutiérrez recorded a DNF in the super-G, but finished in 28th position in the downhill race and in 24th in the combined race, the latter of which was the best finish for an Andorran in any event at the 2010 Games. The men's side had a bit more overlap, as Esteve was joined by Vidosa in all three of his events. The pair finished side-by-side—47th and 48th—and separated by only 0.04 seconds in the downhill event, while Vidosa finished ahead of Esteve by six spots in the super-G. Vidosa finished in 25th position in the combined race, but Esteve was one of 18 competitors not to finish. In addition, Vidosa competed in the giant slalom event, but recorded a DNF.
Of the four competitors, two would go on to compete in another Olympic Games – Esteve competed in one event in 2014, and Gutiérrez competed in three and one events in 2014 and 2018, respectively.
## Cross-country skiing
The first cross-country skier to represent Andorra in the Winter Olympics (and the only one until Irineu Esteve Altimiras in 2018), Francesc Soulié competed in his second Games in 2010 at the age of 31. Both of Soulié's two distance races did not include qualifiers, but rather one single event that functioned as a final. In the 15 km race, he finished in 73rd place out of the 95 competitors to start the race, nearly five minutes behind the gold medalist, while in the 50 km race he placed 47th out of the 53 skiers to start, though only 48 finished the race. In his lone non-distance event, the men's sprint, Soulié was eliminated after placing 56th in the field of 62 competitors during the qualification stage, in which only the top 30 skiers advanced to the quarterfinals. As of 2018, this was Soulié's last appearance at an Olympic Games.
## Snowboarding
Lluís Marin Tarroch became the first, and as of the 2018 Winter Olympics, only snowboarder to represent Andorra at the Olympics. Tarroch was 21 years old at the time of the Vancouver Olympics. In the men's snowboard cross, the qualifying round was held on 15 February. The format was that everyone got two races, and the best of an athlete's two times counted. The top 32 would advance to the next round. Tarroch did not finish the first run, and had to rely on his second run time of 1 minute and 47.36 seconds, which put him in 34th place, and he was eliminated. He would go on to represent Andorra at the 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics.
## See also
- Andorra at the Olympics
- Andorra at the 2010 Winter Paralympics |
3,427,520 | Fly High (Ayumi Hamasaki song) | 1,071,462,051 | null | [
"1999 songs",
"2000 singles",
"Avex Trax singles",
"Ayumi Hamasaki songs",
"Song recordings produced by Max Matsuura",
"Songs written by Ayumi Hamasaki"
]
| "Fly High" is a song recorded by Japanese recording artist Ayumi Hamasaki. It was released by Avex Trax in Japan on February 9, 2000, and through Avex Entertainment Inc. worldwide in September 2008. The recording served as Hamasaki's third and final limited edition single from her second studio album, Loveppears (1999), limiting physical units to 300,000 copies. The track was written by the singer herself, while production was handled by long-time collaborator Max Matsuura. Two versions of "Fly High" were made available for consumption—a radio edit composed by HΛL, and the album version produced by Dai Nagao. Lyrically, the song was written in third person perspective.
Upon its release, "Fly High" received mixed reviews from music critics. Some praised the original and radio edit, while generally criticizing the amount of remixes. Commercially, the single experienced success in Japan, peaking at number three on the Oricon Singles Chart and TBS' Count Down TV chart. It sold just below its restricted 300,000 units, and was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) for shipments of 200,000 copies. An accompanying music video for "Fly High" was directed by Wataru Takeishi, and portrayed Hamasaki in a nightclub, with a clone of her standing in the distance. To promote the single, it appeared on several remix and greatest hits compilation albums released by Hamasaki.
## Background and release
"Fly High" was written by Hamasaki herself, while production was handled by long-time collaborator Max Matsuura. Two versions of "Fly High" were made available for consumption—a radio edit composed by HΛL, and the album version produced by Dai Nagao. Both compositions are inspired by dance music, a genre that heavily influences Hamasaki's second studio album, Loveppears (1999), and also includes musical elements of house and techno. The song's instrumentation consists of synthesizers and keyboards managed by HΛL, while also incorporating an electric guitar provided by Naoya Akimoto. "Fly High" was eventually mastered and co-produced by Japanese musician Naoto Suzuki and Nagao. The album version is used as a lead-on for the titular opening song of Lovepperars. Lyrically, "Fly High" was written in third person perspective, a trait that is shared with the rest of the album's tracks.
It was released by Avex Trax in Japan on February 9, 2000, marking her first single in the 2000s decade, and through Avex Entertainment Inc. worldwide in September 2008. It also served as Hamasaki's third and final limited edition single from Loveppears, limiting physical units to 300,000 copies. Subsequently, in mid 2000, a limited 12" vinyl was issued through Avex Trax in Japan to promote her second part of her 2000 concert tour. A picture disc that featured a shot of Hamasaki in a leather pink jacket included HΛL's 2000 remix on side one, and an orchestral version of the recording on side two. The artwork was photographed by Japanese photographer Toru Kumazawa, and featured Hamasaki sitting in a beige–colored circular pod with fabric around her. The physical version of "Fly High" failed to include a booklet, which resulted in the cover sleeve being immolated as a picture disc, featuring an emphasised plastic sheet with information on the single.
## Reception
Upon its release, "Fly High" received mixed reviews from music critics. A reviewer from CD Journal was particularly negative towards the amount of remixes on the maxi single and the lack of recognisable disc jockeys on the tracks. AllMusic's Alexey Eremenko, who contributed in writing Hamasaki's biography on the website, selected the track as one of her best works. Commercially, the single experienced success in Japan. It debuted at number three on the Oricon Singles Chart, selling 260,460 units in its first week of availability. "Fly High" lasted four weeks within the top 200, marking one of the singer's lowest-spanning singles in that chart. Likewise, it debuted at number three on the Count Down TV chart hosted by Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), being present for six editions within the top 100 positions.
By the end of 2000, the recording had sold over 299,540 units in Japan, and was ranked at number 89 on Oricon's Annual 2000 chart, behind four other songs by Hamasaki. Similarly, it charted at number 94 on TBS' Year-End Chart. In April 2000, "Fly High" was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) for shipments of 200,000 copies.As of July 2016, the track is her 26th highest-selling single based on Oricon Style's database.
## Music video and promotion
An accompanying music video for the single was directed by Wataru Takeishi, and uses HΛL's remix version. The video opens with Hamasaki signing the track in front of an audience, whilst dancing around a large black platform accompanied by her background band. Several scenes portray the video being projected on a large television screen, with the ending chorus having a clone of Hamasaki walking into the club and observing herself performing on stage. The music video was included on several DVD compilations released by Hamasaki: A Clips (2000), A Complete Box Set (2004), the digital release of A Clips Complete (2014), and the DVD and Blu-Ray re-release edition of her 2001 compilation album, A Best.
"Fly High" has been heavily promoted through compilation albums conducted by Hamasaki; it has been included on 11 of the singer's remix albums, including Super Eurobeat Presents Ayu-ro Mix and Ayu-mi-x II Version Non-Stop Mega Mix (2000). The single has also been featured on two of Hamasaki's greatest hits albums,A Best (2001) and A Complete: All Singles (2008). Additionally, it was specially remixed by Vincent De Moor for being added to the track list of her remix extended play, The Other Side Four: System F, Vincent De Moor (2001).
## Track listing
- CD single
1. "Fly High" (Hal's mix 2000) – 4:14
2. "Fly High" (Sample Madness remix) – 5:06
3. "Fly High" (Supreme mix) – 6:25
4. "Fly High" (acoustic orchestra version) – 4:04
5. "Fly High" (Sharp Boys U.K. vocal mix) – 4:14
6. "Fly High" (Saturation remix) – 3:55
7. "Appears" (HW club mix) – 5:26
8. "Fly High" (Dub's F remix) – 10:43
9. "Fly High" (non-stop mix N.S dance mega mix) – 12:52
10. "Kanariya" (fake compilation) – 5:11
11. "Fly High" (album version instrumental) – 4:10
12. "Fly High" (vocal track) – 3:20
- Digital download
1. "Fly High" (Hal's Mix 2000) – 4:14
2. "Fly High" (Sample Madness remix) – 5:06
3. "Fly High" (Supreme mix) – 6:25
4. "Fly High" (acoustic orchestra version) – 4:04
5. "Fly High" (Sharp Boys U.K. vocal mix) – 4:14
6. "Fly High" (Saturation remix) – 3:55
7. "Appears" (HW club mix) – 5:26
8. "Fly High" (Dub's F remix) – 10:43
9. "Fly High" (non-stop mix N.S dance mega mix) – 12:52
10. "Kanariya" (fake compilation) – 5:11
11. "Fly High" (vocal track) – 3:20
- 12" vinyl
1. "Fly High" (Hal's mix 2000) – 4:14
2. "Fly High" (acoustic orchestra version) – 4:04
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of the single's physical release.
Recording
- Recorded at Prime Sound Studio, Studio Sound Dali, Onkio Haus, Tokyo, Japan in 1999.
Credits
- Ayumi Hamasaki – vocals, songwriting, background vocals
- Max Matsuura – production
- Dai Nagao – composing, programming, mastering
- HΛL – composing, synthesizers, keyboards
- Naoto Suzuki – sound producing
- Naoya Akimoto – electric guitar
- Wataru Takeishi – music video director
- Dave Way – mixing
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Certifications and sales
## Release history |
5,526,174 | Spike Spiegel | 1,164,014,140 | Fictional character from Cowboy Bebop | [
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| Spike Spiegel (Japanese: スパイク・スピーゲル, Hepburn: Supaiku Supīgeru) is a fictional character introduced as the protagonist of the 1998 anime series Cowboy Bebop. Spike is a former member of the criminal Red Dragon Syndicate, who left by faking his death after falling in love with a woman named Julia. He is first introduced as the partner of Jet Black, captain of the spaceship Bebop: the two are legalized bounty hunters pursuing criminals across the populated planets and moons of the Solar System. During his adventures on board the Bebop, he is drawn back into a bitter feud with Vicious, a rival from the Syndicate who seeks to kill him.
Spike was created by series director Shinichirō Watanabe and was designed by Toshihiro Kawamoto as part of the production entity Hajime Yatate. Created as a mirror image of Watanabe and based on Japanese actor Yūsaku Matsuda's portrayal of Shunsaku Kudō in Tantei Monogatari (Detective Story), he was designed as someone who would expect others to follow his lead. Kawamoto deliberately designed him to appear "uncool" to create the opposite effect for viewers. His final confrontation with Vicious was planned well in advance. His portrayal in the later movie adaptation displayed the character's softer side and inner thoughts. Spike is voiced in Japanese by Kōichi Yamadera. In the English dub, he is voiced by Steven Blum.
In addition to the series, Spike has been featured in two manga adaptations and has been the protagonist of two video game adaptations. His character was subject to much critical acclaim in Japan and the West, with multiple reviewers praising his portrayal. He has appeared on multiple reader and critic lists of the best anime characters. In addition to the series, many reviewers of the movie positively noted his expanded portrayal in Cowboy Bebop: The Movie. Both actors have been praised for their performances, with Blum commenting that it boosted his voice acting career.
## Characteristics
Spike is a bounty hunter who was born on Mars on June 26, 2044. He is 27 years old. Spike has fluffy hair and brown eyes, the left being artificial. He is 6'1" tall and weighs 155 lbs. Spike is a heavy smoker, and is frequently seen smoking regardless of poor weather and the presence of "no smoking" signs. A skilled martial artist who practices Jeet Kune Do, Spike is a devout follower of the philosophies of Bruce Lee. He also owns a converted asteroid racer called the Swordfish II. During gunfights, he often uses a Jericho 941. The guns on the show were chosen by the director, Watanabe, and in discussion with set designer, Isamu Imakake, and mechanical designer, Kimitoshi Yamane. Setting producer, Satoshi Toba said, "They talked about how they didn’t want common guns, because that wouldn’t be very interesting, and so they decided on these guns."
In Spike's younger days before joining the Bebop, he was part of the Red Dragon Syndicate, a Chinese criminal organization. During his time there, he was impetuous and volatile, but after leaving, he adopted a calm and collected demeanor. However, he still retains his love for combat. Spike always holds true to his own values and fulfills his obligations. He also generally goes his own way rather than following orders, which often gets him into trouble. Watanabe thought of Spike as a Yakuza. He also said that Spike has a habit of being very indirect with his emotions; for example, he may behave antagonistically towards someone he actually likes. Watanabe said that Spike's relationship with Faye Valentine is a prime example of this tendency.
In the third volume of the manga, Cowboy Bebop illustrated by Yutaka Nanten and story by Hajime Yatate, Spike is described as "oriental," a term for Asian.
At Otakon 1999, Watanabe stated at the anime panel that the name Spike Spiegel was chosen because he liked the sound only, not because of Jewish origins. Kawamoto based Spike's hairstyle and appearance on the Japanese actor, Yusaku Matsuda. The concept of Spike was created before the idea of the anime and months before Kawamoto was hired and had input from Watanabe on designing the character.
## Appearances
### In Cowboy Bebop
Years before the beginning of the series, Spike is a rising member of the Red Dragon crime syndicate. While there, he becomes a partner and friend of Vicious, another member of the Syndicate. After being wounded in a gun battle, Spike is nursed back to health by Vicious' girlfriend Julia, and the two fall in love. They plan to elope and escape the Syndicate, but Vicious finds out and presents Julia with an ultimatum: kill Spike or be executed. After Spike fakes his death to escape the Syndicate, Julia never arrives to rendezvous with him—instead she goes into hiding to avoid betraying him or being killed herself. Spike eventually met and teamed up with former Inter-Solar System Police (ISSP) officer Jet Black. As legal bounty hunters, they travel the Solar System's inhabited worlds hunting bountyheads.
During his time on the Bebop, he and Jet are joined by Ein, an intelligent Pembroke Welsh Corgi; Faye Valentine, a gambler and original resident of Earth woken from cryogenic sleep; and Edward "Ed" Wong Hau Pepelu Tivruski IV, an eccentric girl from Earth who is a master hacker. Spike also has run-ins with Vicious on two occasions: in "Ballad of Fallen Angels", while pursuing a Red Dragon executive, Spike and Vicious battle in a derelict church and Spike is nearly killed. Later, in "Jupiter Jazz", Spike hears that Julia was seen on Callisto and abandons the Bebop to look for her. Once there, he stumbles into a drug deal orchestrated by Gren, a man Vicious betrayed who is seeking revenge. During their confrontation, a three-way battle ensues: Vicious escapes, and Gren is fatally injured, but he succeeds in telling Spike that Julia is alive and in hiding.
During the final story of the series, "The Real Folk Blues", Julia comes out of hiding and sends a message to Spike through Faye: the two meet and resolve to flee as originally planned. Vicious, having staged a coup d'état and taken over the Red Dragon Syndicate, sends assassins after the two. During a battle, Julia is shot and killed. After saying his goodbyes to Jet and Faye, Spike storms the headquarters of the Syndicate and has a final confrontation with Vicious: Spike is severely wounded and Vicious is killed. Spike looks up to the sky and sees Julia. Some time after this, Spike walks into and collapses in the entrance hall. He is never shown moving again. A star is shown going out. Spike's ultimate fate has never been confirmed, with Watanabe eventually claiming he was unable to say whether he lived or died.
### In other media
Spike is the main protagonist of Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, a story set between Episodes 22 and 23 of the original series while the Bebop crew are still working together. The crew of the Bebop take on a massive bounty for Vincent Volaju, who releases a cloud of deadly protein-based nanomachines in Mars' capital city. During his pursuit, Spike initially fights then allies with Elektra Ovirowa, a former comrade of Vincent's.
Spike appears along with the other main characters in the manga adaptation of Cowboy Bebop and the alternate manga Cowboy Bebop: Shooting Star. In the PlayStation Cowboy Bebop, players control Spike as he pilots the Swordfish II during aerial battles through pre-set courses. Spike appears as one of the playable characters in the PlayStation 2 action/beat 'em up video game Cowboy Bebop: Tsuioku no Serenade, a game set within the continuity of the series.
John Cho portrayed Spike in the live-action series for Netflix released in 2021. For the role, Cho grew out his hair to mimic Spike's look from the anime.
## Creation and conception
During the first work by Shinichirō Watanabe on Cowboy Bebop, the first image that came to him was of Spike. Prior to that, Watanabe had the character of Spike in mind for a long time beforehand. From that point on, Watanabe "tried to build a story around him, trying to make him cool." Watanabe created Spike as a mirror image of himself: in Watanabe's words, "I don't smoke or drink or fight, but I want to – so Spike does." Spike forms the main focus on the series, with the central theme being his past and its karmic effect on him. Spike was portrayed as a "typical old-style Japanese man", who would simply do what he wanted and expect others to follow his lead and watch him from the sidelines. Spike's artificial eye was included as Watanabe wanted his characters to have flaws. He was originally going to give Spike an eye patch, but the producers vetoed it. In order to portray him as cool, Toshihiro Kawamoto designed Spike to look "uncool": when he stands still, he has a hunched appearance. This meant that when the character was moving vigorously, he came across as "extra cool". Spike's appearance was primarily based on the main protagonist of Tantei Monogatari, portrayed by famous Japanese actor Yūsaku Matsuda. Although Yamadera was a fan of Matsuda's, he avoided imitating his distinctive manner of speaking, noting that it "wouldn't have sounded right" for Spike. Spike's Swordfish II spaceship was created by mecha designer Kimitoshi Yamane. Yamane liked the English biplane torpedo-bomber Fairey Swordfish, which led him to name the Swordfish II after the bomber. The conclusion of Spike's story and his final battle with Vicious were planned by Watanabe well in advance, with each episode featuring them meant to shadow their final confrontation. Some of the staff were unhappy about this approach as a continuation of the series would be difficult. While he considered altering the ending, he eventually settled with his original idea.
With regards to casting, Watanabe considered Kōichi Yamadera to be "really perfect" for Spike. The staff had him audition as a formality, but Watanabe felt that "no matter how you looked at it, there was only Yamadera". After a decade of work in anime series, Yamadera was pleased to secure his first leading role, but Unshō Ishizuka, Jet's voice actor, was surprised that Yamadera was not cast as Jet. The two characters were designed to be opposites, with Spike being thin and wearing smart attire, while Jet was bulky and wore more casual clothing. Spike's English voice actor, Steven Blum, used film noir imagery to get himself in the right frame of mind to voice the character, but experienced some difficulty portraying in scenes where he was showing vulnerability. Reflecting on his performance, Blum said "there were a few lines here and there that I felt were awkward, and could have been smoothed out better." He called Spike an "example of a character [he] didn't fully appreciate until the series was over", adding that he would like to reprise his role as the character if given the chance. Spike's portrayal was expanded in Cowboy Bebop: The Movie. Specifically, according to Yamadera, the character displayed more of his inner thoughts and showed a gentler side than he did in the series. This was because the team had more time available to express such details. Blum found his performance in the movie one of his most difficult from an emotional standpoint, as there were scenes where Spike was portrayed quite differently from the version he had been playing in the series.
## Reception and legacy
Spike's character has been well received in Japan. He won first place in the Best Male Character category at Animage's annual Anime Grand Prix awards two consecutive times in 1998 and 1999. In the August 2001 issue of Newtype, Spike was ranked first on the magazine's list of "Top 10 Most Popular Male Anime Characters in Japan". The next year in July 2002, Spike was again placed at number one on Newtype's anime list of "Favorite Male Character". In a Newtype poll from March 2010, Spike was voted by readers as the eighteenth most popular male anime character from the 1990s. In 2014, Kōichi Yamadera was voted by fans as the third coolest "old guy" voice actor in a Goo Ranking poll, and three years later, topped Asahi's list of the 25 best voice actors as voted by their peers, with his portrayal of Spike cited as one of the contributing factors.
Western critics have also directed significant praise towards Spike. In his review of Cowboy Bebop, Anime News Network's Mike Crandol praised the character portrayals, especially Spike's, stating that "Spike's character in particular runs the gamut from goofy to blasé to teeth-gnashing tough; he is one of most three-dimensional anime leads in recent memory." Christi of THEM Anime Review 4.0 complimented Spike's story arc in the series, saying that "the underlying theme of Spike Spiegel and his motivations for what he does is absolutely intriguing." DVDTalk's Kyle Mills called Spike the epitome of a good lead protagonist, referring to him as "composed, always cool, and is essentially the ultimate badass", although his true nature is gradually shown throughout the series. In an article in The Atlantic, writer Alex Suskind was positive about Spike's portrayal and development, saying that the word "cool" was the most apt way of describing him and referring to him as "a space-age samurai-cum-Marlboro Man". Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku, writing a retrospective on the series, praised the relationship between Spike and Faye, especially the way it evolved through the series without overt verbal expressions of affection.
His portrayal in The Movie has also received praise: IGN's Andy Patrizio said that Spike "opens up his soul a little" during the film, while Chris Beveridge of Mania.com found Spike more likable in the film than in some parts of the series, comparing him to Lupin III and praising the moments where he could be himself and show more of his inner self. Carlos Ross of THEM Anime Review said that Spike's portrayal was one of the things that worked in the film, and DVD Talk's Neil Lumbard, alongside general praise of the characters, positively noted the further exploration of his personality. Anime News Network's Mike Crandol was less enthusiastic, saying that while Spike was the only one who got much attention during the film, some sequences felt like they could work without him.The Japanese and English portrayals of Spike have also drawn praise individually. While praising the Japanese cast as "perfectly complementing the characters", Kenneth Lee of EX.org argued that "there could be no one else to fill the role of Spike Spiegel except Yamadera". Meanwhile, IGN's Ramsey Isler stated that "Steve Blum launched his career into new heights when he gave the performance of a lifetime in the English dub of the series, giving Spike a sense of smooth, effortless cool that many argue surpassed the original Japanese version." Commending the principal American cast's work as one of the best English dubs, Serdar Yegulalp of About.com highlighted Blum as Spike as the standout performance of the series, stating that "Cynicism never sounded this suave or self-assured". However, AnimeNation's John Oppliger felt Spike's character was mishandled in the English dub, where he was depicted as a "carefree playboy" whose ambivalent taunts "come across as casual off-the-cuff bluffs, unlike his weighty, solemn statements in the Japanese version". Blum himself has called Spike a "gigantic benchmark" in his career and life, saying that "Spike changed everything" for him. He stated that his role as Spike opened up new opportunities for voicing characters, including T.O.M. on Toonami and Jamie on Megas XLR.
In 2009 and 2014, IGN ranked Spike among the best anime characters of all time. In 2009, Chris Mackenzie ranked Spike as the fourth greatest anime character behind Goku, Astro Boy, and Speed Racer. In 2014, Ramsey Isler ranked him as second greatest behind Shinji Ikari of Neon Genesis Evangelion. At the 2005 Anime Awards from About.com, Spike was nominated in the category "Best Lead Male Character", though he lost to Goku. In 2010, Wired included Spike on its list of the "6 Genre-Tripping Gunfighters Jonah Hex Must Duel FTW!", with writer Scott Thill complimenting his abilities, while also commenting on his presence of heart compared to other equivalent protagonists. In 2013, Complex ranked Spike the fourth most stylish anime character ever, with writer Jian DeLeon commenting that "The Mars-born bounty hunter knows the benefit of a good uniform". According to the director of Yakuza 4, the playable character Shun Akiyama was inspired by Spike in order to bring an aloof personality to contrast lead Kazuma Kiryu.
## See also
- List of Cowboy Bebop characters |
42,635,683 | You Don't Know What to Do | 1,148,935,897 | null | [
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]
| "You Don't Know What to Do" is a song by American singer and songwriter Mariah Carey included on her fourteenth studio album, Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse (2014), and features rapper Wale. The track was released on June 30, 2014, as the third single from the album. It was written by Wale, Carey, Jermaine Dupri and Bryan-Michael Cox, with production helmed by the latter two. The song contains an interpolation of "I'm Caught Up in a One Night Affair" written by Patrick Adams and Terri Gonzalez, both of whom received songwriting credits as a result. The single's artwork caused controversy when the media criticised Carey for photoshopping and re-using images of herself. Carey herself later expressed her discontent on the matter, stating that she had no knowledge of the single's artwork until it was released.
A disco revival song, the lyrics are about Carey being dissatisfied by her lover's failed attempts at romancing her. Despite being serviced to urban and rhythmic radio in the United States; Belgium, Russia and South Korea were the only territories where the song charted, peaking at number 14 on its Ultratip chart in the Wallonian region, and numbers 73 and 152 in South Korea and Russia, respectively. "You Don't Know What to Do" garnered critical acclaim amongst music critics: many complimented the disco revival and throwback style, calling it the best track on the album, and compared it to the works of Jocelyn Brown, Daft Punk, Chic and post-revivalist songs produced Pharrell Williams. Carey and Wale performed the song for the first time on the Today show in the United States.
## Background and release
"You Don't Know What to Do" was written by Carey, Jermaine Dupri and Bryan-Michael Cox, with featured artist Wale. The song interpolates a song called "I'm Caught Up in a One Night Affair", written by Patrick Adams and Terri Gonzalez and originally performed by Inner Life in 1979. Adams and Gonzalez are credited as songwriters as a result. In August 2012, Cox revealed that he, Carey and Dupri had started working on Carey's then untitled fourteenth studio album, later revealed to be Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse, before the singer became pregnant with twins in 2010, and then resumed working on the project after she gave birth in 2011. "She was committed to making it before she got pregnant. Then she got pregnant and she took the time off. Then after she came back, we started really vibing again and we picked up right where we left off. I just feel like between Jermaine, myself and her, we came up with a few things that [are] really, really a solid body of work".
In August 2013, Wale revealed that he had been in the studio with Carey, posting the message "Mariah x Wale x JD = coming soon" on his Twitter account. Then, on May 16, 2014, Carey and Wale premiered their collaboration, revealed to be called "You Don't Know What to Do", live during a mini-concert for Today held by Carey. Following the performance, Carey premiered the studio version on May 19 on The Russ Parr Morning Show radio show. A solo version which omits Wale's rap verses was later released in June 2014. The song was serviced to urban contemporary radio on June 30, 2014 and rhythmic contemporary radio on July 1, 2014, as the third single to be released from the album.
### Artwork controversy
When Carey released "You Don't Know What to Do" as single fans noticed that its accompanying single artwork looked odd. It was later revealed that the single artwork was a cropped version of the album cover for Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse, whereby her head had been swapped for another image in favor of one which was forward-facing, as well as an edited background. Various media outlets criticized Carey for continuing to heavily airbrush and "recycle" images of herself. In response, Carey expressed her discontent on Twitter, stating she had nothing to do with the selection of the single's artwork and in turn asked for fans to send in their artwork designs as alternatives, ending the message with cause at this point IDKWTD!", an abbreviation of the song's title.
## Composition and lyrics
"You Don't Know What to Do" is a disco revival song with elements of gospel, pop and R&B styles. It lasts for a duration of four minutes and 46 seconds. Several critics highlighted the track as following in the recent disco revivalism footsteps of Daft Punk, Justin Timberlake and posthumous Michael Jackson material. The song begins with Carey singing about how she is in a dilemma as to whether or not she wishes to stay in a relationship with her lover, as he is no longer capable of romancing her. In response, Wale raps about how he is trying to woo her and is asking for a second chance. Carey then decides that it has been too long that Wale has not loved her for, and feels liberated for letting him go. Kenneth Partridge of Billboard likened the string arrangement to Chic's 1979 single "Good Times". Pitchfork Media writer Jordan Sargent compared "You Don't Know What to Do" to Carey's previous singles "Fantasy" (1995) and "Heartbreaker" (1999), but noted that it felt like a "logical extension of post-Pharrell disco revivalism". Christina Lee for Idolator thought that the 70s disco feel embodied Daft Punk's 2013 single, "Get Lucky".
## Reception
### Critical reception
PopMatters writer Devone Jones described the song as "the most energetic track" on the album, and continued to write that the "skillful" lyrics allow Carey to perform "genuine harmonies" which are reminiscent of seventies dance songs. Both Andy Kellman of AllMusic and Eric Henderson for Slant Magazine noted that Carey appeared to be channeling American dance singer Jocelyn Brown, with the former writer that she sounded like Brown more prominently in the intro, while the latter described "You Don't Know What to Do" as a "stunning" tribute to Brown's 1984 single "Somebody Else's Guy". Henderson continued to write that "You Don't Know What to Do", along with another album track called "Meteorite", are two of Carey's "most serious-minded performances" on the album, further describing them as "galaxies away" from her 2008 single "I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time".
Billboard writer Kenneth Partridge complimented the song for its dance appeal, adding that the only thing missing was a cameo from Nile Rodgers. Melinda Newman of HitFix praised the song's "playful" sentiment, writing that it was the best song that had been released from Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse so far. Entertainment Weekly writer Melissa Maerz complimented the interpolation of "I'm Caught Up in a One Night Affair", describing it as "nostalgic", and further stated that Carey embodies the "bravado" of American singer Jennifer Holliday in the broadway musical Dreamgirls. Digital Spy's Lewis Corner praised Dupri for producing a piano "disco stormer" with throwback appeal. Mike Wass of Idolator thought that "You Don't Know What to Do" would have been worthy of being recorded by American disco singer Donna Summer.
Jordan Sargent of Pitchfork Media praised its composition and noted that the disco and gospel genres are where middle-aged woman can "thrive", whereby Carey "fits in unsurprisingly well". He was, however, critical of the decision to include Wale on the song. Similarly, Aisha Harris of Slate Magazine praised the song's production and Carey's vocals too, but also thought that Wale's rap verses were not required. Conversely, fashion designer Donatella Versace, a friend of Carey's, told Vogue that she thought Carey's singing and Wale's rapping complimented each other on the song, describing it as "poetry", and that it made her want to get up and dance "all summer".
### Chart performance
"You Don't Know What to Do" debuted at number 45 on the Belgium chart, in the region of Wallonia on August 2, 2014, however, it was the Ultratip chart, which ranks the top songs that have yet to enter the main Ultratop 50 chart. The song broke into the top 40 the following week, charting at number 36. It peaked at number 14 on September 6, spending six weeks on the chart in total. The song also debuted at number 73 in South Korea, on the main Digital Chart, for the week ending May 31, 2014. It also debuted at number two on the International Download Chart, with sales of 32,945 units. In its second week, the song fell to number seven with sales of 11,991 units, and again to number 11 in its third week with sales of 7,326 units. It also charted in Russia, peaking at number 152.
## Live performance
Carey and Wale performed "You Don't Know What to Do" on the Today show on May 16, 2014. The performance also included renditions of Carey's previous singles "Always Be My Baby" (1996) and "Touch My Body" (2008).
Carey started performing the song for the first time after 5 years on Caution World Tour in 2019.
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse.
Recording
- Recorded at Rapture Studios, Bel Air, CA; Metrocity Studios, New York, NY; Studio at the Palms, Las Vegas, NV; Capital Studios, Hollywood, CA.
Sampling credits
- Contains an interpolation of "I'm Caught Up in a One Night Love Affair", written by Patrick Adams and Terri Gonzalez.
Personnel
- Songwriting – Mariah Carey, Jermaine Dupri, Bryan-Michael Cox, Olubowale Akintimehin, Patrick Adams, Terri Gonzalez
- Production – Mariah Carey, Jermaine Dupri, Bryan-Michael Cox
- Recording – Brian Garten, John Horesco, Jess Sutcliffe
- Assistant recording – Daniela Rivera
- Background vocals – Mariah Carey
- String arrangement and conduction – Larry Gold
- Violins – Joel Derouin, Mario Deleon, Tammy Hatwan, Marisa Kuney, Songa Lee, Serena McKinney, Grace Oh, Bob Peterson, Kathleen Sloan, Jenny Takamatsu, Ina Veli, Josefina Vegara
- Violas – Caroline Buckman, Lauren Chipman, Kaila Potts, Mike Whitson
- Cellos – Vanessa Freebairn-Smith, Julie Jung, Giovanna Clayton
## Charts
### Weekly charts
## Release history |
17,303,057 | Breakout (Miley Cyrus album) | 1,172,299,136 | 2008 studio album by Miley Cyrus | [
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| Breakout is the second studio album by American singer Miley Cyrus, released on July 22, 2008, by Hollywood Records. Despite being her second album, it is her first record not affiliated with the television series Hannah Montana, as Meet Miley Cyrus was released as part of a joint album with her character. The majority of the record was composed as she traveled during her headlining Best of Both Worlds Tour (2007–08). Overall, Breakout is dominant on pop rock but explores a variety of other musical genres. Lyrical themes addressed in the album relate to breakups and coming of age. Most of the album was produced by Rock Mafia. Matthew Wiler and Scott Cutler also produced. Cyrus co-wrote eight out of thirteen tracks.
Breakout was met with generally favorable reception from music critics, though some believed the tracks were not a significant departure from the Hannah Montana franchise. The album encountered commercial success and introduced Cyrus in new countries. The album peaked at number one on the Billboard 200 for one week selling 370,000 copies, also becoming the third solo artist to chart on the Billboard 200 under age eighteen twice, and seventh overall. It is Cyrus' third album to do so, and was eventually certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Elsewhere, Breakout topped the Canadian Albums Chart for two consecutive weeks and the Australian Albums Chart for one week. The album also charted within the top ten in Hungary, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Three singles were released from Breakout. "7 Things" was released on June 17, 2008, as the lead single from the album; it was commercially successful, reaching the top ten on charts in various countries. The second single, "Fly on the Wall" was released on November 4, 2008, as the final single.
## Background
Cyrus is a singer-songwriter and actress who starred as Miley Stewart, a girl with a secret double life as the popstar Hannah Montana, on the Disney Channel television series Hannah Montana. Through the television series, Cyrus developed fame as a teen idol and released music while being credited to Hannah Montana. Cyrus' debut studio album, titled Meet Miley Cyrus, was released as the second disc of the Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus (2007) double-disc album. Breakout is Cyrus' second studio album and her first not be affiliated with the Hannah Montana franchise, which was intended to be reflected by the title of the album. She believed it was her "breakout record", where she was going to "show everyone what Miley Cyrus is all about." Cyrus further explained the album was also appropriately titled because it portrayed her "stepping away from Hannah but just a little bit different." She also decided to title the album after the song "Breakout" because it was "one of [her] favorite songs".
Cyrus believed that compared to previous albums, Breakout was "grown-up" and "just a little more creative." Cyrus aimed to incorporate a sound influenced by rock music, saying "the writing is definitely different...the lyrics mean more than my last couple of records". According to Cyrus, the album documented, in depth, the events that occurred in her life in a year span. Most of the songs were written as Cyrus traveled on the Best of Both Worlds Tour from October 2007 to January 2008. In an interview for Billboard, Cyrus stated that she pushed herself even more to write the songs this time, saying that, “No matter how long what I’m doing here lasts, I want to be a songwriter for the rest of my life. I love it and it’s my escape. I just hope this record showcases that — more than anything — I’m a writer.”
Recording commenced immediately after the tour came to an end, and seized in March 2008, for Cyrus was to film Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009) in Tennessee soon after. She expressed that, through each song, a listener could discover something about her and about themselves. Of connecting with her fans through Breakout, she claimed she wanted "girls to feel to be able to feel empowered and just feel like they can kind of rock out", going on to say that, "listening to this music, I hope they can feel like a reason to dance and just smile and to have fun. This CD is totally age appropriate, specially for me".
## Development
"Breakout" was written by Ted Bruner, in collaboration with Trey Vittetoe and Gina Schock of the Go-Go's. It was first recorded by American pop singer Katy Perry, for her second album One of the Boys (2008), though it was never included for the album and was passed on to Cyrus, on whose version Perry sings backing vocals. Like most songs on Breakout, Cyrus wrote "7 Things" while traveling on the Best of Both Worlds Tour, reflecting on her numerous emotions about an ex-boyfriend. She claimed her use of the word "hate" demonstrated how furious she was, at the time. Originally, "7 Things" was more "soft and nice" but Cyrus says she "went nuts" during the recording process and gave the song a harder sound. She decided to record a cover version of Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" from the album She's So Unusual (1983), after speaking with Lauper at the 50th Grammy Awards. The two singers were conversing about music, when Lauper stated, "Well, don't be scared of anything. People waste their lives being scared. Lasso the moon. But don't do it because someone tells you it's the right idea." Cyrus believed Lauper's saying encompassed the direction she wanted to take Breakout, ergo she covered "Girls Just Want to Have Fun". However, she desired for the cover to be completely different from other covers of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" she heard. She described the process as "almost [having] to relearn the song." About the finished product, Cyrus said, "When you listen to the song, it's, like, you're not even sure what it is. It's something completely new." "Full Circle" was co-written by Cyrus, Scott Cutler, and Anne Preven about Cyrus' relationship with Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers. "It's about two people. They're always gonna come back together no matter what anyone says, the bad people that try to keep you apart", Cyrus said of the song's concept.
"Fly on the Wall" was written by Cyrus with the aid of Armato, James, and Devrim Karaoglu. "Fly on the Wall" was intended for the media, regarding "how they think they know everything about [her], when they don't. They want to be a fly on my wall and watch [her] 24/7." Cyrus explained it was about attempting to avoid paparazzi but they appeared, "not going away like little annoying flies." Cyrus was inspired to write "Bottom of the Ocean" by her deceased fish, Lyric and Melody, who died when Cyrus was eleven years of age. She said the topic drifted drastically once she began writing. "It's saying if there's someone you've loved but for some reason you can't love them anymore, you have to take your feelings, scoop them out, and put them at the bottom of the ocean." Cyrus, Armato, James, Aaron Dudley co-wrote "Wake Up America", a track about environmentalism. The song was directed towards "the people in the back seat", children of today's generation; she said that, in the future, they would be the ones "driving [the] Earth to what it's gonna be." "It's the only one you got, so you gotta take care of it. And if you don't, there's gonna be, maybe not for you, right then, and your generation but your kids and their kids ... Every generation has a cycle that'll carry on for the rest of eternity", she concluded. Cyrus recorded a cover of Cheyenne Kimball's "Four Walls" from the album The Day Has Come (2006) for Breakout, titled "These Four Walls". The twelfth and final track is a remixed version of the hit "See You Again", referred to as the Rock Mafia Remix and the 2008 Remix; "See You Again" was originally released on the Meet Miley Cyrus disc of Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus.
## Composition
Overall, Breakout is dominant on pop rock but explores a variety of other musical genres. The opening track, "Breakout", is a dance-pop number that begins with a fast beat, composed of chiming electric guitar and drums and later progresses to "the snares skip and the keyboards shimmer"; "ecstatic beats" pummel throughout. The song's lyrics are "a girls-only call to fun" that anecdote on feelings about coming of age and the desire to be school-free. The uptempo refrains of "7 Things" are pop punk influenced. The song is "a three-tempo patchwork quilt", transitioning "from sensitive breakup song in the strummy verses to punky-pop kiss-off in the double-time choruses." "7 Things"' lyrics list seven traits Cyrus hates about an ex-boyfriend. "The Driveway" is a power ballad whose lyrics regard a breakup, insisting "nothing hurts like losing when you know it's really gone." The cover of Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" replaces the subtle reggae undercurrent in the original version with a more rock music driven sound that includes pop punk beats and string stabs. The lyrics of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" primarily discuss the "desire to let loose with one's friends", touching upon details of the life of an overworked child star. The song "Full Circle" is composed of several pop rock hooks; in one of the hooks, Cyrus finishes various words with "Oh, oh, oh!". The lyrics describe not quitting a relationship.
"Fly on the Wall" is prominently an electropop song that is also composed of a number of hooks, which yell the song's title, while the instrumentation relies on electric guitars. Unlike other songs on Breakout, "Fly on the Wall" has Cyrus' voice processed to sound different. The song's lyrics taunt "the listener for being on the outside of her inner sanctum". The target of the message has been interpreted differently by contemporary critics – an ex-boyfriend and the media have most commonly been referred to. "Bottom of the Ocean" is a contemporary ballad that contains a sound reflecting influences from minimalist music. The backdrop for the "feel-bad" love song features ocean wave sounds. The track "Wake Up America" has a "cheeky riff-rock backdrop" as its, while its lyrical content concerns environmentalism, where Cyrus mainly pleads for audiences to give the Earth "just a little attention". In the first verse, she "admits that she doesn't know exactly what's up with this global warming but believes there's something we should all do about it". "These Four Walls" is a power ballad accented with country pop elements and twangy vocals and lyrics which speak of an interior narrative. "Simple Song" has "bile" sound and is lyrically about moments in coming of age where a person "can't tell which way is up, which way is down" and they feel the need to alienate themselves. In "Goodbye", Cyrus' vocal performance is more "roosty" with a more "natural-sounding accompaniment" while, in the lyrics, she finds her remembering the "simple things ... until [she cries]." "See You Again" (Rock Mafia Remix) is dance-pop number, fusing sultry vocals with techno beats. The track has Cyrus detailing previous scenes and plans to redeem herself.
## Singles
"7 Things" was released on June 17, 2008, as the lead single from Breakout, through digital distribution. Following the song's release, allegations sparked that it was about Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers, which Cyrus neither confirmed nor denied. It received mixed reviews from contemporary critics, several of which compared Cyrus to Avril Lavigne. "7 Things" enjoyed worldwide commercial success, becoming a top ten hit on charts in Australia, Japan, Norway, and the United States. The single was certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). The song's accompanying music video was directed by Brett Ratner and features Cyrus performing the song with a back-up band as many teenage girls lipsync along.
"Fly on the Wall" was released on November 4, 2008, as the second and final single from the album. "Fly on the Wall" received critical praise; several critics claiming it defied teen pop expectations and was Breakout'''s best track. However, the song failed to match success of "7 Things", reaching its highest peak at number sixteen on the UK Singles Chart. Its music video was directed by Philip Andelman. Inspired by Michael Jackson's Thriller, the video depicts Cyrus attempting to escape the paparazzi, as they follow her in a parking garage.
### Other songs
A Rock Mafia remix version of "See You Again" was released August 11, 2008 only in countries where the original version was not. The remix was received well by critics for properly combining vocals and music. The remix expanded the success of "See You Again", appearing on charts in Austria, Belgium (Flanders), Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. "See You Again" (Rock Mafia Remix) was given a promotional music video, taken from a performance at the 2008 Disney Channel Games.
## Promotion
The promotion plan was centered on massive performances and interviews to television, radio, and magazines. It was formulated to not be aggressive to give Cyrus a period of rest, after doing many consecutive projects. Cyrus explained,
> "I'm a kid. That's why, for the most part, we only did the big publicity and otherwise decided to let the album whatever it was going to do. It was so weird not to do everything in my power to promote my first album under my own name. I am very proud of it and love what we came up with. But I also had to accept the reality of my situation. So much is happening all at once, so many opportunities. I want to make the most of them, but I also need to stay sane. There will be a day, my parents constantly remind me, when I won't have so much going on. And when that day comes, I don't want to feel like an empty shell of a person."
Cyrus first performed songs from Breakout, the title track, "Fly on the Wall", and "See You Again" (Rock Mafia Remix), at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Disney Channel Games on May 3, 2008. Her first live performance of "7 Things" took place on May 17, 2008 at the 2008 Zootopia, an annual summer concert put on by radio station Z100. Later that summer, she promoted Breakout at outdoor concerts hosted by Good Morning America and The Today Show, while hosting the 2008 Teen Choice Awards, and at FNMTV. Cyrus began promotion for Breakout in Europe in fall 2008, performing the track on the United Kingdom channel GMTV, the French television show Le Grand Journal, and the British singing competition The X Factor among other venues. Cyrus performed several songs from album on April 24, 2009 in a London Apple Store. These performances were recorded and sold exclusively by the United Kingdom iTunes Store as a live extended play (EP) titled iTunes Live from London.
Well over a year after the Breakout's release, Cyrus embarked on her second concert tour, the Wonder World Tour, to promote the album and The Time of Our Lives extended play (EP). The tour was Cyrus' first to not have her costumed as Hannah Montana and was announced in June 2009, with dates revealed for American venues. Dates for venues in the United Kingdom were later announced. In to order to avoid the extensive scalping that occurred during the Best of Both Worlds Tour, all tickets were sold exclusively through paperless ticket delivery, which would require audiences to bring identification to gain entry into the concert. The tour expanded from September to December 2009, with a total of fifty-six concerts in North America and Europe. The tour received positive to mixed reviews from critics. Some praised it and deemed it a spectacle, while others believed it lacked profundity and portrayal of Cyrus' personality. The Wonder World Tour managed to gross over \$67.1 million, \$15 million which were earned by the singer. The entire European leg sold out within ten minutes, and, at one stop, Cyrus broke the record for the largest attendance at The O<sub>2</sub> Arena in London, England with an audience of 16,196. A concert film was released on the limited, deluxe edition of her third studio album Can't Be Tamed (2010).
## Critical reception
Breakout received generally positive reviews, earning a collective score of 66 out of 100 on Metacritic. Heather Phares of Allmusic commented that Breakout's title expresses its "purpose nicely" though the music was not drastically different from Hannah Montana's, adding, "only a handful of songs truly break out from the Montana mold". Though not being impressed by "nothing [being] left to chance", she concluded, "Even if these songs are derivative of much more established pop divas [Avril Lavigne and Britney Spears], they provide clues to the kind of company Cyrus aims to keep. And while Breakout isn't as much of a breakthrough as it could be, it still moves Miley closer to an identity and career outside of Hannah." Kerri Mason of Billboard wrote, "While it's still age-appropriate for minors, Breakout is for the big kids too" and complimented Cyrus for being a "natural-born popstar." Sarah Rodman of The Boston Globe felt Cyrus mostly succeeded while "trying to please most of the people most of the time" on Breakout. She summarized, "With Breakout, Cyrus has clearly made a choice to break from the shiny, happy 'Hannah Montana' character, but she hasn't scuffed her sound up so much that her fans won't recognize that she's just being Miley." Chris William of Entertainment Weekly graded the album a B and noted that the first half of the album was "fun" but the second half became "overly ballad-heavy," assuming that was the more mature side of Cyrus she had promised. Miakel Wood of the Los Angeles Times stated, "In that respect, Breakout is unlikely fodder for the razzle-dazzle road shows and 3-D concert films to come. As a portrait of the artist as a young malcontent, though, it's rarely less than fascinating."
Ben Ratliff of The New York Times said Cyrus' attempt to leave Hannah Montana was weak, only being driven by "more gray thoughts". Ratliff continued, "She eases up on songs with total-affirmation chants about being the captain of her ship ... The lyrics are half-terrible — almost too realistic as teenage thoughts — but the best of them transmit the desired message ... It’s a lackluster album, floated by two or three strong singles." Josh Timmermann of PopMatters believed Breakout was "a just-okay teenpop record with audible suggestions of said singer-songwriter aspirations. To be sure, it’s a stronger collection of songs than Moms and Dads with upturned noses ... would probably expect." Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine rated the album two and half stars out of five, being disappointed and deeming the songs not to be a "worthy follow-up" to "See You Again". Cinquemani finished, "For teen-pop, your kid could do worse. You know, like Avril [Lavigne]". Mordechai Shinefield of The Village Voice wrote, "If her lyrical prowess hasn't caught up to her voice yet, that should only hold promise of things to come. She's a rare talent; now she only has to survive until adulthood." Ash Dosanjh of Yahoo! Music gave Breakout seven stars out of ten and referred to Cyrus, in Breakout, as the ideal of the American Dream: "a combination of hard work, good Christian living and un-smutty pop".
In 2017, close to the release of Cyrus' sixth studio album Younger Now, Dan Weiss wrote a critical article for Billboard claiming that Breakout was possibly still Cyrus' best work yet. He claimed that the artist "hasn't necessarily made her best albums during the height of her making headlines" and that the record "was from a simpler time, devoid of thinkpiece fodder or teachable moments". The writer also stated that the album's "final third is a bit too dominated by ballads, but the rest of it is shiny dynamite" pointing that there were two "works of genius" on it: "7 Things" saying that "teen pop has rarely sounded this 'teen' in the years since, and Cyrus' vocal tugs at all the right strings" and "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" which he wrote "does exactly what a cover should: breathes new life into a tune you thought you couldn't possibly know new things about". Concluding the article, Weiss wrote that Breakouts songs "moved like an arena-rock band fronted by a teenage Pat Benatar, with hammering drum fills and synth accents aplenty".
## Commercial performance
On the week ending August 8, 2008, Breakout debuted at number-one on the Billboard 200, thus earning Cyrus a third number-one album on the chart – including albums fully credited to Hannah Montana; the album sold 371,000 copies in its debut week, becoming the fourth-highest sales week of 2008 for a female artist. The following week, Breakout descended to number two, selling 163,000 copies. The album spent a total of forty-eight weeks on the Billboard 200. It was certified double-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments exceeding two million copies. According to Nielsen SoundScan, the album has sold 1.6 million copies in the United States as of July 2013. Due to sales of 27,000 copies, Breakout entered at number-one on the Canadian Albums Chart on the week ending August 8, 2008, maintaining the top spot for two consecutive weeks.
On the week ending September 14, 2008, the album entered the Australian Albums Chart at number two. In the succeeding week, it moved to number-one, where it only stayed for a week. Breakout was certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for shipments exceeding 35,000 copies. Breakout debuted at number four on the New Zealand Albums Chart on the week ending September 8, 2008. On the week ending October 13, 2008, the album reached its peak at number two on the New Zealand Albums Chart, a position it maintained for two consecutive weeks. Breakout was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) for the shipment of more than 15,000 copies. In Japan, it peaked at number ten.
On the week ending September 13, 2008, the album entered and peaked at number ten on the UK Albums Chart, becoming Cyrus' first top ten album in the country. It was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for the shipment of 300,000 copies. In Ireland, Breakout peaked at number eleven and was certified platinum by the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) for shipments exceeding 15,000 copies. In mainland Europe, Breakout peaked at number twenty-eight on the European Top 100 Albums Chart, number twelve on the Austrian Albums Chart, number six on the Italian Albums Chart, and number sixteen on the German Albums Chart. On the week ending September 21, 2008, the album debuted at number twenty-six on the Spanish Albums Chart and, after twenty-six weeks of ascending and descending the chart, it reached its peak at number seven. The album was certified gold by the Productores de Música de España (PROMUSICAE) for the shipment of more than 30,000 copies. Breakout experienced similar commercial outcomes throughout the rest of Europe; it charted within the top twenty on charts in Finland, Norway, and Poland.
## Track listing
## Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Breakout''.
- Pete Anderson – engineer
- Antonina Armato – producer
- Tommy Barbarella – keyboard
- Michael Bland – drums
- Paul Bushnell – bass guitar
- Scott Campbell – engineer
- Ken Chastain – percussion
- Dorian Crozier – drums
- Scott Cutler – producer
- Miley Cyrus – background vocals, lead vocals
- Aaron Dudley – guitar
- Mark Endert – mixing
- John Fields – background vocals, bass guitar, engineer, guitar, keyboard, producer, programming
- Josh Freese – drums
- Steve Hammons – drum programming, engineer, mixing
- James Harrah – guitar
- Sean Hurley – bass guitar
- Tim James – producer
- Parker Jayne – drums
- Enny Joo – art direction, design
- Devrìm Karaoglu – drum programming, horn arrangement, keyboard, performer, producer, string arrangement
- Abe Laboriel, Jr. – drums
- David Levita – guitar
- Jon Lind – A&R, background vocals
- Chris Lord-Alge – mixing
- Stephen Lu – keyboards, string arrangement
- Nigel Lundemo – digital editing, engineer
- Gavin MacKillop – engineer
- Jason Morey – executive producer
- Jamie Muhoberac – piano
- Sheryl Nields – photography
- Clif Norrell – mixing
- William Owsley III – background vocals, guitar, mandolin
- Paul Palmer – mixing
- Christi Parker – A&R
- Katy Perry – background vocals
- Tim Pierce – guitar
- Anne Preven – background vocals, producer
- Zac Rae – keyboard
- Gina Schock – background vocals
- David Snow – creative director
- Ryan Star – background vocals
- Heather Sturm – engineer
- Robert Vosgien – mastering
- Windy Wagner – background vocals
- Cindy Warden – A&R
- Matthew Wilder – engineer, keyboard, mixing, producer, programming
- Terry Wood – background vocals
- Gigi Worth – background vocals
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Certifications |
180,542 | Himeji Castle | 1,172,240,854 | Japanese castle in Hyōgo Prefecture | [
"1581 establishments in Japan",
"Articles containing video clips",
"Buildings and structures completed in 1346",
"Buildings and structures completed in 1581",
"Buildings and structures completed in 1609",
"Buildings and structures in Himeji",
"Castles in Hyōgo Prefecture",
"Honda clan",
"Houses completed in 1618",
"Ikeda clan",
"Important Cultural Properties of Hyōgo Prefecture",
"Kuroda clan",
"Maebashi-Matsudaira clan",
"National Treasures of Japan",
"Okudaira-Matsudaira clan",
"Reportedly haunted locations in Japan",
"Sakai clan",
"Sakakibara clan",
"Special Historic Sites",
"Tourist attractions in Himeji",
"Toyotomi clan",
"World Heritage Sites in Japan"
]
| Himeji Castle (姫路城, Himeji-jō) is a hilltop Japanese castle complex situated in Himeji, a city in the Hyōgo Prefecture of Japan. The castle is regarded as the finest surviving example of prototypical Japanese castle architecture, comprising a network of 83 rooms with advanced defensive systems from the feudal period. The castle is frequently known as Hakuro-jō or Shirasagi-jō ("White Egret Castle" or "White Heron Castle") because of its brilliant white exterior and supposed resemblance to a bird taking flight.
Himeji Castle dates to 1333 when Akamatsu Norimura built a fort on top of Himeyama hill. The fort was dismantled and rebuilt as Himeyama Castle in 1346 and then remodeled into Himeji Castle two centuries later. Himeji Castle was then significantly remodeled in 1581 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who added a three-story castle keep. In 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu awarded the castle to Ikeda Terumasa for his help in the Battle of Sekigahara, and Ikeda completely rebuilt the castle from 1601 to 1609, expanding it into a large castle complex. Several buildings were later added to the castle complex by Honda Tadamasa from 1617 to 1618. For almost 700 years, Himeji Castle has remained intact, even throughout the bombing of Himeji in World War II, and natural disasters including the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake.
Himeji Castle is the largest and most visited castle in Japan, and it was registered in 1993 as one of the first UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the country. The area within the middle moat of the castle complex is a designated Special Historic Site and five structures of the castle are also designated National Treasures. Along with Matsumoto Castle and Kumamoto Castle, Himeji Castle is considered one of Japan's three premier castles. In order to preserve the castle buildings, it underwent restoration work for several years and reopened to the public on March 27, 2015. The works also removed decades of dirt and grime, restoring the formerly grey roof to its original brilliant white color.
## History
Himeji Castle's construction dates to 1333, when a fort was constructed on Himeyama hill by Akamatsu Norimura, the ruler of the ancient Harima Province. In 1346, his son Sadanori demolished this fort and built Himeyama Castle in its place. In 1545, the Kuroda clan was stationed here by order of the Kodera clan, and feudal ruler Kuroda Shigetaka remodeled the castle into Himeji Castle, completing the work in 1561. In 1580, Kuroda Yoshitaka presented the castle to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and in 1581 Hideyoshi significantly remodeled the castle, building a three-story keep with an area of about 55 m<sup>2</sup> (590 sq ft).
Following the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu granted Himeji Castle to his son-in-law, Ikeda Terumasa, as a reward for his help in battle. Ikeda demolished the three-story keep that had been created by Hideyoshi, and completely rebuilt and expanded the castle from 1601 to 1609, adding three moats and transforming it into the castle complex that is seen today. The expenditure of labor involved in this expansion is believed to have totaled 2.5 million man-days. Ikeda died in 1613, passing the castle to his son, who also died three years later. In 1617, Honda Tadamasa and his family inherited the castle, and Honda added several buildings to the castle complex, including a special tower for his daughter-in-law, Princess Sen (千姫, Senhime) called keshō yagura (Dressing Tower).
In the Meiji Period (1868–1912), many Japanese castles were destroyed. Himeji Castle was abandoned in 1871 and some of the castle corridors and gates were destroyed to make room for Japanese army barracks. The entirety of the castle complex was slated to be demolished by government policy, but it was spared by the efforts of Nakamura Shigeto, an army colonel. A stone monument honoring Nakamura was placed in the castle complex within the first gate, the Hishi Gate (菱の門, Hishinomon). Although Himeji Castle was spared, Japanese castles had become obsolete and their preservation was costly.
When the han feudal system was abolished in 1871, Himeji Castle was put up for auction. The castle was purchased by a Himeji resident for 23 Japanese yen (about 200,000 yen or US\$2,258 today). The buyer wanted to demolish the castle complex and develop the land, but the cost of destroying the castle was estimated to be too great, and it was again spared.
Himeji was heavily bombed in 1945, at the end of World War II, and although most of the surrounding area was burned to the ground, the castle survived intact. One firebomb was dropped on the top floor of the castle but failed to explode. In order to preserve the castle complex, substantial repair work was undertaken starting in 1956, with a labor expenditure of 250,000 man-days and a cost of 550 million yen. In January 1995, the city of Himeji was substantially damaged by the Great Hanshin earthquake, but Himeji Castle again survived virtually undamaged, demonstrating remarkable earthquake resistance. Even the bottle of sake placed on the altar at the top floor of the keep remained in place.
### Historical recognition
Himeji Castle was registered on 11 December 1993 as one of the first UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Japan. Five structures of the castle are also designated National Treasures: The main keep (大天守, daitenshu), northwest small keep (乾小天守, inui kotenshu), west small keep (西小天守, nishi kotenshu), east small keep (東小天守, higashi kotenshu), and I, Ro, Ha, Ni-corridors and kitchen (イ, ロ, ハ, ニの渡櫓附台所1棟, i, ro, ha, ni no watariyagura tsuketari daidokoro 1 to). The area within the middle moat of the castle complex is a designated Special Historic Site.
Along with Matsumoto Castle and Kumamoto Castle, Himeji Castle is considered one of Japan's three premier castles. It is the most visited castle in Japan, receiving over 2,860,000 visitors in 2015. Starting in April 2010, Himeji Castle underwent restoration work to preserve the castle buildings, and reopened to the public on March 27, 2015.
## Design details
Himeji Castle is the largest castle in Japan. It serves as an excellent example of prototypical Japanese castle architecture, containing many of the defensive and architectural features associated with Japanese castles. The curved walls of Himeji Castle are sometimes said to resemble giant fans (扇子, sensu), but the principal materials used in the structures are stone and wood. Feudal family crests (家紋, kamon) are installed throughout the architecture of the building, signifying the various lords that inhabited the castle throughout its history.
The specific style of the castle is a hirayama (平山城 flat hilltop). Two castles that were built during the same time and shared many of the architectural features are Matsuyama Castle (Iyo) and Tsuyama Castle.
The Himeji Castle complex is located in the centre of Himeji, Hyōgo on top of a hill called Himeyama, which is 45.6 m (150 ft) above sea level. The castle complex comprises a network of 83 buildings such as storehouses, gates, corridors, and turrets (櫓, yagura). Of these 83 buildings, 74 are designated as Important Cultural Assets: 11 corridors, 16 turrets, 15 gates, and 32 earthen walls. The highest walls in the castle complex have a height of 26 m (85 ft). Joining the castle complex is Kōko-en (好古園), a Japanese garden created in 1992 to commemorate Himeji city's 100th anniversary.
From east to west, the Himeji Castle complex has a length of 950 to 1,600 m (3,120 to 5,250 ft), and from north to south, it has a length of 900 to 1,700 m (3,000 to 5,600 ft). The castle complex has a circumference of 4,200 m (2.6 mi). It covers an area of 233 hectares (2,330,000 m<sup>2</sup> or 576 acres), making it roughly 50 times as large as the Tokyo Dome or 60 times as large as Koshien Stadium.
The main keep (大天守, daitenshu) at the center of the complex is 46.4 m (152 ft) high, standing 92 m (302 ft) above sea level. Together with the main keep, three smaller subsidiary keeps (小天守, kotenshu) form a cluster of towers. Externally, the keep appears to have five floors, because the second and third floors from the top appear to be a single floor; however, it actually has six floors and a basement. The basement of the main keep has an area of 385 m<sup>2</sup> (4,140 sq ft), and its interior contains special facilities that are not seen in other castles, including lavatories, a drain board, and a kitchen corridor.
The main keep has two pillars, with one standing in the east and one standing in the west. The east pillar, which has a base diameter of 97 cm (38 in), was originally a single fir tree, but it has since been mostly replaced.
`The base of the west pillar is 85 by 95 cm (33 by 37 in), and it is made of Japanese cypress. During the Shōwa Restoration (1956–1964) a Japanese cypress tree with a length of 26.4 m (87 ft) was brought down from the Kiso Mountains and replaced the old pillar. The tree was broken in this process, so another tree was brought down from Mount Kasagata, and the two trees were joined on the third floor.`
The first floor of the main keep has an area of 554 m<sup>2</sup> (5,960 sq ft) and is often called the "thousand-mat room" because it has over 330 Tatami mats. The walls of the first floor have weapon racks (武具掛け, bugukake) for holding matchlocks and spears, and at one point, the castle contained as many as 280 guns and 90 spears. The second floor has an area of roughly 550 m<sup>2</sup> (5,900 sq ft).
The third floor has an area of 440 m<sup>2</sup> (4,700 sq ft) and the fourth floor has an area of 240 m<sup>2</sup> (2,600 sq ft). Both the third and fourth floors have platforms situated at the north and south windows called "stone-throwing platforms" (石打棚, ishiuchidana), where defenders could observe or throw objects at attackers. They also have small enclosed rooms called "warrior hiding places" (武者隠し, mushakakushi), where defenders could hide themselves and kill attackers by surprise as they entered the keep. The final floor, the sixth floor, has an area of only 115 m<sup>2</sup> (1,240 sq ft). The sixth floor windows now have iron bars in place, but in the feudal period the panoramic view from the windows was unobstructed.
### Defences
Himeji Castle contains advanced defensive systems from the feudal period. Loopholes (狭間, sama) in the shape of circles, triangles, squares, and rectangles are located throughout Himeji Castle, intended to allow defenders armed with tanegashima or archers to fire on attackers without exposing themselves. Roughly 1,000 loopholes exist in the castle buildings remaining today. Angled chutes called "stone drop windows" (石落窓, ishi-otoshi-mado) were also set at numerous points in the castle walls, enabling stones or boiling oil to be poured on the heads of attackers passing by underneath, and white plaster was used in the castle's construction for its resistance to fire.
The castle complex included three moats, one of which—the outer moat—is now buried. Parts of the central moat and all of the inner moats survive. The moats have an average width of 20 m (66 ft), a maximum width of 34.5 m (113 ft), and a depth of about 2.7 m (8.9 ft). The Three Country Moat (三国堀, sangoku-bori) is a 2,500 m<sup>2</sup> (27,000 sq ft) pond which exists inside the castle; one of the purposes of this moat was to store water for use in fire prevention.
The castle complex, particularly the Waist Quarter (腰曲輪, koshikuruwa), contains numerous warehouses that were used to store rice, salt, and water in case of a siege. A building known as the Salt Turret (塩櫓, shioyagura) was used specifically to store salt, and it is estimated that it contained as many as 3,000 bags of salt when the castle complex was in use. The castle complex also contained 33 wells within the inner moat, 13 of which remain; the deepest of these has a depth of 30 m (98 ft).
One of the castle's most important defensive elements is the confusing maze of paths leading to the castle's keep. The gates, baileys, and outer walls of the complex are organized so as to confuse an approaching force, causing it to travel in a spiral pattern around the complex on its way to the keep. The castle complex originally contained 84 gates, 15 of which were named according to the Japanese syllabary iroha (I, Ro, Ha, Ni, Ho, He, To, etc.). At present, 21 gates from the castle complex remain intact, 13 of which are named according to the Japanese syllabary.
In many cases, the castle walkways even turn back on themselves, greatly inhibiting navigation. For example, the straight distance from the Hishi Gate (菱の門, hishinomon) to the main keep (大天守, daitenshu) is only 130 m (430 ft), but the path itself is a much longer 325 m (1,066 ft). The passages are also steep and narrow, further inhibiting entry. This system allowed the intruders to be watched and fired upon from the keep during their lengthy approach, but Himeji Castle was never attacked in this manner so the system remains untested. However, even today with the route clearly marked, many visitors have trouble navigating the castle complex.
## Cultural impact
Himeji Castle is frequently known as Hakuro-jō or Shirasagi-jō ("White Egret Castle" or "White Heron Castle") because of its brilliant white exterior and supposed resemblance to a bird taking flight. The castle has been featured extensively in foreign and Japanese films, including the James Bond movie "You Only Live Twice" (1967), and Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985). In the television miniseries Shōgun (1980) it served as a stand-in for feudal-era Osaka Castle. In the video games Civilization Revolution and Civilization V, Himeji Castle is available to build as a world wonder. It is also to be found as a Great Building in Forge of Empires.
### Lore and legend
Himeji Castle is associated with a number of local legends. The well-known kaidan (or Japanese ghost story) of Banchō Sarayashiki (番町皿屋敷, "The Dish Mansion at Banchō") is set in Edo (Tokyo), but a variant called Banshū Sarayashiki (播州皿屋敷, "The Dish mansion in Harima Province") is set in Himeji Castle. There is a disputed claim that the castle is the bona fide location of the entire legend, and the alleged Okiku's Well remains in the castle to this day. According to the legend, Okiku was falsely accused of losing dishes that were valuable family treasures, and then killed and thrown into the well. Her ghost remained to haunt the well at night, counting dishes in a despondent tone.
Himeji Castle is said to be inhabited by the yōkai Osakabehime, who lives in the castle tower and avoids humans, whom she hates. In some legends she takes the form of an old woman (or woman in her 30s) in ceremonial, twelve-layered kimono. She can read human minds and control lesser animal-like yōkai, kenzokushin.
The legend of the "Old Widow's Stone" (姥が石, Ubagaishi) is another folklore story associated with the castle. According to the legend, Toyotomi Hideyoshi ran out of stones when building the original three-story keep, and an old woman heard about his trouble. She gave him her hand millstone even though she needed it for her trade. It was said that people who heard the story were inspired and also offered stones to Hideyoshi, speeding up the construction of the castle. To this day, the supposed stone can be seen covered with a wire net in the middle of one of the stone walls in the castle complex.
A folklore story is also associated with Sakurai Genbei, who was Ikeda Terumasa's master carpenter in the construction of the keep. According to the legend, Sakurai was dissatisfied with his construction, feeling that the keep leaned a little to the southeast. Eventually, he became distraught and climbed to the top of the keep, where he jumped to his death with a chisel in his mouth.
## Visitor statistics
- On 14 April 2009, the total number of visits since the Showa-era restoration surpassed 40 million.
## Additional information
### National treasures and sister castles
Other national treasures (castles) besides Himeji Castle include Matsumoto Castle, Inuyama Castle, Matsue Castle, and Hikone Castle. The sister castles of Himeji Castle are Château de Chantilly in France and Conwy Castle in Wales. Castles that were of the same hirayama hilltop styles are Matsuyama Castle (Iyo) built in 1603 and Tsuyama Castle.
## Gallery
Panoramic overview
Views from afar
Views from below
Views at night
Views from above
Views from the interior
Views with cherry blossoms
Views of the restoration
Views of pictures
## See also
- Kōko-en, garden joining the castle complex
- Tsuyama Castle and Matsuyama Castle (Iyo), also built in the hirayama (平山城 flat hilltop castle) style
- List of National Treasures of Japan (castles)
- List of reportedly haunted locations
- List of Special Places of Scenic Beauty, Special Historic Sites and Special Natural Monuments
- List of World Heritage Sites in Japan |
66,681,697 | Hurricane Epsilon (2020) | 1,165,536,351 | Category 3 Atlantic hurricane in 2020 | [
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"2020 in Portugal",
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"Hurricanes in Bermuda",
"Hurricanes in Europe",
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"October 2020 events in North America",
"October 2020 events in Portugal",
"Tropical cyclones in 2020"
]
| Hurricane Epsilon was a strong tropical cyclone that affected Bermuda, and parts of North America and Western Europe. The twenty-seventh tropical or subtropical cyclone, the twenty-sixth named storm, the tenth hurricane, and the fourth major hurricane of the extremely-active 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, Epsilon had a non-tropical origin, developing from an upper-level low off the East Coast of the United States on October 13. The low gradually organized, becoming Tropical Depression Twenty-Seven on October 19, and six hours later, Tropical Storm Epsilon. The storm executed a counterclockwise loop before turning westward, while strengthening. On October 20, Epsilon began undergoing rapid intensification, becoming a Category 1 hurricane on the next day, before peaking as a Category 3 major hurricane on October 22, with maximum 1-minute sustained winds of 115 mph (185 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 952 millibars (28.1 inHg). This made Epsilon the easternmost major hurricane this late in the calendar year, as well as the strongest late-season major hurricane in the northeastern Atlantic, and the fastest recorded case of a tropical cyclone undergoing rapid intensification that far northeast that late in the hurricane season. Afterward, Epsilon began to weaken as the system turned northward, with the storm dropping to Category 1 intensity late that day. Epsilon maintained its intensity as it moved northward, passing to the east of Bermuda. On October 24, Epsilon turned northeastward and gradually accelerated, before weakening into a tropical storm on the next day. On October 26, Epsilon transitioned into an extratropical cyclone, before being absorbed by another larger extratropical storm later that same day.
Epsilon brought tropical storm conditions to Bermuda while passing to the east of the island. The storm brought large surf to parts of the Caribbean and the East Coast of the United States. Epsilon's remnants later brought severe weather to the British Isles. The storm's remnants also produced one of the largest October swells on record in Nazaré, along the Atlantic coast of Portugal. Epsilon caused one death in Florida, when a 27-year-old man drowned in rip currents produced by the hurricane. Overall damage from the storm was minor.
## Meteorological history
Hurricane Epsilon had non-tropical origins, developing from an upper-level trough associated with a weak baroclinic low that emerged off the East Coast of the United States on October 13. As the primary low continued to drift towards the northeast, a trailing cold front behind the low moved eastward into the central Atlantic Ocean over the next few days; the low eventually stalled on October 15 and soon degenerated into a surface trough well east of Bermuda. Around this time, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) first noted the possibility of a broad non-tropical low-pressure system forming within the trough several days later, identifying a chance that the disturbance could gradually organize and undergo tropical cyclogenesis. Upstream synoptic flow began to increase, as an expansive upper-level ridge developed across the northwestern Atlantic, west of the original upper-level trough. This meteorological pattern caused the upper-level trough to be cut off, while bending underneath the ridge. On October 16, convective activity (or thunderstorms) began to increase and become better organized, as the cut-off low interacted with the degrading parent trough. With the low-level cyclonic flow strengthening, a non-tropical surface low formed underneath the cut-off upper-level low, at 12:00 UTC that same day.
Later that day, satellite wind data depicted a better-defined circulation, while convective activity continued to organize within the upper-level low. Over the next few days, the surface low continued to remain superimposed underneath the upper-level low, as it slowly wandered southward, equatorward of a deep-layer ridge resembling an omega block in the northern Atlantic. Only minimal convection was produced by the surface low, due to dry air associated with upper-level low prohibiting much convective activity. While moving southward, the disturbance encountered warmer sea surface temperatures of around 80 °F (27 °C), causing convection to flourish and deepen. However, the disturbance's center of circulation remained somewhat elongated. The convective activity began to degrade the dry cyclonic flow of the upper-level low, aiding the tropical transition of the system, as its wind field contracted and upper-level cyclonic flow intensified. At 06:00 UTC on October 19, a large burst of deep convection developed just east of the surface low, causing the center to become more sufficiently organized, prompting the NHC to upgrade the disturbance into Tropical Depression Twenty-Seven. The NHC also noted that the depression appeared more tropical than subtropical, due to its small radius of maximum sustained winds, despite undergoing a similar formation process to that of subtropical cyclones.
Just six hours later, the depression strengthened into a tropical storm, and was given the name Epsilon. The name Epsilon comes from the Greek Alphabet backup naming lists for the NHC, which was only used for two seasons, the other being the 2005 season. Despite the center of the storm becoming exposed, convective banding over the northern and eastern parts of the system improved. This made the system take on the appearance of having a hybrid-type structure, resembling a subtropical cyclone in appearance. Situated within an area of moderate vertical wind shear and warm sea surface temperatures, further strengthening occurred. Later that same day, a new convective cluster near the center returned Epsilon to a more tropical appearance. However, ASCAT data depicted an asymmetrical wind radius, with gale-force winds extending northward 230 miles (370 km) from the center. Early on October 20, water vapor imagery showed Epsilon interacting with a dissipating cold front to its north and a negatively-titled (oriented northwest to southeast) upper-level trough from the south. Around this time, a dry slot formed within the eastern portion of the storm, weakening convective banding. The cloud pattern of Epsilon began to resemble an occluded extratropical low, with an inner-core tropical feature evident. The system began to move northward and then northwestward, making a loop over the Central Atlantic, due to its smaller circulation interacting with its upper-level cyclonic flow. Later that day, the system began to be affected by southwesterly vertical wind shear, due to the upper-level trough to its southwest, though it retained its hybrid-type structure. However, late that same day, wind shear calmed and dry air was mixed out of the cyclone, allowing the cyclone's structure to improve, with deep convection wrapping tightly around the center, as a small central dense overcast (CDO) became visible on satellite imagery. Even while battling weak-to-moderate deep-layer wind shear and some mid-level dry air, an eye-like feature started to become evident on visible and microwave imagery, giving Epsilon a more tropical structure, compared to its earlier hybrid appearance. Around this time, Epsilon underwent a period of rapid intensification, with sustained winds increasing by 50 mph (80 km/h) within a 24-hour period. At 03:00 UTC the next day, the NHC upgraded the strengthening tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane, while it was located roughly 545 miles (877 km) east-southeast of Bermuda. However, the eastern and southern sides of the eyewall were rather thin, even as Epsilon shifted west-northwestward, due to a mid-tropospheric ridge located north of the cyclone. Despite this, just a few hours later, microwave imagery showed a closed eyewall with deep convection enclosing the center, with a 15 miles (24 km) eye visible. Around this time, Epsilon briefly shifted westward, before returning to its previous northwestward movement. At 18:00 UTC that same day, the Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters investigated the cyclone, finding flight-level and surface winds of around 110 mph (180 km/h), marking the storm's intensification into a high-end Category 2 hurricane. The reconnaissance aircraft also discovered a stadium-effect eye.
Just three hours later, Epsilon reached Category 3 major hurricane status, while displaying a well-organized satellite presentation. A warm, well-defined eye was evident, with closed eyewall convection, and cloud top temperatures of around −76 °F (−60 °C). The upgrade to a Category 3 hurricane made Epsilon the easternmost major hurricane recorded this late in the calendar year, as well as the strongest late-season major hurricane in the northeastern Atlantic, and the fastest rapid intensification rate of a tropical cyclone recorded this far northeast this late in the Atlantic hurricane season. At 00:00 UTC on October 22, Epsilon reached its peak intensity, with 1-minute sustained winds of around 115 mph (185 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of around 952 mbar (28.11 inHg). Meanwhile, the hurricane's small and well-defined inner core was located within an environment of deep-level moisture, protecting it from dry air associated with an upper-level trough wrapping three-quarters of the way around the hurricane. Shortly afterward, Epsilon began to degrade due to a dry air intrusion, and its eye started to become ill-defined and cloud-filled, while its western eyewall eroded, causing the storm to weaken to a Category 2 hurricane. Weakening ensued throughout the day, further degrading Epsilon to a 85 mph (135 km/h)-Category 1 hurricane before the weakening trend stopped, with the storm maintaining this intensity for about 48 hours. However, the eye briefly became better-defined, before becoming ill-defined once more just a few hours later. Meanwhile, the CDO became disorganized, with a broad outer band wrapping around the western portion of the storm. However, upper-level outflow was well-defined in the northern part of the hurricane. Around this time, Epsilon made its closest approach to Bermuda, passing just 190 miles (310 km) east of the island. At 15:00 UTC on October 23, a small eye reappeared on geostationary and polar-orbiting microwave imagery, along with increased well-defined curved banding. Concentric eyewalls began to develop within Epsilon, while the northern half of its wind field expanded, indicating the start of an eyewall replacement cycle. Several hours later, early on October 24, Epsilon completed its eyewall replacement cycle. The storm's convective pattern devolved into a large, comma-shaped structure, rather than the classical circular structure normally seen in mature tropical cyclones. During this time, Epsilon moved over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, which allowed it to retain its intensity. A buoy near the center of the hurricane indicated that Epsilon's central pressure was about 957.8 millibars (28.28 inHg) around this time, which indicated that Epsilon was a stronger hurricane than the NHC had estimated it to be earlier.
Later that day, Epsilon began interacting with another upper-level trough; combined with baroclinic forcing, this caused Epsilon's wind field and inner core to expand in size. Epsilon also turned sharply northeastward and accelerated its forward motion. The hurricane slowly weakened as it continued moving further north. Early on October 25, Epsilon began transitioning into an extratropical cyclone, with the storm's cloud pattern expanding in size. The storm soon moved north of the Gulf Stream several hours later and entered much cooler waters, subsequently weakening into a tropical storm at about 18:00 UTC on the same day, even as it moved closer to another larger extratropical storm to the north, which was spawned by the upper-level trough. At 06:00 UTC on October 26, Epsilon finished transitioning into an extratropical cyclone while located about 565 miles (909 km) east of Cape Race, Newfoundland, with the storm's low-level circulation becoming stretched out along a north–south axis. Later that day, Epsilon was absorbed by the larger extratropical storm to the north, at 18:00 UTC.
## Preparations and impact
### Bermuda
Epsilon's large wind field prompted the issuance of a tropical storm watch for Bermuda at 15:00 UTC on October 20, which was later upgraded to a warning 24 hours later. As the hurricane began moving away from Bermuda on October 23, the tropical storm warning was cancelled. Despite the Bermuda Weather Service not forecasting hurricane-force winds to impact the island, the Government of Bermuda advised residents to prepare for power outages and to check their emergency supplies. Though no transportation disruptions were anticipated, bikers were warned to be cautious of strong wind gusts. Dangerous Surf Advisories were posted on southern-facing beaches, with residents urged to stay out of the water. The start of the World Tens Series had to be postponed from October 24 to the following day, to avoid severe weather from Epsilon.
Between October 22–23, Epsilon passed just 190 miles (310 km) east of Bermuda. Several locations of the island reported tropical storm-force winds, owing to the hurricane's large wind field. Sustained winds peaked at about 49 mph (79 km/h), with the highest wind gust measured at 60 mph (97 km/h), which was recorded at the Maritime Operations Centre, at an elevation of about 290 feet (88,000 mm). Tropical storm-force winds were also reported on Pearl Island and The Crescent, while a wind gust of 38 mph (61 km/h) was registered at the L.F. Wade International Airport. Only minor wind damage occurred on the island, while most weak trees and tree branches had already been downed by previous Hurricanes Paulette and Teddy. The outer bands of the storm only brought scattered showers to Bermuda, with a peak precipitation amount of 0.42 inches (11 mm) being reported at the L.F. Wade International Airport. Epsilon produced dangerous swells along the coast of Bermuda, forcing lifeguards at Horseshoe Bay to briefly halt services. In St. George's, video taken by Bernews showed waves crashing over small seawalls. Photos also showed waves ponding on nearby sidewalks and roads. Overall, damage in Bermuda was minor, and the storm's impact was compared to that of winter gales on the island.
### United States and British Isles
Epsilon produced large swells and rip currents from the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, northward through the entire East Coast of the United States. On the island of Puerto Rico, coastal flood and rip current advisories were issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) office in San Juan. Large waves were reported in Veja Baja, as shown by video posted on Twitter. High surf also affected the neighboring Virgin Islands. In Daytona Beach, Florida, a direct death occurred when a 27-year-old man drowned in rip currents produced by Epsilon. In North Carolina, an offshore buoy near Diamond Shoals reported an increase in wave size from 5 to 12 feet (1.5 to 3.7 m) overnight between October 22–23. Along the coast of North Carolina, rip current warnings were posted from the Outer Banks to as far south as North Topsail Beach. Increased swells and rip currents also threatened swimmers in South Carolina, causing red flags to be raised in Myrtle Beach. Long-period swells that reached heights of 5–8 feet (1.5–2.4 m) affected the coasts of New Jersey, Long Island, and New York City. Life-threatening swells and rip currents also impacted the coast of New England.
The remnants of Epsilon, along with a tailing occluded front, brought severe weather to the British Isles. In advance, Met Éireann issued a yellow rainfall warning for the counties of Galway and Mayo. Meanwhile, yellow wind warnings were ordered for Clare, Donegal, Galway, Kerry, and Mayo Counties. Another yellow wind warning was placed in effect for Wexford, Cork, and Waterford. The Met Office also issued yellow warnings for parts of Wales and North West England. Yellow rain warnings were also issued for parts of North West England, with the storm causing disruptions to train and bus services, and threatening flooding. In Ireland, the remnants of Epsilon caused outbreaks of rainfall and blustery conditions. In Northern Ireland, large swells of up to 98 feet (30 m) in height were recorded by offshore buoys, sending skilled surfers to beaches, as spectators watched waves crash onshore. In the mainland United Kingdom, torrential rainfall and gusty winds of up to 70 mph (110 km/h) affected the region. Professional surfers were seen braving 20-foot (6.1-meter) waves in Cornwall. Meanwhile, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) warned residents of "colossal swells" and "extremely dangerous conditions", advising people to avoid swimming in the ocean.
### Elsewhere
Rough surf from Hurricane Epsilon impacted the Leeward Islands, Greater Antilles, and the Lucayan Archipelago. While weakening, Epsilon brought swells of up to 23 feet (7.0 m) to the coast of Atlantic Canada. Moisture from the storm, along with a cold front, also brought gusty winds and rainfall to the region. Wind gusts up to 37 mph (60 km/h) impacted the Avalon Peninsula during the evening of October 24, where rainfall totals of up to 1.9 inches (48 mm) were recorded. In Portugal, the remnants of Epsilon produced one of the largest October swells on record in Nazaré.
## Naming
The 2020 season was the second (along with 2005) in which an alphabetic list of 21 storm names had been exhausted, necessitating use of the Greek alphabet auxiliary list. In March 2021, the World Meteorological Organization replaced that auxiliary list with a new 21-name supplemental list. As a result, the name Epsilon will not be used to name another Atlantic hurricane.
## See also
- Tropical cyclones in 2020
- List of Bermuda hurricanes
- Timeline of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season
- Hurricane Debby (1982) — Affected similar areas
- Hurricane Karen (2001) — Affected similar areas
- Hurricane Fay (2014) — Took a similar track, made landfall on Bermuda |
29,798 | The Lord of the Rings | 1,172,842,492 | 1954–1955 fantasy novel by J. R. R. Tolkien | [
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"1954 fantasy novels",
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| The Lord of the Rings is an epic high-fantasy novel by the English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.
The title refers to the story's main antagonist, the Dark Lord Sauron, who, in an earlier age, created the One Ring to rule the other Rings of Power given to Men, Dwarves, and Elves, in his campaign to conquer all of Middle-earth. From homely beginnings in the Shire, a hobbit land reminiscent of the English countryside, the story ranges across Middle-earth, following the quest to destroy the One Ring, seen mainly through the eyes of the hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin. Aiding Frodo are the Wizard Gandalf, the Men Aragorn and Boromir, the Elf Legolas, and the Dwarf Gimli, who unite in order to rally the Free Peoples of Middle-earth against Sauron's armies and give Frodo a chance to destroy the One Ring in the fire of Mount Doom.
Although often called a trilogy, the work was intended by Tolkien to be one volume in a two-volume set along with The Silmarillion. For economic reasons, The Lord of the Rings was first published over the course of a year from 29 July 1954 to 20 October 1955 in three volumes rather than one under the titles The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King; The Silmarillion appeared only after the author's death. The work is divided internally into six books, two per volume, with several appendices of background material. These three volumes were later published as a boxed set, and even finally as a single volume, following the author's original intent.
Tolkien's work, after an initially mixed reception by the literary establishment, has been the subject of extensive analysis of its themes and origins. Influences on this earlier work, and on the story of The Lord of the Rings, include philology, mythology, Christianity, earlier fantasy works, and his own experiences in the First World War.
The Lord of the Rings is considered one of the greatest fantasy books ever written and it has helped to create and shape the modern fantasy genre. Since release, it has been reprinted many times and translated into at least 38 languages. Its enduring popularity has led to numerous references in popular culture, the founding of many societies by fans of Tolkien's works, and the publication of many books about Tolkien and his works. It has inspired many derivative works, including paintings, music, films, television, video games, and board games.
Award-winning adaptations of The Lord of the Rings have been made for radio, theatre, and film. It was named Britain's best-loved novel of all time in the BBC's 2003 poll The Big Read.
## Plot
### The Fellowship of the Ring
### The Two Towers
### The Return of the King
### Frame story
Tolkien presents The Lord of the Rings within a fictional frame story where he is not the original author, but merely the translator of part of an ancient document, the Red Book of Westmarch. That book is modelled on the real Red Book of Hergest, which similarly presents an older mythology. Various details of the frame story appear in the Prologue, its "Note on Shire Records", and in the Appendices, notably Appendix F. In this frame story, the Red Book is the purported source of Tolkien's other works relating to Middle-earth: The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.
## Concept and creation
### Background
Although a major work in itself, The Lord of the Rings was only the last movement of a much older set of narratives Tolkien had worked on since 1917 encompassing The Silmarillion, in a process he described as mythopoeia.
The Lord of the Rings started as a sequel to Tolkien's work The Hobbit, published in 1937. The popularity of The Hobbit had led George Allen & Unwin, the publishers, to request a sequel. Tolkien warned them that he wrote quite slowly, and responded with several stories he had already developed. Having rejected his contemporary drafts for The Silmarillion, putting Roverandom on hold, and accepting Farmer Giles of Ham, Allen & Unwin continued to ask for more stories about hobbits.
### Writing
Persuaded by his publishers, he started "a new Hobbit" in December 1937. After several false starts, the story of the One Ring emerged. The idea for the first chapter ("A Long-Expected Party") arrived fully formed, although the reasons behind Bilbo's disappearance, the significance of the Ring, and the title The Lord of the Rings did not come until the spring of 1938. Originally, he planned to write a story in which Bilbo had used up all his treasure and was looking for another adventure to gain more; however, he remembered the Ring and its powers and thought that would be a better focus for the new work. As the story progressed, he brought in elements from The Silmarillion mythology.
Writing was slow, because Tolkien had a full-time academic position, marked exams to bring in a little extra income, and wrote many drafts. Tolkien abandoned The Lord of the Rings during most of 1943 and only restarted it in April 1944, as a serial for his son Christopher Tolkien, who was sent chapters as they were written while he was serving in South Africa with the Royal Air Force. Tolkien made another major effort in 1946, and showed the manuscript to his publishers in 1947. The story was effectively finished the next year, but Tolkien did not complete the revision of earlier parts of the work until 1949. The original manuscripts, which total 9,250 pages, now reside in the J. R. R. Tolkien Collection at Marquette University.
### Poetry
Unusually for 20th century novels, the prose narrative is supplemented throughout by over 60 pieces of poetry. These include verse and songs of many genres: for wandering, marching to war, drinking, and having a bath; narrating ancient myths, riddles, prophecies, and magical incantations; and of praise and lament (elegy). Some, such as riddles, charms, elegies, and narrating heroic actions are found in Old English poetry. Scholars have stated that the poetry is essential for the fiction to work aesthetically and thematically, as it adds information not given in the prose, and it brings out characters and their backgrounds. The poetry has been judged to be of high technical skill, reflected in Tolkien's prose; for instance, he wrote much of Tom Bombadil's speech in metre.
### Illustrations
Tolkien worked on the text using his maps of Middle-earth as a guide, to ensure the elements of the story fitted together in time and space. He prepared a variety of types of illustration – maps, calligraphy, drawings, cover designs, even a facsimile painting of the Book of Mazarbul – but only the maps, the inscription on the Ring, and a drawing of the Doors of Durin were included in the first edition.
The hardback editions sometimes had cover illustrations by Tolkien, sometimes by other artists. According to The New York Times, Barbara Remington's cover designs for Ballantine's paperback editions "achieved mass-cult status in the 1960s, particularly on college campuses" across America.
### Influences
Tolkien drew on a wide array of influences including language, Christianity, mythology and Germanic heroic legend including the Norse Völsunga saga, archaeology, especially at the Temple of Nodens, ancient and modern literature, like Finnish 19th-century epic poetry The Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot, and personal experience. He was inspired primarily by his profession, philology; his work centred on the study of Old English literature, especially Beowulf, and he acknowledged its importance to his writings. He was a gifted linguist, influenced by Celtic, Finnish, Slavic, and Greek language and mythology. Commentators have attempted to identify literary and topological antecedents for characters, places and events in Tolkien's writings; he acknowledged that he had enjoyed adventure stories by authors such as John Buchan and Rider Haggard. The Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris was a major influence, and Tolkien undoubtedly made use of some real place-names, such as Bag End, the name of his aunt's home. Tolkien stated, too, that he had been influenced by his childhood experiences of the English countryside of Worcestershire near Sarehole Mill, and its urbanisation by the growth of Birmingham, and his personal experience of fighting in the trenches of the First World War. Moreover, the militarization and industrialization inspired the character of Sauron and his forces. The Orcs represented the worst of it as workers that have been tortured and brutalized by the war and industry.
### Themes
Scholars and critics have identified many themes in the book with its complex interlaced narrative, including a reversed quest, the struggle of good and evil, death and immortality, fate and free will, the addictive danger of power, and various aspects of Christianity such as the presence of three Christ figures, for prophet, priest, and king, as well as elements like hope and redemptive suffering. There is a common theme throughout the work of language, its sound, and its relationship to peoples and places, along with hints of providence in descriptions of weather and landscape. Out of these, Tolkien stated that the central theme is death and immortality. To those who supposed that the book was an allegory of events in the 20th century, Tolkien replied in the foreword to the Second Edition that it was not, saying he preferred "history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers."
Some commentators have criticized the book for being a story about men for boys, with no significant women; or about a purely rural world with no bearing on modern life in cities; of containing no sign of religion; or of racism. Other commentators responded by noting that there are three powerful women in the book, Galadriel, Éowyn, and Arwen; that life, even in rural Hobbiton, is not idealised; that Christianity is a pervasive theme; and that Tolkien was sharply anti-racist both in peacetime and during the Second World War, while Middle-earth is evidently polycultural.
## Publication history
A dispute with his publisher, George Allen & Unwin, led Tolkien to offer the work to William Collins in 1950. Tolkien intended The Silmarillion (itself largely unrevised at this point) to be published along with The Lord of the Rings, but Allen & Unwin were unwilling to do this. After Milton Waldman, his contact at Collins, expressed the belief that The Lord of the Rings itself "urgently wanted cutting", Tolkien eventually demanded that they publish the book in 1952. Collins did not; and so Tolkien wrote to Allen and Unwin, saying, "I would gladly consider the publication of any part of the stuff", fearing his work would never see the light of day.
For publication, the work was divided into three volumes to minimize any potential financial loss due to the high cost of type-setting and modest anticipated sales: The Fellowship of the Ring (Books I and II), The Two Towers (Books III and IV), and The Return of the King (Books V and VI plus six appendices). Delays in producing appendices, maps and especially an index led to the volumes being published later than originally hoped – on 29 July 1954, on 11 November 1954 and on 20 October 1955 respectively in the United Kingdom. In the United States, Houghton Mifflin published The Fellowship of the Ring on 21 October 1954, The Two Towers on 21 April 1955, and The Return of the King on 5 January 1956.
The Return of the King was especially delayed as Tolkien revised the ending and prepared appendices (some of which had to be left out because of space constraints). Tolkien did not like the title The Return of the King, believing it gave away too much of the storyline, but deferred to his publisher's preference. Tolkien wrote that the title The Two Towers "can be left ambiguous", but considered naming the two as Orthanc and Barad-dûr, Minas Tirith and Barad-dûr, or Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol. However, a month later he wrote a note published at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring and later drew a cover illustration, both of which identified the pair as Minas Morgul and Orthanc.
Tolkien was initially opposed to titles being given to each two-book volume, preferring instead the use of book titles: e.g. The Lord of the Rings: Vol. 1, The Ring Sets Out and The Ring Goes South; Vol. 2, The Treason of Isengard and The Ring Goes East; Vol. 3, The War of the Ring and The End of the Third Age. However, these individual book titles were dropped, and after pressure from his publishers, Tolkien suggested the volume titles: Vol. 1, The Shadow Grows; Vol. 2, The Ring in the Shadow; Vol. 3, The War of the Ring or The Return of the King.
Because the three-volume binding was so widely distributed, the work is often referred to as the Lord of the Rings "trilogy". In a letter to the poet W. H. Auden, who famously reviewed the final volume in 1956, Tolkien himself made use of the term "trilogy" for the work though he did at other times consider this incorrect, as it was written and conceived as a single book. It is often called a novel; however, Tolkien objected to this term as he viewed it as a heroic romance.
The books were published under a profit-sharing arrangement, whereby Tolkien would not receive an advance or royalties until the books had broken even, after which he would take a large share of the profits. It has ultimately become one of the best-selling novels ever written, with 50 million copies sold by 2003 and over 150 million copies sold by 2007. The work was published in the UK by Allen & Unwin until 1990, when the publisher and its assets were acquired by HarperCollins.
### Editions and revisions
In the early 1960s Donald A. Wollheim, science fiction editor of the paperback publisher Ace Books, claimed that The Lord of the Rings was not protected in the United States under American copyright law because Houghton Mifflin, the US hardcover publisher, had neglected to copyright the work in the United States. Then, in 1965, Ace Books proceeded to publish an edition, unauthorized by Tolkien and without paying royalties to him. Tolkien took issue with this and quickly notified his fans of this objection. Grass-roots pressure from these fans became so great that Ace Books withdrew their edition and made a nominal payment to Tolkien.
Authorized editions followed from Ballantine Books and Houghton Mifflin to tremendous commercial success. Tolkien undertook various textual revisions to produce a version of the book that would be published with his consent and establish an unquestioned US copyright. This text became the Second Edition of The Lord of the Rings, published in 1965. The first Ballantine paperback edition was printed in October that year, selling a quarter of a million copies within ten months. On 4 September 1966, the novel debuted on The New York Times's Paperback Bestsellers list as number three, and was number one by 4 December, a position it held for eight weeks. Houghton Mifflin editions after 1994 consolidate variant revisions by Tolkien, and corrections supervised by Christopher Tolkien, which resulted, after some initial glitches, in a computer-based unified text.
In 2004, for the 50th Anniversary Edition, Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, under supervision from Christopher Tolkien, studied and revised the text to eliminate as many errors and inconsistencies as possible, some of which had been introduced by well-meaning compositors of the first printing in 1954, and never been corrected. The 2005 edition of the book contained further corrections noticed by the editors and submitted by readers. Yet more corrections were made in the 60th Anniversary Edition in 2014. Several editions, including the 50th Anniversary Edition, print the whole work in one volume, with the result that pagination varies widely over the various editions.
### Posthumous publication of drafts
From 1988 to 1992 Christopher Tolkien published the surviving drafts of The Lord of the Rings, chronicling and illuminating with commentary the stages of the text's development, in volumes 6–9 of his History of Middle-earth series. The four volumes carry the titles The Return of the Shadow, The Treason of Isengard, The War of the Ring, and Sauron Defeated.
### Translations
The work has been translated, with varying degrees of success, into at least 38, and reportedly at least 70, languages. Tolkien, an expert in philology, examined many of these translations, and made comments on each that reflect both the translation process and his work. As he was unhappy with some choices made by early translators, such as the Swedish translation by Åke Ohlmarks, Tolkien wrote a "Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings" (1967). Because The Lord of the Rings purports to be a translation of the fictitious Red Book of Westmarch, using the English language to represent the Westron of the "original", Tolkien suggested that translators attempt to capture the interplay between English and the invented nomenclature of the English work, and gave several examples along with general guidance.
## Reception
### 1950s
Early reviews of the work were mixed. The initial review in the Sunday Telegraph described it as "among the greatest works of imaginative fiction of the twentieth century". The Sunday Times echoed this sentiment, stating that "the English-speaking world is divided into those who have read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and those who are going to read them." The New York Herald Tribune appeared to predict the books' popularity, writing in its review that they were "destined to outlast our time". W. H. Auden, a former pupil of Tolkien's and an admirer of his writings, regarded The Lord of the Rings as a "masterpiece", further stating that in some cases it outdid the achievement of John Milton's Paradise Lost. Kenneth F. Slater wrote in Nebula Science Fiction, April 1955, "... if you don't read it, you have missed one of the finest books of its type ever to appear". On the other hand, in 1955, the Scottish poet Edwin Muir attacked The Return of the King, writing that "All the characters are boys masquerading as adult heroes ... and will never come to puberty ... Hardly one of them knows anything about women", causing Tolkien to complain angrily to his publisher. In 1956, the literary critic Edmund Wilson wrote a review entitled "Oo, Those Awful Orcs!", calling Tolkien's work "juvenile trash", and saying "Dr. Tolkien has little skill at narrative and no instinct for literary form."
Within Tolkien's literary group, The Inklings, the work had a mixed reception. Hugo Dyson complained loudly at its readings, whereas C. S. Lewis had very different feelings, writing, "here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron. Here is a book which will break your heart." Lewis observed that the writing is rich, in that some of the 'good' characters have darker sides, and likewise some of the villains have "good impulses". Despite the mixed reviews and the lack of a paperback until the 1960s, The Lord of the Rings initially sold well in hardback.
### Later
Judith Shulevitz, writing in The New York Times, criticized the "pedantry" of Tolkien's literary style, saying that he "formulated a high-minded belief in the importance of his mission as a literary preservationist, which turns out to be death to literature itself". The critic Richard Jenkyns, writing in The New Republic, criticized the work for a lack of psychological depth. Both the characters and the work itself were, according to Jenkyns, "anemic, and lacking in fibre". The science fiction author David Brin interprets the work as holding unquestioning devotion to a traditional hierarchical social structure. In his essay "Epic Pooh", fantasy author Michael Moorcock critiques the world-view displayed by the book as deeply conservative, in both the "paternalism" of the narrative voice and the power structures in the narrative. Tom Shippey, like Tolkien an English philologist, notes the wide gulf between Tolkien's supporters, both popular and academic, and his literary detractors, and attempts to explain in detail both why the literary establishment disliked The Lord of the Rings, and the work's subtlety, themes, and merits, including the impression of depth that it conveys. The scholar of humanities Brian Rosebury analysed Tolkien's prose style in detail, showing that it was generally quite plain, varying to suit the voices of the different characters, and rising to a heroic register for special moments.
### Awards
In 1957, The Lord of the Rings was awarded the International Fantasy Award. Despite its numerous detractors, the publication of the Ace Books and Ballantine paperbacks helped The Lord of the Rings become immensely popular in the United States in the 1960s. The book has remained so ever since, ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the twentieth century, judged by both sales and reader surveys. In the 2003 "Big Read" survey conducted in Britain by the BBC, The Lord of the Rings was found to be the "Nation's best-loved book". In similar 2004 polls both Germany and Australia chose The Lord of the Rings as their favourite book. In a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium". In 2019, the BBC News listed The Lord of the Rings on its list of the 100 most influential novels.
## Adaptations
The Lord of the Rings has been adapted for radio, stage, motion pictures, and videogames.
### Radio
The book has been adapted for radio four times. In 1955 and 1956, the BBC broadcast The Lord of the Rings, a 13-part radio adaptation of the story. In the 1960s radio station WBAI produced a short radio adaptation. A 1979 dramatization of The Lord of the Rings was broadcast in the United States and subsequently issued on tape and CD. In 1981, the BBC broadcast The Lord of the Rings, a new dramatization in 26 half-hour instalments.
### Motion pictures
A variety of filmmakers considered adapting Tolkien's book, among them Stanley Kubrick, who thought it unfilmable, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jim Henson, Heinz Edelmann, and John Boorman. A Swedish live action television film, Sagan om ringen, was broadcast in 1971. In 1978, Ralph Bakshi made an animated film version covering The Fellowship of the Ring and part of The Two Towers, to mixed reviews. In 1980, Rankin/Bass released an animated TV special based on the closing chapters of The Return of the King, gaining mixed reviews. In Finland, a live action television miniseries, Hobitit, was broadcast in 1993 based on The Lord of the Rings, with a flashback to Bilbo's encounter with Gollum in The Hobbit.
A far more successful adaptation was Peter Jackson's live action The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, produced by New Line Cinema and released in three instalments as The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). All three parts won multiple Academy Awards, including consecutive Best Picture nominations. The final instalment of this trilogy was the second film to break the one-billion-dollar barrier and won a total of 11 Oscars (something only two other films in history, Ben-Hur and Titanic, have accomplished), including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. Commentators including Tolkien scholars, literary critics and film critics are divided on how faithfully Jackson adapted Tolkien's work, or whether a film version is inevitably different, and if so the reasons for any changes, and the effectiveness of the result.
The Hunt for Gollum, a 2009 film by Chris Bouchard, and the 2009 Born of Hope, written by Paula DiSante and directed by Kate Madison, are fan films based on details in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings.
From September 2022, Amazon has been presenting a multi-season television series of stories, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. It is set at the beginning of the Second Age, long before the time of The Lord of the Rings, based on materials in the novel's appendices.
In early 2023, Warner Bros Discovery announced that multiple new movies set in Middle-earth are in development, and will be produced along with New Line Cinema and Freemode.
### Audiobooks
In 1990, Recorded Books published an audio version of The Lord of the Rings, read by the British actor Rob Inglis. A large-scale musical theatre adaptation, The Lord of the Rings, was first staged in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 2006 and opened in London in June 2007; it was a commercial failure.
In 2013, the artist Phil Dragash recorded the whole of the book, using the score from Peter Jackson's movies.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, Andy Serkis read the entire book of The Hobbit online to raise money for charity. He then recorded the work again as an audiobook. The cover art was done by Alan Lee. In 2021, Serkis recorded The Lord of the Rings novels.
## Legacy
### Influence on fantasy
The enormous popularity of Tolkien's work expanded the demand for fantasy. Largely thanks to The Lord of the Rings, the genre flowered throughout the 1960s and enjoys popularity to the present day. The opus has spawned many imitations, such as The Sword of Shannara, which Lin Carter called "the single most cold-blooded, complete rip-off of another book that I have ever read," as well as alternate interpretations of the story, such as The Last Ringbearer. The Legend of Zelda, which popularized the action-adventure game genre in the 1980s, was inspired by The Lord of the Rings among other fantasy books. Dungeons & Dragons, which popularized the role-playing game genre in the 1970s, features several races from The Lord of the Rings, including halflings (hobbits), elves, dwarves, half-elves, orcs, and dragons. However, Gary Gygax, lead designer of the game, maintained that he was influenced very little by The Lord of the Rings, stating that he included these elements as a marketing move to draw on the popularity the work enjoyed at the time he was developing the game. Because Dungeons & Dragons has gone on to influence many popular games, especially role-playing video games, the influence of The Lord of the Rings extends to many of them, with titles such as Dragon Quest, EverQuest, the Warcraft series, and The Elder Scrolls series of games as well as video games set in Middle-earth itself.
### Music
In 1965, the songwriter Donald Swann, best known for his collaboration with Michael Flanders as Flanders & Swann, set six poems from The Lord of the Rings and one from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil ("Errantry") to music. When Swann met with Tolkien to play the songs for his approval, Tolkien suggested for "Namárië" (Galadriel's lament) a setting reminiscent of plain chant, which Swann accepted. The songs were published in 1967 as The Road Goes Ever On: A Song Cycle, and a recording of the songs performed by singer William Elvin with Swann on piano was issued that same year by Caedmon Records as Poems and Songs of Middle Earth.
Rock bands of the 1970s were musically and lyrically inspired by the fantasy-embracing counter-culture of the time. The British rock band Led Zeppelin recorded several songs that contain explicit references to The Lord of the Rings, such as mentioning Gollum and Mordor in "Ramble On", the Misty Mountains in "Misty Mountain Hop", and Ringwraiths in "The Battle of Evermore". In 1970, the Swedish musician Bo Hansson released an instrumental concept album entitled Sagan om ringen ("The Saga of the Ring", the title of the Swedish translation at the time). The album was subsequently released internationally as Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings in 1972. From the 1980s onwards, many heavy metal acts have been influenced by Tolkien.
In 1988, the Dutch composer and trombonist Johan de Meij completed his Symphony No. 1 "The Lord of the Rings". It had 5 movements, titled "Gandalf", "Lothlórien", "Gollum", "Journey in the Dark", and "Hobbits".
The 1991 album Shepherd Moons by the Irish musician Enya contains an instrumental titled "Lothlórien", in reference to the home of the wood-elves.
### Impact on popular culture
The Lord of the Rings has had a profound and wide-ranging impact on popular culture, beginning with its publication in the 1950s, but especially during the 1960s and 1970s, when young people embraced it as a countercultural saga. "Frodo Lives!" and "Gandalf for President" were two phrases popular amongst United States Tolkien fans during this time. Its impact is such that the words "Tolkienian" and "Tolkienesque" have entered the Oxford English Dictionary, and many of his fantasy terms, formerly little-known in English, such as "Orc" and "Warg", have become widespread in that domain. Among its effects are numerous parodies, especially Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings, which has had the distinction of remaining continuously in print from its publication in 1969, and of being translated into at least 11 languages.
In 1969, Tolkien sold the merchandising rights to The Lord of The Rings (and The Hobbit) to United Artists under an agreement stipulating a lump sum payment of £10,000 plus a 7.5% royalty after costs, payable to Allen & Unwin and the author. In 1976, three years after the author's death, United Artists sold the rights to Saul Zaentz Company, who now trade as Tolkien Enterprises. Since then all "authorised" merchandise has been signed off by Tolkien Enterprises, although the intellectual property rights of the specific likenesses of characters and other imagery from various adaptations is generally held by the adaptors.
Outside commercial exploitation from adaptations, from the late 1960s onwards there has been an increasing variety of original licensed merchandise, with posters and calendars created by illustrators such as Barbara Remington.
The work was named Britain's best novel of all time in the BBC's The Big Read. In 2015, the BBC ranked The Lord of the Rings 26th on its list of the 100 greatest British novels. It was included in Le Monde's list of "100 Books of the Century". |
54,992,011 | Characterization of nanoparticles | 1,170,432,558 | Measurement of physical and chemical properties of nanoparticles | [
"Analytical chemistry",
"Metrology",
"Nanoparticles"
]
| The characterization of nanoparticles is a branch of nanometrology that deals with the characterization, or measurement, of the physical and chemical properties of nanoparticles. Nanoparticles measure less than 100 nanometers in at least one of their external dimensions, and are often engineered for their unique properties. Nanoparticles are unlike conventional chemicals in that their chemical composition and concentration are not sufficient metrics for a complete description, because they vary in other physical properties such as size, shape, surface properties, crystallinity, and dispersion state.
Nanoparticles are characterized for various purposes, including nanotoxicology studies and exposure assessment in workplaces to assess their health and safety hazards, as well as manufacturing process control. There is a wide range of instrumentation to measure these properties, including microscopy and spectroscopy methods as well as particle counters. Metrology standards and reference materials for nanotechnology, while still a new discipline, are available from many organizations.
## Background
Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter at the atomic scale to create materials, devices, or systems with new properties or functions. It has potential applications in energy, healthcare, industry, communications, agriculture, consumer products, and other sectors. Nanoparticles measure less than 100 nanometers in at least one of their external dimensions, and often have properties different from the bulk versions of their component materials, which make them technologically useful. This article uses a broad definition of nanoparticles which includes all free nanomaterials regardless of their shape or how many of their dimensions are nanoscale, rather than the more restrictive ISO/TS 80004 definition that only refers to round nano-objects.
Nanoparticles have different analytical requirements than conventional chemicals, for which chemical composition and concentration are sufficient metrics. Nanoparticles have other physical properties that must be measured for a complete description, such as size, shape, surface properties, crystallinity, and dispersion state. The bulk properties of nanoparticles are sensitive to small variations in these properties, which has implications for process control in their industrial use. These properties also influence the health effects of exposure to nanoparticles of a given composition.
An additional challenge is that sampling and laboratory procedures can perturb the nanoparticles' dispersion state, or bias the distribution of their other properties. In environmental contexts, many methods cannot detect low concentrations of nanoparticles that may still have an adverse effect. A high background of natural and incidental nanoparticles may interfere with detection of the target engineered nanoparticle, as it is difficult to distinguish the two. Nanoparticles may also be mixed with larger particles. For some applications, nanoparticles may be characterized in complex matrices such as water, soil, food, polymers, inks, complex mixtures of organic liquids such as in cosmetics, or blood.
## Types of methods
Microscopy methods generate images of individual nanoparticles to characterize their shape, size, and location. Electron microscopy and scanning probe microscopy are the dominant methods. Because nanoparticles have a size below the diffraction limit of visible light, conventional optical microscopy is not useful. Electron microscopes can be coupled to spectroscopic methods that can perform elemental analysis. Microscopy methods are destructive, and can be prone to undesirable artifacts from sample preparation such as drying or vacuum conditions required for some methods, or from probe tip geometry in the case of scanning probe microscopy. Additionally, microscopy is based on single-particle measurements, meaning that large numbers of individual particles must be characterized to estimate their bulk properties. A newer method, enhanced dark-field microscopy with hyperspectral imaging, shows promise for imaging nanoparticles in complex matrices such as biological tissue with higher contrast and throughput.
Spectroscopy, which measures the particles' interaction with electromagnetic radiation as a function of wavelength, is useful for some classes of nanoparticles to characterize concentration, size, and shape. Semiconductor quantum dots are fluorescent and metal nanoparticles exhibit surface plasmon absorbances, making both amenable to ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy. Infrared, nuclear magnetic resonance, and X-ray spectroscopy are also used with nanoparticles. Light scattering methods using laser light, X-rays, or neutron scattering are used to determine particle size, with each method suitable for different size ranges and particle compositions.
Some miscellaneous methods are electrophoresis for surface charge, the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller method for surface area, and X-ray diffraction for crystal structure; as well as mass spectrometry for particle mass, and particle counters for particle number. Chromatography, centrifugation, and filtration techniques can be used to separate nanoparticles by size or other physical properties before or during characterization.
## Metrics
### Size and dispersion
Particle size is the external dimensions of a particle, and dispersity is a measure of the range of particle sizes in a sample. If the particle is elongated or irregularly shaped, the size will differ between dimensions, although many measurement techniques yield an equivalent spherical diameter based on the surrogate property being measured. Size can be calculated from physical properties such as settling velocity, diffusion rate or coefficient, and electrical mobility. Size can also be calculated from microscope images using measured parameters such as Feret diameter, Martin diameter and projected area diameters; electron microscopy is often used for this purpose for nanoparticles. Size measurements may differ between methods because they measure different aspects of particle dimensions, they average distributions over an ensemble differently, or the preparation for or operation of the method may change the effective particle size.
For airborne nanoparticles, techniques for measuring size include cascade impactors, electrical low-pressure impactors, mobility analyzers, and time-of-flight mass spectrometers. For nanoparticles in suspension, techniques include dynamic light scattering, laser diffraction, field flow fractionation, nanoparticle tracking analysis, particle tracking velocimetry, size exclusion chromatography, centrifugal sedimentation, and atomic force microscopy. For dry materials, techniques for measuring size include electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and X-ray diffraction. Back-calculation from surface area measurements are commonly employed, but these are subject to error for porous materials. Additional methods include hydrodynamic chromatography, static light scattering, multiangle light scattering, nephelometry, laser-induced breakdown detection, and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy; as well as near-field scanning optical microscopy, confocal laser scanning microscopy, capillary electrophoresis, ultracentrifugation, cross-flow filtration, small-angle X-ray scattering, and differential mobility analysis. Use of an environmental scanning electron microscope avoids morphological changes caused by the vacuum required for standard scanning electron microscopy, at the cost of resolution.
A closely related property is dispersion, a measure of the degree to which particles clump together into agglomerates or aggregates. While the two terms are often used interchangeably, according to ISO nanotechnology definitions, an agglomerate is a reversible collection of particles weakly bound, for example by van der Waals forces or physical entanglement, whereas an aggregate is composed of irreversibly bonded or fused particles, for example through covalent bonds. Dispersion is often assessed using the same techniques employed to determine size distribution, and the width of a particle size distribution is often used as a surrogate for dispersion. Dispersion is a dynamic process strongly affected by properties of the particles themselves as well as their environment such as pH and ionic strength. Some methods have difficulty distinguishing between a single large particle and a set of smaller agglomerated or aggregated particles; in this case using multiple sizing methods can help resolve the ambiguity, with microscopy being particularly useful.
### Shape
Morphology refers to the physical shape of a particle, as well as its surface topography, for example, the presence of cracks, ridges, or pores. Morphology influences dispersion, functionality, and toxicity, and has similar considerations as size measurements. Evaluation of morphology requires direct visualization of the particles through techniques like scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. Several metrics can be used, such as sphericity or circularity, aspect ratio, elongation, convexity, and fractal dimension. Because microscopy involves measurements of single particles, a large sample size is necessary to ensure a representative sample, and orientation and sample preparation effects must be accounted for.
### Chemical composition and crystal structure
Bulk chemical composition refers to the atomic elements of which a nanoparticle is composed, and can be measured in ensemble or single-particle elemental analysis methods. Ensemble techniques include atomic absorption spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy or inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, neutron activation analysis, X-ray diffraction, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence, and thermogravimetric analysis. Single-particle techniques include time-of-flight mass spectrometry, as well as utilizing elemental detectors such as energy-dispersive X-ray analysis or electron energy loss spectroscopy while using scanning electron microscopy or transmission electron microscopy.
The arrangement of elemental atoms in a nanoparticles may be organized into a crystal structure or may be amorphous. Crystallinity is the ratio of crystalline to amorphous structure. Crystallite size, the size of the crystal unit cell, can be calculated through the Scherrer equation. Generally, crystal structure is determined using powder X-ray diffraction, or selected area electron diffraction using a transmission electron microscope, though others such as Raman spectroscopy exist. X-ray diffraction requires on the order of a gram of material, whereas electron diffraction can be done on single particles.
### Surface area
Surface area is an important metric for engineered nanoparticles because it influences reactivity and surface interactions with ligands. Specific surface area refers to the surface area of a powder normalized to mass or volume. Different methods measure different aspects of surface area.
Direct measurement of nanoparticle surface area utilizes adsorption of an inert gas such as nitrogen or krypton under varying conditions of pressure to form a monolayer of gas coverage. The number of gas molecules needed to form a monolayer and the cross-sectional area of the adsorbate gas molecule are related to the "total surface area" of the particle, including internal pores and crevices, using the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller equation. Organic molecules can be used in place of gasses, such as ethylene glycol monoethyl ether.
There are several indirect measurement techniques for airborne nanoparticles, which do not account for porosity and other surface irregularities and therefore may be inaccurate. Real-time diffusion chargers measure the "active surface area", the area of the particle that interacts with the surrounding gas or ions and is accessible only from the outside. Electrical mobility analyzers calculate the spherical equivalent diameter, which can be converted using geometric relationships. These methods cannot discriminate a nanoparticle of interest from incidental nanoparticles that may occur in complex environments such as workplace atmospheres. Nanoparticles can be collected onto a substrate and their external dimensions can be measured using electron microscopy, then converted to surface area using geometric relations.
### Surface chemistry and charge
Surface chemistry refers to the elemental or molecular chemistry of particle surfaces. No formal definition exists for what constitutes a surface layer, which is usually defined by the measurement technique employed. For nanoparticles a higher proportion of atoms are on their surfaces relative to micron-scale particles, and surface atoms are in direct contact with solvents and influence their interactions with other molecules. Some nanoparticles such as quantum dots may have a core–shell structure where the outer surface atoms are different than those of the interior core.
Multiple techniques are available to characterize nanoparticle surface chemistry. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Auger electron spectroscopy are well-suited to characterizing a thicker surface layer of 1–5 nm. Secondary ion mass spectroscopy is more useful to characterize just the top few angstroms (10 angstroms = 1 nm), and can be used with sputtering techniques to analyze chemistry as a function of depth. Surface chemistry measurements are particularly sensitive to contamination on particle surfaces, making quantitative analyses difficult, and spatial resolution can be poor. For adsorbed proteins, radiolabelling or mass spectrometry methods such as matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) can be used.
Surface charge generally refers to the charge from adsorption or desorption of protons on hydroxylated sites on a nanoparticle surface. Surface charge is difficult to directly measure, so the related zeta potential is often measured instead, which is the potential at the double layer's slipping plane, which separates mobile solvent molecules from those that remain attached to the surface. Zeta potential is a calculated rather than measured property, and is a function of both the nanoparticle of interest and its surrounding medium, requiring a description of the measurement temperature; the composition, pH, viscosity, and dielectric constant of the medium; and value used for the Henry function to be meaningful. Zeta potential is used as an indicator of colloidal stability, and has been shown to be predictive of nanoparticle uptake by cells. Zeta potential can be measured by titration to find the isoelectric point, or through electrophoresis including laser Doppler electrophoresis.
Surface energy or wettability are also important for nanoparticle aggregation, dissolution, and bioaccumulation. They can be measured through heat of immersion microcalorimetry studies, or through contact angle measurements. Surface reactivity can also be directly monitored through microcalorimetry using probe molecules that undergo measurable changes.
### Solubility
Solubility is a measurement of the degree to which material dissolves from a nanoparticle to enter solution. Material dissolved as part of a solubiity test can be quantified using atomic absorption spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy, and inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy, with the last being generally the most sensitive. Two related concepts are biodurability, the rate of dissolution in a biological fluid or surrogate, and biopersistence, the rate at which a material is cleared from an organ such as the lung by physical and chemical dissolution processes.
Analytical techniques for solubility quantitatively measure total elemental concentration in a sample, and do not discriminate between dissolved or solid forms. Therefore, a separation process must be used to remove the remaining particles. Physical separation techniques include size exclusion chromatography, hydrodynamic chromatography and field flow fractionation. Mechanical separation techniques utilize membranes and/or centrifugation. Chemical separation techniques are liquid–liquid extraction, solid–liquid extraction, cloud point extraction, and the use of magnetic nanoparticles.
## Applications
### Product verification
Manufacturers and users of nanoparticles may perform characterization of their products for process control or verification and validation purposes. The properties of nanoparticles are sensitive to small variations in the processes used to synthesize and process them. Thus, nanoparticles prepared by seemingly identical processes must be characterized to determine if they are actually equivalent. Any material or dimensional property of a nanomaterial can be heterogeneous, and these can lead to heterogeneity in their functional properties. Generally, uniform collections are desired. It is advantageous to minimize heterogeneity during the initial synthesis, stabilization, and functionalization processes, rather than through downstream purification steps that decrease yield. Batch-to-batch reproducibility is also desirable. Unlike research-oriented nanometrology, industrial measurements emphasize reducing time, cost, and number of measured metrics, and must be performed under ambient conditions during a production process.
Different applications have different tolerances for uniformity and reproducibility, and require different approaches to characterization. For example, nanocomposite materials may be tolerant of a broad distribution of nanoparticle properties. By contrast, characterization is especially important for nanomedicines, as their efficacy and safety depends strongly on critical properties such as particle size distribution, chemical composition, and the kinetics of drug loading and release. The development of standardized analytical methods for nanomedicines is in its early stages. However, standardized lists of recommended tests called "assay cascades” have been developed to assist with this.
### Toxicology
Nanotoxicology is the study of the toxic effects of nanoparticles on living organisms. Characterization of a nanoparticle's physical and chemical properties is important for ensuring the reproducibility of toxicology studies, and is also vital for studying how the physical and chemical properties of nanoparticles determine their biological effects.
The properties of a nanoparticle, such as size distribution and agglomeration state, can change as a material is prepared and used in toxicology studies. This makes it important to measure them at different points in the experiment. The "as-received" or "as-generated" properties refer to the material's state when received from the manufacturer or synthesized in the laboratory. The "as-dosed" or "as-exposed" properties refer to its state when administered to the biological system. These may differ from the "as-received" state due to formation of aggregates and agglomerates if the material has been in powder form, the settling out of larger aggregates and agglomerates, or loss by adhesion to surfaces. The properties may again be different at the point of interaction with the organism's tissues due to biodistribution and physiological clearance mechanisms. At this stage, it is difficult to measure nanoparticle properties in situ without perturbing the system. Post mortem or histological examination provides a way to measure these changes in the material, although the tissue itself can interfere with the measurements.
### Exposure assessment
Exposure assessment is a set of methods used to monitor contaminant release and exposures to workers and mitigate the health and safety hazards of nanomaterials in workplaces where they are handled. For engineered nanoparticles, the assessment often involves use of both real-time instruments such as particle counters, which monitor the total number of particles in air (including both the nanoparticle of interest and other background particles), and filter-based occupational hygiene sampling methods that use electron microscopy and elemental analysis to identify the nanoparticle of interest. Personal sampling locates the samplers in the personal breathing zone of the worker, as close to the nose and mouth as possible and usually attached to a shirt collar. Area sampling is where samplers are placed at static locations.
The U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health developed a Technical Report: Occupational Exposure Sampling for Engineered Nanomaterials which contains guidance for workplace sampling for three engineered nanomaterials: carbon nanotubes and nanofibers, silver, and titanium dioxide, each of which have an elemental mass-based NIOSH Recommended Exposure Limit (REL). In addition, NIOSH developed a practical approach to exposure sampling for other engineered nanomaterials that do not have exposure limits employing the Nanomaterial Exposure Assessment Technique (NEAT) 2.0, a sampling strategy that can be used to determine exposure potential for engineered nanoparticles. The NEAT 2.0 approach uses filter samples both in the worker's personal breathing zone and as area samples. Separate filter samples are used for elemental analysis, and to gather morphologic data from electron microscopy. The latter can provide an order of magnitude evaluation of the contribution of the nanoparticle of interest to the elemental mass load, as well as a qualitative assessment of the particle size, degree of agglomeration, and whether the nanoparticle is free or contained within a matrix. Hazard identification and characterization can then be performed based on a holistic assessment of the integrated filter samples. In addition, field-portable direct reading instruments can be used for continuous recording of normal fluctuations in particle count, size distribution, and mass. By documenting the workers' activities, data-logged results can then be used to identify workplace tasks or practices that contribute to any increase or spikes in the counts. The data need to be carefully interpreted, as direct reading instruments will identify the real-time quantity of all nanoparticles including any incidental background particles such as may occur from motor exhaust, pump exhaust, heating vessels, and other sources. Evaluation of worker practices, ventilation efficacy, and other engineering exposure control systems and risk management strategies serve to allow for a comprehensive exposure assessment.
To be effective, real-time particle counters should be able to detect a wide range of particle sizes, as nanoparticles may aggregate in the air. Adjacent work areas can be simultaneously tested to establish a background concentration. Not all instruments used to detect aerosols are suitable for monitoring occupational nanoparticle emissions because they may not be able to detect smaller particles, or may be too large or difficult to ship to a workplace. Some NIOSH methods developed for other chemicals can be used for off-line analysis of nanoparticles, including their morphology and geometry, elemental carbon content (relevant for carbon-based nanoparticles), and elemental analysis for several metals.
Occupational exposure limits have not yet been developed for many of the large and growing number of engineered nanoparticles now being produced and used, as their hazards are not fully known. While mass-based metrics are traditionally used to characterize toxicological effects of exposure to air contaminants, it remains unclear which metrics are most important with regard to engineered nanoparticles. Animal and cell-culture studies have shown that size and shape may be two major factors in their toxicological effects. Surface area and surface chemistry also appear to be more important than mass concentration. NIOSH has determined non-regulatory recommended exposure limits (RELs) of 1.0 μg/m<sup>3</sup> for carbon nanotubes and carbon nanofibers as background-corrected elemental carbon as an 8-hour time-weighted average (TWA) respirable mass concentration, and 300 μg/m<sup>3</sup> for ultrafine titanium dioxide as TWA concentrations for up to 10 hr/day during a 40-hour work week.
## Standards
Metrology standards for nanotechnology are available from both private organizations and government agencies. These include the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), ASTM International, the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. National Cancer Institute's Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory, and the European Committee for Standardization. The American National Standards Institute maintains a database of nanotechnology standards.
### Reference materials
Reference materials are materials that are established or produced to be homogeneous and stable in at least one measurable physical property to provide a control measurement. Reference materials for nanoparticles can reduce measurement error that can contribute to uncertainty in their hazard properties in risk assessment. Reference materials can also be used for calibrating equipment used in nanoparticles characterization, for statistical quality control, and for comparing experiments run in different laboratories.
Many nanoparticles do not yet have reference materials available. Nanoparticles have the challenge that reference materials can only be generated when the measurement methods themselves can produce precise and reproducible measurements of the relevant physical property. Measurement conditions must also be specified, because properties such as size and dispersion state may change based on them, especially when there is a thermodynamic equilibrium between particlulate and dissolved matter. Reference materials of nanoparticles often have a shorter validity period than other materials. Those in powder form are more stable than those provided in suspensions, but the process of dispersing the powder increases uncertainty in its metrics.
Reference nanoparticles are produced by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, as well as the European Union Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements, the Japanese National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, the Canadian National Research Council, the Chinese National Institute of Metrology, and Thermo Fisher Scientific. The German Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing maintains a listing of nanoscale reference materials. |
1,214,296 | London Road Fire Station, Manchester | 1,162,265,784 | Former fire station in Manchester, England | [
"1906 establishments in England",
"Defunct fire stations",
"Fire stations completed in 1906",
"Fire stations in the United Kingdom",
"Government buildings in England",
"Grade II* listed buildings in Manchester",
"Grade II* listed government buildings",
"Structures on the Heritage at Risk register"
]
| London Road Fire Station is a former fire station in Manchester, England. It was opened in 1906, on a site bounded by London Road, Whitworth Street, Minshull Street South and Fairfield Street. Designed in the Edwardian Baroque style by Woodhouse, Willoughby and Langham in red brick and terracotta, it cost £142,000 to build and was built by J. Gerrard and Sons of Swinton. It has been a Grade II\* listed building since 1974.
In addition to a fire station, the building housed a police station, an ambulance station, a bank, a coroner's court, and a gas-meter testing station. The fire station operated for eighty years, housing the firemen, their families, and the horse-drawn appliances that were replaced by motorised vehicles a few years after its opening. It was visited by royalty in 1942, in recognition of the brigade's wartime efforts. After the war it became a training centre and in 1952 became the first centre equipped to record emergency calls. However, the fire station became expensive to maintain and after council reorganisation decline set in. The building was the headquarters of the Manchester Fire Brigade until the brigade was replaced by the Greater Manchester Fire Service in 1974. The fire station closed in 1986, since when it has been largely unused despite several redevelopment proposals.
It was placed on English Heritage's Buildings at Risk Register in 2001 and in 2010 Manchester City Council served a compulsory purchase order on the fire station's owner, Britannia Hotels. Britannia announced in 2015 their intention to sell the building after nearly 30 years of dereliction. It was sold to Allied London in 2015 and renovation commenced in 2018 with the building to be redeveloped as a mixed-use comprising leisure and hotel facilities.
## Construction
In 1897 the Manchester Watch Committee was considering a replacement for its fire station on Jackson's Row. A five-man sub-committee was set up and recommended a site on Newton Street. In 1899, George William Parker who had designed fire stations in Bootle and Belfast, and been referred to as the "architect of the world's fire service" was appointed Chief of the Manchester Fire Brigade and asked his opinion on the proposal. Parker reported that the site on Newton Street was unsuitable and submitted plans for a fire station on a site bounded by London Road, Whitworth Street, Minshull Street South and Fairfield Street.
Parker's proposal was for a 7-bay fire station on a site more than double the size of the one proposed on Newton Street. The choice of London Road was influenced by its proximity to a development of warehouses on Whitworth Street and Princess Street. Parker convinced the city council to choose his proposals rather than those on Newton Street.
A competition, with prizes of £300, £200 and £100 (equivalent to £, £ and £ in 2023) was organised to design the new fire station. The competition drew interest from across the country, attracting 25 entries. The winning entry was by John Henry Woodhouse, George Harry Willoughby and John Langham, a team of local architects. Their design was based closely on Parker's initial plans. The fire station was described by Fire Call magazine as "the finest fire station in this round world" before construction started.
The fire station was built between 1904 and 1906 at a cost of £142,000 (equivalent to £ in 2023). The building's substructure and foundations were built by C. H. Normanton of Manchester. The superstructure was built by Gerrard's of Swinton at a cost of £75,360. It was faced with red brick and terracotta by Burmantofts, a common choice for early 20th-century buildings in Manchester as it was cleanable and resisted the pollution and acid rain caused by local industry. Other notable Manchester buildings from this era making use of terracotta include the Midland Hotel, the Refuge Assurance Building, the University of Manchester's Sackville Street Building and the Victoria Baths. The building's exterior featured sculptural models by John Jarvis Millson representing the functions of the building such as justice, fire and water.
The building had stained glass windows and the interior was decorated with glazed bricks, similar to other public buildings of this era in the city, such as the Victoria Baths. The similarities suggest the influence and adoption of a standard design by Henry Price's newly created City Architect's Department.
## Operation
The building was opened on 27 September 1906 by the Lord Mayor of Manchester James Herbert Thewlis. In addition to the fire station, it housed a police station on Whitworth Street, an ambulance station on Minshull Street South, a branch of Williams Deacon's Bank at the corner of London Road and Fairfield Street, a coroner's court, and a gas-meter testing station on London Road. The coroner's court and gas-meter testing station replaced the proposed public library and gym.
The fire station contained flats for 32 firemen and their families and 6 single firemen. Facilities included a laundry, gym, billiards room and children's play-areas. The complex contained stables for the horses that pulled the fire appliances, and a blacksmith's workshop. There were electric bells and lights to alert firemen to an alarm, poles to expedite the firemen's response, suspended harnesses to allow the horses to be harnessed quickly, and electric doors. The fire station was also designed with foresight; the appliance bays were made wide enough to take motorised fire appliances. The station's first motorised fire appliance arrived in 1911, five years after it opened.
The building has a 130-foot (40 m) hose tower and a ventilation system designed by Musgrave and Company to prevent the odour from the horses' stalls entering the firemen's living quarters. Fresh air was drawn in through the top of the fire station's tower, purified and circulated around the building. When the air reached the end of the circuit, in the stalls, it was extracted from the building. The system meant that the air in the building was replaced every 10 minutes.
During the Second World War the basement was converted into an air-raid shelter and an extension built in the yard to provide more space in the control room. The fire services were nationalised in 1941, and London Road became the headquarters of Division C. In recognition of the fire fighters' efforts King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited the fire station in 1942.
After the war the Manchester Fire Brigade was again municipalised, and reorganised. London Road Fire Station was restored as the headquarters of the brigade and became the only fire station serving the city centre. A fire service training centre was established in 1948. At about the same time, the ambulance station closed and was converted into the fire brigade's workshops. The control room was modernised in 1952, becoming the first in the country with equipment to record emergency calls.
The interior was refurbished in 1955. The exterior had been cleaned every year since the fire station opened, and as a result was in pristine condition when the building celebrated its Golden Jubilee on 6 October 1956.
## Decline
By the end of the 1960s maintenance was becoming increasingly expensive, and the building's design ill-suited to modern fire appliances. Plans to replace the fire station were put on hold pending the formation of the Greater Manchester Fire Service.
The building has been Grade II\* listed since 1974, the same year that the replacement of the Manchester Fire Brigade by the Greater Manchester Fire Service precipitated the relocation of the brigade's headquarters to a new facility in Swinton. As part of the reorganisation, London Road became the headquarters of the brigade's "E Division", with the station's control room responsible for two divisions covering the City of Manchester, the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport and Tameside.
The reorganisation meant the number of appliances was reduced, until only three remained at the station. The control room at London Road closed in 1979, replaced by a single computerised control room at brigade headquarters in Swinton.
In the same year, following the establishment of Greater Manchester Police and a reorganisation of policing in the city, the police station in the building also closed. The closure left the ground floor on the Whitworth Street side empty. The last tenants of the bank section, a firm of solicitors, and the fire brigade's workshops, also vacated the building at about the same time.
In 1984 construction work began on a £2.4 million, 4.5-acre (1.8 ha) replacement in Thompson Street and in 1985 the old London Road Fire Station was brought within the Whitworth Street Conservation Area. In 1986 the fire service left London Road for its new fire station, London Road Fire Station closed and the building was sold.
## Dereliction and redevelopment
### 1986 purchase and decline
After the sale in 1986 the building was mainly used for storage whilst planning applications to convert it into a hotel were made in 1986, 1993, and 2001, with varying degrees of success. The coroner's court was the last to vacate the premises, in 1998. In 2001, the building was placed on English Heritage's Buildings at Risk Register. By 2004 it was in steep decline, and momentum was building for the fire station's owner, Britannia Hotels, to act.
### 2006 plans
In February 2006, Argent, developers proposed leasing the building from Britannia Hotels to transform it into a music and arts venue. Manchester City Council backed the plans and refused to rule out a compulsory purchase order (CPO) if the owner did not act to redevelop the building. Britannia Hotels branded Argent's plans "unworkable" and proposed turning the building into a company headquarters, 200-bed hotel, and fire station museum. A planning application was promised by March 2006, but by May none had been made. Work was carried out by February 2007 to make the building watertight and in autumn 2007 a proposal was made by Britannia to convert the building into a hotel.
Britannia Hotels appointed Purcell Miller Tritton to draw up plans to convert the building into a hotel in 2008 but none were produced by May 2009 and the city council lost faith in Britannia Hotels' commitment to its redevelopment. The city council was concerned that the state of the fire station was limiting regeneration in the area, including a proposed government complex on the former Mayfield Railway Station site. The city council set a deadline of July 2009 for progress on redevelopment. Britannia Hotels' proposal in July 2009 was to convert the fire station into a hotel with a 15-storey tower in its courtyard and promised a planning application by October 2009, but none was made and the city council's Chief Executive recommended issuing a CPO.
### 2010 CPO issued
A meeting of the city council in January 2010 approved a request for up to £5.25 million to cover the costs associated with the fire station's acquisition. Britannia Hotels responded by pledging to make a new proposal by February 2010, rendering the CPO unnecessary. Britannia submitted an application to turn the fire station into a 227-bed 4-star hotel in June 2010. The Victorian Society praised the proposed conversion. Manchester City Council decided to continue with the CPO. The city council issued a CPO on 5 August 2010. Despite the plans being approved 16 September 2010, the council continued to pursue a CPO and solicited bids for a development partner in January 2011.
### 2011 CPO rejected
Britannia's objection to the CPO led to a public inquiry in April 2011. On 29 November 2011, the Department for Communities and Local Government confirmed the CPO had been rejected. Despite Britannia's guarantee at the inquiry to proceed with the development it reconsidered its plans. In a letter to English Heritage, Britannia said the proposed scheme was unsustainable for the foreseeable future. Britannia wanted to return to the rejected tower plan. English Heritage and the city council expressed disappointment. The city council offered to buy the building at market value.
### 2013 campaign for a second CPO
In February 2013 after a public meeting the Friends of London Road Fire Station (FoLRFS) was formed to pressurise Britannia Hotels and persuade the council to attempt a second CPO. The group organised an online petition, fundraising events, public meetings, an online survey to discover locals' views, an art exhibition and public engagement with its history, and published the outcome of a Freedom of Information Act request on what the council had done regarding surveying the building and issuing urgent-works notices. In November 2013, Britannia applied to extend the 2010 planning permissions but despite objections the applications were approved on technical grounds in December 2013.
### 2014 second CPO started
The council considered applying for a CPO for the second time in September 2014 and confirmed its intention to do so in December 2014 and meet with FoLRFS in early 2015. FoLRFS received a grant from Locality's Community Assets in Difficult Ownership (CADO) programme to pay for public outreach work. On 30 April 2015, FoLRFS met Pat Bartoli, head of the council's urban regeneration team and Howard Bernstein who praised their campaign.
### 2015 owner sells the building
It was announced immediately after the meeting that Britannia Hotels had decided to sell the building. London Road Fire Station was put on the market on 1 May 2015 and expected offers of around £10 million while restoration is expected to cost £20–30 million. Allied London acquired the fire station on 16 November 2015.
## See also
- Grade II\* listed buildings in Greater Manchester
- Listed buildings in Manchester-M1 |
32,530,389 | Rochdale Town Hall | 1,171,682,151 | Municipal building in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England | [
"Alfred Waterhouse buildings",
"Buildings and structures in Rochdale",
"City and town halls in Greater Manchester",
"Gothic Revival architecture in Greater Manchester",
"Government buildings completed in 1871",
"Grade I listed buildings in Greater Manchester",
"William Henry Crossland buildings"
]
| Rochdale Town Hall is a Victorian-era municipal building in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. It is "widely recognised as being one of the finest municipal buildings in the country", and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building.
The Town Hall functions as the ceremonial headquarters of Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council and houses local government departments, including the borough's civil registration office.
Built in the Gothic Revival style at a cost of £160,000 (£ in 2023), it was inaugurated for the governance of the Municipal Borough of Rochdale on 27 September 1871.
The architect, William Henry Crossland, was the winner of a competition held in 1864 to design a new Town Hall. It had a 240-foot (73 m) clock tower topped by a wooden spire with a gilded statue of Saint George and the Dragon, both of which were destroyed by fire on 10 April 1883, leaving the building without a spire for four years.
A new 190-foot (58 m) stone clock tower and spire in the style of Manchester Town Hall was designed by Alfred Waterhouse, and erected in 1887.
Architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner described the building as possessing a "rare picturesque beauty". Its stained-glass windows are credited as "the finest modern examples of their kind".
The building came to the attention of Adolf Hitler, who was said to have admired it so much that he wished to ship the building, brick-by-brick, to Nazi Germany had the United Kingdom been defeated in the Second World War.
## History
Rochdale had developed into an increasingly large, populous, and prosperous urban mill town since the Industrial Revolution. Its newly built rail and canal network, and numerous factories, resulted in the town being "remarkable for many wealthy merchants". In January 1856 the electorate of the Rochdale constituency petitioned the Privy Council for the grant of a charter of incorporation under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, to constitute the town as a municipal borough. This would give it limited political autonomy via an elected town council, comprising a mayor, aldermen, and councillors, to oversee local affairs.
The petition was successful and the charter was granted in September 1856. The newly formed Rochdale Corporation—the local authority for the Municipal Borough of Rochdale—suggested plans to build a town hall in which to conduct its business in May 1858. The site of an abandoned 17th century house known as the Wood was proposed. Six months later, in April 1860, Rochdale Corporation arranged to buy the site on the outskirts of the town centre for £4,730 (£ in 2023). However, plans were shelved due to lengthy negotiations and increasing land prices. In January 1864 the scheme resumed with a new budget of £20,000 (£ in 2023).
The wood and surrounding area were cleared, but it is unknown what became of the dispossessed; there was no legal requirement for the authorities to rehouse the former inhabitants. A design competition to find a "neat and elegant building" was held by the Rochdale Corporation, who offered the winning architect a prize of £100 (£ in 2023), and a Maltese cross souvenir. From the 27 entries received, William Henry Crossland's was chosen. The Rochdale-born Radical and Liberal statesman John Bright laid the foundation stone on 31 March 1866. Construction was complete by 1871 although the cost had, by then, increased beyond expectations from the projected £40,000 to £160,000 (£ in 2023).
The Town Hall was one of several built in the textile towns of North West England following the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, but is one of only two in Greater Manchester built in the Gothic style. Between the setting of the foundation stone and the building's completion, revisions and additions were made to the original design. Money was "lavished" upon the decor and inventory, and the extra expenditure did not escape the ire of its critics.
The cost of the building increased year-on-year through a combination of mismanagement, overspending and "unauthorised work". Public criticism of the high cost was aimed at Crossland and the Mayor of Rochdale, George Leach Ashworth, who oversaw the work. Nevertheless, Rochdale Town Hall was ultimately celebrated as "a source of pride", and its completion prompted celebration and rejoicing; it transformed a "derelict and marshy riverbank in to a huge romantic Gothic plaza". The opening ceremony on 27 September 1871 was performed by Mayor Ashworth, who had been instrumental in the changes made to the building's design.
In 1882 or 1883 dry rot was found in the 240-foot (73 m) high spire. On the recommendation of Rochdale's Borough Surveyor, contractors were engaged to rebuild it. The spire was to be demolished to clear the way for a replacement. It was rumoured that the workmen who were dismantling the top section of the wooden spire may have tried to speed up the dismantling process with matches and, at 9:20 am on 10 April 1883, a blaze was discovered. Despite the efforts of volunteers and the local fire brigade, 100 minutes after the discovery of the fire the entire spire, including a statue of Saint George and the Dragon, had been destroyed.
The cause of the fire was never established, but Rochdale's fire service was criticised for taking longer to respond to the blaze than Oldham's (based 5 miles (8 km) south), despite the Rochdale Fire Brigade being based in the Town Hall. Alfred Waterhouse was given the task of designing a 190-foot (58 m) stone replacement. His work on the clock tower, which was built between 1885 and 1887 about 15 yards (14 m) further to the east than the original, shows many similarities to Manchester Town Hall, which he also designed. The tower was opened in 1887; an inscribed plaque commemorates the fire of 1883.
On 15 January 1931, at the height of the Great Depression in the United Kingdom, the Territorial Army was called to guard the Town Hall during a protest against unemployment and hunger.
In May 1938, Rochdale-born actress, singer and comedian Gracie Fields was granted Honorary Freedom of the Borough for her contribution to entertainment. "When the ceremony was over, Gracie went onto the town hall balcony to receive the cheers and good wishes of the thousands of people who were packing the streets below."
Although it is not fully understood how it came to his attention, Rochdale Town Hall was admired by Adolf Hitler. It has been suggested a visit by Hitler in 1912–13 while staying with his half-brother Alois Hitler Jr. in Liverpool, or military intelligence on Rochdale, or information from Nazi sympathiser William Joyce (who had lived in Oldham), brought the building to his attention. Hitler admired the architecture so much that it is believed he wished to ship the building, brick-by-brick, to Nazi Germany had German-occupied Europe encompassed the United Kingdom. Rochdale was broadly avoided by German bombers during the Second World War.
## Features
### Location
At OS Grid Reference (53.6156°, −2.1594°), Rochdale Town Hall is the centerpiece of Rochdale, located in Town Hall Square to the south of The Esplanade and the River Roch. The Parish Church of St Chad is situated by the wooded hillside behind the Town Hall. In Town Hall Square, opposite the Town Hall, is a statue of John Bright, dated 1891, and the Rochdale War Memorial. Bright was a Rochdale-born orator, pacifist and Member of Parliament for Birmingham known for his campaigns to repeal the Corn Laws as well as his opposition to slavery in the United States and the Crimean War. Touchstones Rochdale art gallery and local studies centre is across The Esplanade.
### Exterior and layout
The frontage and principal entrance of the Town Hall face the River Roch, and comprises a portico of three arches intersected by buttresses. Decorating the main entrance are stone crockets, gargoyles, and finials. Four gilded lions above a parapet around three sides of the portico bear shields carrying the coats of arms of Rochdale Council and the hundred of Salford.
Rochdale Town Hall is 264 feet (80 m) wide, 123 feet (37 m) deep, and is faced with millstone grit quarried from Blackstone Edge and Todmorden. Although now blackened by industrial pollution, the building has been described as a "rich example of domestic Gothic architecture". Naturalistic carved foliage on the exterior recalls the style of Southwell Minster, and the architecture is influenced by Perpendicular Period and medieval town halls of continental Europe.
The building has been likened to Manchester Town Hall, Manchester Assize Courts, the Royal Courts of Justice, and St Pancras railway station, all products of the Gothic Revival architectural movement. The stained glass windows, some of which were designed by William Morris, have been described as "the finest modern examples of their kind". At each end of the frontage is an octagonal staircase.
In the words of Nikolaus Pevsner, Rochdale Town Hall has "a splendidly craggy exterior of blackened stone". The building has a roughly symmetrical E-shaped plan, and is broken down into three self-contained segments: a central Great Hall and transverse wings at each end, which have variously been used as debating chambers, corporation-rooms, trade and a public hall.
The south-east wing used to house the magistrates' courts, and the north-west wing the mayor's rooms. In the north-east is a tower. Access to the main entrance is through a central porte cochere. The façade extends across 14 bays, of which the Great Hall accounts for seven. On both sides, the outermost bays rise to three storeys. They flank asymmetric round-headed arcades—two to the left and three to the right, all of single-storey height—which sit below plain mullioned windows, balconies and ornately decorated gables.
### Clock tower
The original clock tower contained 13 bells, by John Taylor & Co of Loughborough, together with a clock and carillon machine (by Gillett, Bland & Co.) which played 14 different tunes on the bells. These were all destroyed in the 1883 fire.
The present clock tower, which has a stone spire, was built to replace the one destroyed in the fire. It was designed by Alfred Waterhouse in a similar style to one of his earlier works, the clock tower of Manchester Town Hall. The first stone was laid by Thomas Schofield JP, Alderman and Rochdale Borough Councillor, on 19 October 1885 and the tower was declared complete on 20 June 1887, the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. It was fitted with five bells (again by Taylor), which ring on the hour and at 15-minute intervals, and a Cambridge-chiming clock by Potts & Sons, which was set going in November of that year.
The tower rises from a plinth and has four stages including the gable-headed clock stage, which is also decorated with pinnacles. A small stone spire completes the composition. The design of the original tower was more elaborate and 50 feet (15 m) higher than its successor, which is 190 feet (58 m) tall.
### Interior
Murals in the former council chamber depict the inventions that drove the Industrial Revolution, and the Great Hall is adorned with a large fresco of the signing of Magna Carta by artist Henry Holiday, although the painting is dirty. Responsibility for the decoration of the interior was given to Heaton, Butler and Bayne, who incorporated floor tiles that were manufactured by Mintons and decorated with the local insignia and the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom.
The stone Grand Staircase, which leads from the vestibule to the Great Hall, is decorated with stained glass; such glass windows decorate most of the Town Hall and are considered to be the finest example of the work of Heaton, Butler and Bayne. The medieval style Great Hall, described by Pevsner as a room of "great splendour and simplicity", has a hammerbeam roof flanked by statues of angels, in a design that resembles Westminster Hall.
James Jepson Binns built the town hall's pipe organ in 1913; it was rebuilt in 1979 by J.W. Walker & Sons Ltd.
## Heritage status and function
The Town Hall was listed at Grade I on 25 October 1951. Such buildings are defined as being of "exceptional interest, sometimes considered to be internationally important".
In February 2001, it was one of 39 Grade I listed buildings, and 3,701 listed buildings of all grades, in Greater Manchester. Within the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, it is one of only three Grade I listed buildings, and 312 listed buildings of all grades.
Although the majority of local government functions now take place within Number One Riverside, Rochdale Town Hall continues to be used for cultural and ceremonial functions. For instance, it is used for the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale's mayoralty, civil registry, and for formal naturalisation in British Citizenship ceremonies.
## See also
- Grade I listed buildings in Greater Manchester
- Listed buildings in Rochdale |
149,932 | Nathaniel P. Banks | 1,172,527,923 | American politician and general (1816–1894) | [
"1816 births",
"1894 deaths",
"19th-century American male writers",
"19th-century American newspaper editors",
"19th-century American politicians",
"19th-century American railroad executives",
"American abolitionists",
"American male journalists",
"American suffragists",
"Democratic Party members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives",
"Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts",
"Governors of Massachusetts",
"Know-Nothing members of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts",
"Liberal Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives",
"Massachusetts Liberal Republicans",
"Massachusetts state senators",
"People of Massachusetts in the American Civil War",
"Politicians from Waltham, Massachusetts",
"Republican Party governors of Massachusetts",
"Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts",
"Speakers of the Massachusetts House of Representatives",
"Speakers of the United States House of Representatives",
"Union Army generals",
"United States Marshals"
]
| Nathaniel Prentice (or Prentiss) Banks (January 30, 1816 – September 1, 1894) was an American politician from Massachusetts and a Union general during the Civil War. A millworker by background, Banks became prominent in local debating societies. He entered politics as a young adult. Initially a member of the Democratic Party, Banks's abolitionist views drew him to the nascent Republican Party, through which he won election to the United States House of Representatives and as Governor of Massachusetts in the 1850s. At the start of the 34th Congress, he was elected Speaker of the House in an election that spanned a record 133 ballots taken over the course of two months.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln appointed Banks as one of the first political major generals, over the heads of West Point regulars, who initially resented him, but came to acknowledge his influence on the administration of the war. After suffering a series of inglorious setbacks in the Shenandoah River Valley at the hands of Stonewall Jackson, Banks replaced Benjamin Butler at New Orleans as commander of the Department of the Gulf, charged with the administration of Louisiana and gaining control of the Mississippi River. He failed to reinforce Grant at Vicksburg, and badly handled the Siege of Port Hudson, taking its surrender only after Vicksburg had fallen. He then launched the Red River Campaign, a failed attempt to occupy northern Louisiana and eastern Texas that prompted his recall. Banks was regularly criticized for the failures of his campaigns, notably in tactically important tasks, including reconnaissance. Banks was also instrumental in early reconstruction efforts in Louisiana, intended by Lincoln as a model for later such activities.
After the war, Banks returned to the Massachusetts political scene, serving in Congress, where he supported Manifest Destiny, influenced the Alaska Purchase legislation, and supported women's suffrage. In his later years, he adopted more liberal progressive causes, and served as a United States marshal for Massachusetts before suffering a decline in his mental faculties.
## Early life
Nathaniel Prentice Banks was born at Waltham, Massachusetts, the first child of Nathaniel P. Banks Sr. and Rebecca Greenwood Banks, on January 30, 1816. His father worked in the textile mill of the Boston Manufacturing Company, eventually becoming a foreman. Banks went to local schools until the age of fourteen, at which point the family's financial demands compelled him to take a mill job. He started as a bobbin boy, responsible for replacing bobbins full of thread with empty ones, working in the mills of Waltham and Lowell. Because of this role he became known as Bobbin Boy Banks, a nickname he carried throughout his life. He was at one time apprenticed as a mechanic alongside Elias Howe, a cousin who later had the first patent for a sewing machine with a lockstitch design.
Recognizing the value of education, Banks continued to read, sometimes walking to Boston on his days off to visit the Atheneum Library. He attended company-sponsored lectures by luminaries of the day including Daniel Webster and other orators. He formed a debate club with other mill workers to improve their oratorical skills, and took up acting. He became involved in the local temperance movement; speaking at its events brought him to the attention of Democratic Party leaders, who asked him to speak at campaign events during the 1840 elections. He honed his oratorical and political skills by emulating Robert Rantoul Jr., a Democratic Congressman who also had humble beginnings. His personal good looks, voice, and flair for presentation were all assets that he used to gain advantage in the political sphere, and he deliberately sought to present himself with a more aristocratic bearing than was suggested by his humble beginnings.
Banks's success as a speaker convinced him to quit the mill. He first worked as an editor for two short-lived political newspapers; after they failed he ran for a seat in the state legislature in 1844, but lost. He then applied for a job to Rantoul, who had been appointed Collector of the Port of Boston, a patronage position. Banks's job, which he held until political changes forced him out in 1849, gave him sufficient security that he was able to marry Mary Theodosia Palmer, an ex-factory employee he had been courting for some time. Banks again ran for the state legislature in 1847, but was unsuccessful.
## Antebellum political career
In 1848, Banks was victorious in another run for the state legislature, successfully organizing elements in Waltham whose votes were not easily controlled by the Whig-controlled Boston Manufacturing Company. Company leaders could effectively compel their workers to vote for Whig candidates because there was no secret ballot. He was at first moderate in opposition to the expansion of slavery, but recognizing the potency of the burgeoning abolitionist movement, he became more strongly attached to that cause as a vehicle for political advancement. This brought Banks, along with fellow Democrats Rantoul and George S. Boutwell to form a coalition with the Free Soil Party that successfully gained control of the legislature and governor's chair. The deals negotiated after the coalition win in the 1850 election put Boutwell in the governor's chair and made Banks the Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Although Banks did not like the radical Free Soiler Charles Sumner (either personally or for his strongly abolitionist politics), he supported the coalition agreement that resulted in Sumner's election to the United States Senate, despite opposition from conservative Democrats. His role as house speaker and his effectiveness in conducting business raised his status significantly, as did his publicity work for the state Board of Education.
### Congress
In 1852, Banks sought the Democratic nomination for a seat in the United States Congress. While it was at first granted, his refusal to disavow abolitionist positions meant support was withdrawn by party conservatives. He ended up winning a narrow victory anyway, with Free Soil support. In 1853, he presided over the state Constitutional Convention of 1853. This convention produced a series of proposals for constitutional reform, including a new constitution, all of which were rejected by voters. The failure, which was led by Whigs and conservative anti-abolitionist Democrats, spelled the end of the Democratic-Free Soil coalition.
In Congress, Banks sat on the Committee of Military Affairs. He bucked the Democratic party line by voting against the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which overturned the 1820 Missouri Compromise, using his parliamentary skills in an effort to keep the bill from coming to a vote. Supported by his constituents, he then publicly endorsed the abolitionist cause. His opposition came despite long stated support for Manifest Destiny (the idea that the United States was destined to rule the North American continent), which the bill's proponents claimed it furthered. In 1854, he formally joined the so called Know Nothing cause, a secretive populist and anti-immigration nativist movement – officially named American Party since 1855. He was renominated for Congress by the Democrats and Free Soilers, and won an easy victory in that year's Know Nothing landslide victory. Banks was, along with Henry Wilson and Governor Henry J. Gardner, considered one of the political leaders of the Know Nothing movement, although none of the three supported its extreme anti-immigrant positions of many of its supporters.
In 1855, Banks agreed to chair the convention of a new Republican Party convention, whose platform was intended to bring together antislavery interests from the Democrats, Whigs, Free Soilers, and Know Nothings. When Know Nothing Governor Henry Gardner refused to join in the fusion, Banks carefully kept his options open, passively supporting the Republican effort but also avoiding criticism of Gardner in his speeches. Gardner was reelected. During the summer of 1855, Banks was invited to speak at an antislavery rally in Portland, Maine, his first major speaking opportunity outside Massachusetts. In the speech, Banks expressed his opinion that the Union did not necessarily need to be preserved, say that under certain conditions it would be appropriate to "let [the Union] slide". Future political opponents would repeatedly use these words against him, accusing him of "disunionism".
At the opening of the 34th U.S. Congress in December 1855, after the Democrats had lost their majority and only made up 35% of the House, representatives from several parties opposed to slavery's spread gradually united in supporting the Know Nothing Banks for Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. After the longest and one of the most bitter speakership contests on record, lasting from December 3, 1855, to February 2, 1856, Banks was chosen on the 133rd ballot. The coalition supporting him was formed by his American Party (known as the Know Nothing Party) and the Opposition Party, which opposed the Democrats, marking the first form of a coalition in congressional history. This victory was lauded at the time as the "first Republican victory" and "first Northern victory" – although Banks is officially affiliated as Speaker from the American Party – and greatly raised Banks's national profile. He gave antislavery men important posts in Congress for the first time, and cooperated with investigations of both the Kansas conflict and the caning of Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate. Because of his fairness in dealing with the numerous factions, as well his parliamentary ability, Banks was lauded by others in the body, including former Speaker Howell Cobb, who called him "in all respects the best presiding officer [I] had ever seen."
Banks played a key role in 1856 in bringing forward John C. Frémont as a moderate Republican presidential nominee. Because of his success as speaker, Banks was considered a possible presidential contender, and his name was put in nomination by supporters (knowing that he supported Frémont) at the Know Nothing convention, held one week before the Republicans met. Banks then refused the Know Nothing nomination, which went instead to former President Millard Fillmore. Banks was active on the stump in support of Frémont, who lost the election to James Buchanan. Banks easily won reelection to his own seat, though Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives. He was not re-nominated for speaker when the 35th Congress convened in December 1857.
### Governor of Massachusetts
In 1857, Banks ran for Governor of Massachusetts against the incumbent Gardner. His nomination by the Republicans was contentious, with opposition coming primarily from radical abolitionist interests opposed to his comparatively moderate stand on the issue. After a contentious general election campaign Banks won a comfortable victory. One key action Banks took in support of the antislavery movement was the dismissal of Judge Edward G. Loring. Loring had ruled in 1854 that Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave, be returned to slavery under the terms of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Under the pressure of a public petition campaign spearheaded by William Lloyd Garrison, the legislature passed two Bills of Address, in 1855 and 1856, calling for Loring's removal from his state office, but in both cases Gardner had declined to remove him. Banks signed a third such bill in 1858. He was rewarded with significant antislavery support, easily winning reelection in 1858.
Banks's 1859 reelection was influenced by two significant issues. One was a state constitutional amendment requiring newly naturalized citizens to wait two years before becoming eligible to vote. Promoted by the state's Know Nothings, it was passed by referendum in May of that year. Banks, catering to Know Nothing supporters, supported its passage, although Republicans elsewhere opposed such measures, because they were seeking immigrant votes. The amendment was repealed in 1863. The other issue was John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, which more radical Republicans (notably John Albion Andrew) supported. Not yet ready for armed conflict, the state voted for the more moderate Banks. After the election, Banks vetoed a series of bills, over provisions removing a restriction limiting state militia participation to whites. This incensed the radical abolitionist forces in the legislature, but they were unable to override his vetoes in that year's session, or of similar bills passed in the next.
Banks made a serious bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1860, but dislike of him by the radicals in the state party harmed him. His failure to secure a majority in the state delegation prompted him to skip the national convention, where he received first-ballot votes as a nominee for Vice President. His attempt to promote Henry L. Dawes, another moderate Republican, as his successor in the governor's chair also failed: the party nominated the radical Andrew, who went on to win the general election. Banks's farewell speech, given with civil war looming, was an appeal for moderation and union.
During the summer of 1860, Banks accepted an offer to become a resident director of the Illinois Central Railroad, which had previously employed his mentor Robert Rantoul.\< Banks moved to Chicago after leaving office, and was engaged primarily in the promotion and sale of the railroad's extensive lands. He continued to speak out in Illinois against the breakup of the Union.
## Civil War
As the Civil War became imminent in early 1861, President Abraham Lincoln considered Banks for a cabinet post, despite a negative recommendation from Governor Andrew, who considered Banks to be unsuitable for any office. Lincoln rejected Banks in part because he had accepted the railroad job, but chose him as one of the first major generals (Maj. Gen.) of volunteers, appointing him on May 16, 1861. Many of the professional soldiers in the regular army were unhappy with this but Banks, given his national prominence as a leading Republican, brought political benefits to the administration, including the ability to attract recruits and money for the Union cause, despite his lack of field experience.
### First command
Banks first commanded a military district in eastern Maryland, which notably included Baltimore, a hotbed of secessionist sentiment and a vital rail link. Banks for the most part stayed out of civil affairs, allowing political expression of secessionism to continue, while maintaining important rail connections between the north and Washington, DC. He did, however arrest the police chief and commissioners of the city of Baltimore, and replaced the police force with one that had more carefully vetted pro-Union sympathies. In August 1861, Banks was assigned to the western district of Maryland. There he was responsible for the arrest of legislators sympathetic to the Confederate cause (as was John Adams Dix, who succeeded Banks in the eastern district) in advance of legislative elections. This, combined with the release of local soldiers in his army to vote, ensured that the Maryland legislature remained pro-Union. Banks's actions had a chilling effect on Confederate sentiment in Maryland. Although it was a slave state, it remained loyal through the war.
### Shenandoah Valley Campaign
Banks's division technically belonged to George McClellan despite serving as an independent command in the Shenandoah Valley. On March 14, 1862, President Lincoln issued an executive order forming all troops in McClellan's department into corps. Banks thus became a corps commander, in charge of his own former division, now commanded by Brig. Gen Alpheus Williams, and the division of Brig. Gen James Shields, which was added to Banks's command. After Stonewall Jackson was turned back at the First Battle of Kernstown on March 23, Banks was instead ordered to pursue Jackson up the valley, to prevent him from reinforcing the defenses of Richmond. When Banks's men reached the southern Valley at the end of a difficult supply line, the president recalled them to Strasburg, at the northern end. Jackson then marched rapidly down the adjacent Luray Valley, and encountered some of Banks' forces in the Battle of Front Royal on May 23. This prompted Banks to withdraw to Winchester, where Jackson again attacked on May 25. The Union forces were poorly arrayed in defense, and retreated in disorder across the Potomac River and back into Maryland. An attempt to capture Jackson's forces in a pincer movement (with forces led by John Frémont and Irvin McDowell) failed, and Jackson was able to reinforce Richmond. Banks was criticized for mishandling his troops and performing inadequate reconnaissance in the campaign, while his political allies sought to pin the blame for the debacle on the War Department.
### Northern Virginia Campaign
In July, Maj. Gen John Pope was placed in command of the newly-formed Army of Virginia, which consisted of the commands of Banks, Irvin McDowell, and Franz Sigel. By early August this force was in Culpeper County. Pope gave Banks an ambiguous series of orders, directing him south of Culpeper to determine enemy strength, hold a fortified defensive position, and to engage the enemy. Banks showed none of the caution he had displayed against Stonewall Jackson in the Valley campaign, and moved to meet a larger force. Confederates he faced were numerically stronger and held, particularly around Cedar Mountain, the high ground. After an artillery duel began the August 9 Battle of Cedar Mountain he ordered a flanking maneuver on the Confederate right. Bank's bold attack seemed close to breaking in the Confederate line, and might have given him a victory if he had committed his reserves in a timely manner. Only excellent commanding by the Confederates at the crucial moment of the battle and the fortuitous arrival of Hill allowed their numerical superiority to tell. Banks thought the battle one of the "best fought"; one of his officers thought it an act of folly by an incompetent general."
The arrival at the end of the day of Union reinforcements under Pope, as well as the rest of Jackson's men, resulted in a two-day stand-off there, with the Confederates finally withdrawing from Cedar Mountain on August 11. Stonewall Jackson observed that Banks's men fought well, and Lincoln also expressed confidence in his leadership. During the Second Battle of Bull Run, Banks was stationed with his corps at Bristoe Station and did not participate in the battle. Afterwards, the corps was integrated into the Army of the Potomac as the XII Corps and marched north with the main army during the Confederate invasion of Maryland. On September 12, Banks was abruptly relieved of command.
### Army of the Gulf
In November 1862, President Lincoln gave Banks command of the Army of the Gulf, and asked him to organize a force of 30,000 new recruits, drawn from New York and New England. As a former governor of Massachusetts, he was politically connected to the governors of these states, and the recruitment effort was successful. In December he sailed from New York with a large force of raw recruits to replace Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler at New Orleans, Louisiana, as commander of the Department of the Gulf. Butler disliked Banks, but welcomed him to New Orleans and briefed him on civil and military affairs of importance. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, doubted the wisdom of replacing Butler (also a political general, and later a Massachusetts governor) with Banks, who he thought was a less able leader and administrator. Banks had to contend not just with Southern opposition to the occupation of New Orleans, but also to politically hostile Radical Republicans both in the city and in Washington, who criticized his moderate approach to administration.
### Siege of Port Hudson
Part of Banks's orders included instructions to advance up the Mississippi River to join forces with Ulysses S. Grant, in order to gain control of the waterway, which was under Confederate control between Vicksburg, Mississippi and Port Hudson, Louisiana. Grant was moving against Vicksburg, and Banks was under orders to secure Port Hudson before joining Grant at Vicksburg. He did not move immediately, because the garrison at Port Hudson was reported to be large, his new recruits were ill-equipped and insufficiently trained for action, and he was overwhelmed by the bureaucratic demands of administering the occupied portions of Louisiana. He did send forces to reoccupy Baton Rouge, and sent a small expedition that briefly occupied Galveston, Texas but was evicted in the Battle of Galveston on January 1, 1863.
In 1862, several Union gunboats had successfully passed onto the river between Vicksburg and Port Hudson, interfering with Confederate supply and troop movements. In March 1863, after they had been captured or destroyed, naval commander David Farragut sought to run the river past Port Hudson in a bid to regain control over that area, and convinced Banks to make a diversionary land attack on the Confederate stronghold. Banks marched with 12,000 men from Baton Rouge on March 13, but was unable to reach the enemy position due to inaccurate maps. He then compounded the failure to engage the enemy with miscommunications with Farragut. The naval commander successfully navigated two gunboats past Port Hudson, taking fire en route, without support. Banks ended up retreating back to Baton Rouge, his troops plundering all along the way. The episode was a further blow to Banks's reputation as a military commander, leaving many with the false impression he had not wanted to support Farragut.
Under political pressure to show progress, Banks embarked on operations to secure a route that bypassed Port Hudson via the Red River in late March. He was eventually able to reach Alexandria, Louisiana, but stiff resistance from the smaller forces of Confederate General Richard Taylor meant he did not get there until early May. His army seized thousands of bales of cotton, and Banks claimed to have interrupted supplies to Confederate forces further east. During these operations Admiral Farragut turned command of the naval forces assisting Banks over to David Porter, with whom Banks had a difficult and prickly relationship.
Following a request from Grant for assistance against Vicksburg, Banks finally laid siege to Port Hudson in May 1863. Two attempts to storm the works, as with Grant at Vicksburg, were dismal failures. The first, made against the entrenched enemy on May 27, failed because of inadequate reconnaissance and because Banks failed to ensure the attacks along the line were coordinated. After a bloody repulse, Banks continued the siege, and launched a second assault on June 14. It was also badly coordinated, and the repulse was equally bloody: each of the two attacks resulted in more than 1,800 Union casualties. The Confederate garrison under General Franklin Gardner surrendered on July 9, 1863, after receiving word that Vicksburg had fallen. This brought the entire Mississippi River under Union control. The siege of Port Hudson was the first time that African-American soldiers were used in a major Civil War battle. The United States Colored Troops were authorized in 1863 and recruiting and training had to be conducted.
In the autumn of 1863, Lincoln and Chief of Staff Henry Halleck informed Banks that plans should be made for operations against the coast of Texas, chiefly for the purpose of preventing the French in Mexico from aiding the Confederates or occupying Texas, and to interdict Confederate supplies from Texas heading east. The second objective he attempted to achieve at first by sending a force against Galveston; his troops were badly beaten in the Second Battle of Sabine Pass on September 8. An expedition sent to Brownsville secured possession of the region near the mouth of the Rio Grande and the Texas outer islands in November.
### Red River Campaign
As part of operations against Texas, Halleck also encouraged Banks to undertake the Red River Campaign, an overland operation into the resource-rich but well-defended parts of northern Texas. Banks and General Grant both considered the Red River Campaign a strategic distraction, with an eastward thrust to capture Mobile, Alabama preferred. Political forces prevailed, and Halleck drafted a plan for operations on the Red River.
The campaign lasted from March to May 1864, and was a major failure. Banks's army was routed at the Battle of Mansfield (April 8) by General Taylor and retreated 20 miles (32 km) to make a stand the next day at the Battle of Pleasant Hill. Despite winning a tactical victory at Pleasant Hill, Banks continued the retreat to Alexandria, his force rejoining part of Porter's Federal Inland Fleet. That naval force had joined the Red River Campaign to support the army and to take on cotton as a lucrative prize of war. Banks was accused of allowing "hordes" of private cotton speculators to accompany the expedition, but only a few did, and most of the cotton seized was taken by the army or navy. Banks did little, however, to prevent unauthorized agents from working the area. A cooperating land force launched from Little Rock, Arkansas was turned back in the Camden Expedition.
Part of Porter's large fleet became trapped above the falls at Alexandria by low water, engineered by Confederates blowing a dam that had been constructed to artificially raise the water level when first entered by Porter’s fleet. Banks and others approved a plan proposed by Joseph Bailey to build wing dams as a means to raise what little water was left in the channel. In ten days, 10,000 troops built two dams, and managed to rescue Porter's fleet, allowing all to retreat to the Mississippi River. After the campaign, General William T. Sherman famously said of the Red River campaign that it was "One damn blunder from beginning to end", and Banks earned the dislike and loss of respect of his officers and rank and file for his mishandling of the campaign. On hearing of Banks's retreat in late April, Grant wired Chief of Staff Halleck asking for Banks to be removed from command. The Confederates held the Red River for the remainder of the war.
### Louisiana Reconstruction
Banks undertook a number of steps intended to facilitate the Reconstruction plans of President Lincoln in Louisiana. When Banks arrived in New Orleans, the atmosphere was somewhat hostile to the Union owing to some of Butler's actions. Banks moderated some of Butler's policies, freeing civilians that Butler had detained and reopening churches whose ministers refused to support the Union. He recruited large numbers of African Americans for the military, and instituted formal works and education programs to organize the many slaves who had left their plantations, believing they had been freed. Because Banks believed the plantation owners would need to play a role in Reconstruction, the work program was not particularly friendly to African Americans, requiring them to sign year-long work contracts, and subjecting vagrants to involuntary public work. The education program was effectively shut down after Southerners regained control of the city in 1865.
In August 1863, President Lincoln ordered Banks to oversee the creation of a new state constitution, and in December granted him wide-ranging authority to create a new civilian government. However, because voter enrollment was low, Banks canceled planned Congressional elections, and worked with civilian authorities to increase enrollment rates. After a February 1864 election organized by Banks, a Unionist government was elected in Louisiana, and Banks optimistically reported to Lincoln that Louisiana would "become in two years, under a wise and strong government, one of the most loyal and prosperous States the world has ever seen." A constitutional convention held from April to July 1864 drafted a new constitution that provided for the emancipation of slaves. Banks was a significant influence on the convention, insisting that provisions be included for African-American education and at least partial suffrage.
By the time the convention ended, Banks's Red River Campaign had come to its ignominious end and Banks was superseded in military (but not political) matters by Major General Edward Canby. President Lincoln ordered Banks to oversee elections held under the new constitution in September, and then ordered him to return to Washington to lobby Congress for acceptance of Louisiana's constitution and elected Congressmen. Radical Republicans in Congress railed against his political efforts in Louisiana, and refused to seat Louisiana's two Congressmen in early 1865. After six months, Banks returned to Louisiana to resume his military command under Canby. However, he was politically trapped between the civilian government and Canby, and resigned from the army in May 1865 after one month in New Orleans. He returned to Massachusetts in September 1865. In early 1865, Secretary of War Halleck ordered William Farrar Smith and James T. Brady to investigate breaches of Army regulations during the occupation of New Orleans. The commissioners' report, which was not published, found that the military administration was riddled by "oppression, peculation, and graft".
Military recognition of Banks's service in the war included election in 1867 and 1875 as commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. In 1892, he was elected as a Veteran First Class Companion of the Massachusetts Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, a military society for officers who had served the Union during the Civil War.
## Postbellum career
On his return to Massachusetts, Banks immediately ran for Congress, for a seat vacated by the resignation of Radical Republican Daniel W. Gooch. The Massachusetts Republican Party, dominated by Radicals, opposed his run, but he prevailed easily at the state convention and in the general election, partially by wooing Radical voters by proclaiming support for Negro suffrage. He served from 1865 to 1873, during which time he chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee. Despite his nominally moderate politics, he was forced to vote with the Radicals on many issues, to avoid being seen as a supporter of President Johnson's policies. He was active in supporting the reconstruction work he had done in Louisiana, trying to get its Congressional delegation seated in 1865. He was opposed in this by a powerful faction in Louisiana, who argued he had essentially set up a puppet regime. He also alienated Radical Republicans by accepting a bill on the matter that omitted a requirement that states not be readmitted until they had given their African-American citizenry voting rights. Despite his position as chair of an important committee, Banks was snubbed by President Grant, who worked around him whenever possible.
During this period in Congress, Banks was one of the strongest early advocates of Manifest destiny. He introduced the Annexation Bill of 1866 promoting offers to annex all of British North America (effectively today's Canada) in order to appeal to his heavily Irish-American constituency and to tap into the anger the American public felt towards Britain in its unofficial support for the Confederacy, such as blockade runners supplying weapons (which lengthened the war by two years and killed 400,000 additional Americans). This and other proposals he made died in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Charles Sumner. Banks also played a significant role in securing passage of the Alaska Purchase funding bill, enacted in 1868. Banks' financial records strongly suggest he received a large gratuity from the Russian minister after the Alaska legislation passed. Although questions were raised not long after the bill's passage, a House investigation of the matter effectively whitewashed the affair. Biographer Fred Harrington believes that Banks would have supported the legislation regardless of the payment he is alleged to have received. Banks also supported unsuccessful efforts to acquire some Caribbean islands, including the Danish West Indies and the Dominican Republic. He spoke out in support of Cuban independence.
In 1872, Banks joined the Liberal-Republican revolt in support of Horace Greeley. He had to some degree opposed a party trend away from labor reform, a subject that was close to many of his working-class constituents, but not the wealthy businessmen who were coming to dominate the Republican Party. While Banks was campaigning across the North for Greeley, the Radical Daniel W. Gooch successfully gathered enough support to defeat him for reelection; it was Banks' first defeat by Massachusetts voters. After his loss, Banks invested in an unsuccessful start-up Kentucky railroad headed by John Frémont, hoping its income would substitute for the political loss.
Seeking a revival of his political fortunes, in 1873, Banks ran successfully for the Massachusetts Senate, supported by a coalition of Liberal Republicans, Democrats, and Labor Reform groups. The latter groups he wooed in particular, adopting support for shorter workdays. In that term, he help draft and secure passage of a bill restricting hours of women and children to ten hours per day. In 1874, Banks was elected to Congress again, supported by a similar coalition in defeating Gooch. He served two terms (1875–1879), losing in the 1878 nominating process after formally rejoining the Republican fold. He was accused in that campaign of changing his positions too often to be considered reliable. After his defeat, President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Banks as a United States marshal for Massachusetts as a patronage reward for his service. He held the post from 1879 until 1888, but exercised poor oversight over his subordinates. He consequently became embroiled in legal action over the recovery of unpaid fees.
In 1888, Banks once again won a seat in Congress. He did not have much influence, because his mental health was failing. After one term he was not renominated, and retired to Waltham. His health continued to deteriorate, and he was briefly sent to McLean Hospital shortly before his death in Waltham on September 1, 1894. His death made nationwide headlines; he is buried in Waltham's Grove Hill Cemetery.
## Legacy and honors
Fort Banks in Winthrop, Massachusetts, built in the late 1890s, was named for him. A statue of him stands in Waltham's Central Square, and Banks Street in New Orleans is named after him, as is Banks Court in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood. The incorporated village of Banks, Michigan, was named for him in 1871. The Gale-Banks House, his home in Waltham from 1855 to his death, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
## See also
- List of American Civil War generals (Union)
- List of Massachusetts generals in the American Civil War
- Massachusetts in the American Civil War
- Bibliography of the American Civil War
- Bibliography of American Civil War military leaders
- James Kendall Hosmer, American historian who served under Major-General Banks |
10,728,931 | Triple Crown (snooker) | 1,166,934,273 | Series of professional snooker tournaments | [
"Lists of snooker players",
"Masters (snooker)",
"Snooker professional competitions",
"Snooker terminology",
"Snooker tours and series",
"UK Championship (snooker)",
"World Snooker Championships"
]
| The Triple Crown in professional snooker refers to winning the sport's three longest-running and most prestigious tournaments: the World Snooker Championship (first held in 1927 and staged as a knockout tournament continuously since 1969), the invitational Masters (held annually since 1975), and the UK Championship (held annually since 1977). In January 2020, the three tournaments were formally named the Triple Crown Series.
Any player who has won all three Triple Crown tournaments at least once over the course of their career is said to have won a "career Triple Crown", and they gain the right to wear an embroidered crown on their waistcoat to reflect the achievement. As of 2023, eleven players have won a career Triple Crown: Steve Davis, Terry Griffiths, Stephen Hendry, Alex Higgins, John Higgins, Shaun Murphy, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Neil Robertson, Mark Selby, Judd Trump, and Mark Williams. O'Sullivan has won the most Triple Crown titles, with 21; Hendry has won 18 and Davis 15.
Davis, Hendry and Williams are the only three players to have won all three Triple Crown events in a single season (Davis in 1987–88, Hendry in both 1989–90 and 1995–96, and Williams in 2002–03). Hendry is the only player to have accomplished this feat twice.
## History
In 1969, the World Snooker Championship became a single elimination tournament, replacing the previous challenge format; this change marks the start of professional snooker's "modern era". Six years later, a non-ranking invitational event, the Masters, was introduced; there were 10 competitors in the inaugural Masters in 1975, later increasing to 16 players. When John Spencer won the 1975 Masters tournament, he became the first person to win two Triple Crown events, having won the world championships in 1969 and 1971. The following year, Ray Reardon won both the Masters and World Championship in the same season.
In 1977, the UK Championship was created. Originally restricted to British residents and passport holders, the tournament was opened to all professionals in 1984 and also became a ranking event. Patsy Fagan won the 1977 UK Championship, in his only Triple Crown final. In the 1980–81 season, Steve Davis won both the UK Championship and the World Championship, and was the first player to complete the career Triple Crown when he won the Masters the following season. Davis was also the first player to complete the season Triple Crown, winning all three events in the 1987–88 season.
The Triple Crown events are sometimes referred to as the "big three BBC events", due to them having been broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation since inception. They are also sometimes called "snooker's majors", or the "big three" events. However, some have questioned the status of the Triple Crown events, arguing that the World Championship is snooker's only major tournament. John Higgins has described the Tour Championship, first held in 2019, as "far bigger than the UK [Championship]".
Triple Crown events are considered the most prestigious snooker titles, and have historically offered the most prize money. However, the total prize money for other events, such as the China Open, has exceeded that of the UK Championship and Masters in recent years. From the 2020 Masters onward, players who have completed the Triple Crown are eligible to have a gold crown embroidered on their playing waistcoats in recognition of the achievement.
## Career Triple Crown winners
Eleven players have completed a career Triple Crown: Steve Davis, Terry Griffiths, Alex Higgins, Stephen Hendry, John Higgins, Mark Williams, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Neil Robertson, Mark Selby, Shaun Murphy, and Judd Trump. Only Davis, Hendry and Williams have won all three Triple Crown events in the same season. Hendry is the only player to have achieved the feat twice, in the 1989–90 and 1995–96 seasons.
On winning the 1999 Masters, Higgins held all three Triple Crown titles at the same time but his victories spanned two separate seasons. O'Sullivan came close to holding all three titles at once, making the final of all three events in 2014; he won the Masters and UK titles that year but not the World title, despite being the defending champion for the second successive year. Only O'Sullivan and Hendry have managed to successfully defend all three Triple Crown events. In 2013, Robertson became the first player from outside the United Kingdom to complete the career Triple Crown.
Following his win in the 2018 UK Championship, O'Sullivan surpassed Hendry's previous record of 18 Triple Crown titles, and has now won 21. Trump is the latest player to have achieved a career Triple Crown, winning both the Masters and World Championship in the 2018–19 season after having already won the UK Championship in 2011.
Sources: World Championship; UK Championship; Masters.
### One win away from Triple Crown
Of those still active on the main professional tour (as of 2023), five players have won two of the three Triple Crown events, leaving them one away from completing a career Triple Crown. Jimmy White, Matthew Stevens, Ding Junhui and Mark Allen have all won the Masters and UK Championship at least once, but all four players need to win the World Championship to complete their Triple Crown. Stuart Bingham has a World title and a Masters title, but is yet to win the UK Championship for his career Triple Crown.
Seven former professional players—Peter Ebdon, John Parrott, Ray Reardon, John Spencer, Dennis Taylor, Doug Mountjoy and Cliff Thorburn—won two of the three Triple Crown events before their retirement. Ebdon and Parrott both won UK and World titles, and Parrott reached the final of the Masters on three occasions between 1989 and 1992 but never won the title. Reardon, Spencer, Taylor and Thorburn won the World Championship and Masters tournaments during their careers, but not the UK Championship. Mountjoy came close to winning the World Championship in 1981, only to lose to Steve Davis in the final.
## Tournament winners
A list of all winners of the three Triple Crown events is shown below by season:
Sources: UK Championship; Masters; World Championship.
## See also
- List of snooker players by number of ranking titles |
43,676,038 | French cruiser D'Entrecasteaux | 1,148,490,522 | Protected cruiser of the French Navy | [
"1896 ships",
"Cruisers of the French Navy",
"Naval ships of Poland captured by Germany during World War II",
"Ships built in France",
"Training ships of Poland"
]
| D'Entrecasteaux was a large protected cruiser built for the French Navy in the 1890s. The only vessel of her class, D'Entrecasteaux was intended to serve as a flagship of the cruiser squadron that defended French Indochina and other possessions in the Far East. Her construction came during a period of conflict in the French naval command between factions that favored different cruiser types; D'Entrecasteaux represented the ideas of the Jeune École, who favored large cruisers for long-range operations overseas. She was armed with a main battery of two 240 mm (9.4 in) guns, the largest guns ever carried aboard a French cruiser, though their great weight, coupled with her pronounced ram bow degraded her seaworthiness. She nevertheless provided the basis for later armored cruisers.
D'Entrecasteaux was initially deployed to Indochina, where she took part in Eight-Nation Alliance operations during the Boxer Uprising, including the Battle of the Taku Forts in June 1900. Problems with her guns forced her to return to France for repairs in 1903, though she returned to Indochina for another tour from 1905 to 1909. She was modernized in 1909–1912 and served as the flagship of the Training Squadron until the start of World War I in July 1914. The ship spent much of the war in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, where she assisted in the defense of the Suez Canal from Ottoman attacks and patrolled the coast of Ottoman Syria. She was transferred for operations elsewhere after 1916, including supporting Arab rebels in the Red Sea and escorting convoys in the Indian Ocean.
After the war, D'Entrecasteaux helped to carry French troops back from the Armée d'Orient (Army of the East) before being placed in reserve in June 1919. She was struck from the naval register in 1922 and transferred to the Belgian Navy in 1923, where she served as a depot ship for three years. After briefly returning to France in 1926, she was sold to the Polish Navy in 1927, which renamed the vessel Król Władysław IV and then Bałtyk. Employed as a stationary training ship, she remained in Polish service until the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, when she was damaged by German aircraft. She was captured by the Germans and used as a barracks ship before being broken up around 1942.
## Background
In the mid-1880s, elements in the French naval command argued over future warship construction; the Jeune École advocated building long-range and fast protected cruisers for use as commerce raiders on foreign stations while a traditionalist faction preferred larger armored cruisers and small fleet scouts, both of which were to operate as part of the main fleet in home waters. This led to the development of two types of cruisers: medium ships of 3,000 to 4,000 long tons (3,048 to 4,064 t) and smaller ships of around 2,000 to 2,400 long tons (2,032 to 2,439 t). By the end of the decade and into the early 1890s, the traditionalists were ascendant, leading to the construction of several armored cruisers of the Amiral Charner class, though the supporters of the Jeune École secured approval for one large cruiser built according to their ideas, which became D'Entrecasteaux. They were able to leverage the acquisition of French Indochina in the 1880s, which required a permanent squadron of warships to control and defend the colony. D'Entrecasteaux was intended to serve as a flagship for the squadron, and as such, was designed with additional facilities to accommodate an admiral and his staff.
## Design
Design work on the ship began in 1891 with a version armed with four 240 mm (9.4 in) guns in the same lozenge arrangement as the contemporary pre-dreadnought battleships like Charles Martel. They were also to carry eight 138 mm (5.4 in) guns. The Conseil des Travaux (Council of Works) decided in a meeting on 7 July that displacement should be limited to 7,900 long tons (8,000 t) if possible; this limitation precluded an armament of four large-caliber guns if the latest water-tube boilers were retained. In an attempt to keep displacement under the limit, the Conseil considered scaling down the level of armor protection or reducing the caliber or number of guns. They ultimately decided to remove the amidships 240 mm guns and to supplement the ship's firepower with four more 138 mm guns.
The refined design included a sailing rig to supplement the ship's engines on long voyages overseas, but the French naval ministry issued a directive on 2 March 1892 to abandon the use of sails in cruising warships. D'Entrecasteaux's design was accordingly altered. The Conseil then issued requests for finalized designs meeting their specifications from four naval architects and three private shipyards, which were evaluated during a meeting on 29 March. Three proposals were chosen for further refinement, and after a second round, two were approved on 31 January 1893. After further evaluation, the Conseil ship proposed by the architect Amable Lagane, of the Société Nouvelle des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée shipyard, on 8 November. By the time the design was finalized, weight constraints had forced Lagane to abandon water-tube boilers for fire-tube boilers, which were smaller but obsolescent.
A sister ship to D'Entrecasteaux was approved on 21 August 1895, which was to have been built to the second design the Conseil had approved, and was to have been named Jeanne d'Arc. But the new naval minister, Édouard Lockroy, cancelled the ship in early 1896 in favor of another armored cruiser without consulting the Conseil, which oversaw naval construction. Lockroy was replaced as naval minister in April 1896, and his successor, Armand Besnard, attempted to secure parliamentary approval for another D'Entrecasteaux-class cruiser, but the Chamber of Deputies refused, ending the project.
D'Entrecasteaux represented an evolutionary step between the smaller armored cruiser Pothuau and the larger armored cruisers that followed, beginning with Jeanne d'Arc. In addition, her design was used as the basis of the medium armored cruisers of the Dupleix class, which were also intended to serve overseas. D'Entrecasteaux nevertheless suffered from defects that curtailed her active career, most significantly design defects that hampered her seakeeping. The heavy main gun forward, coupled with the ram bow, caused her to ship considerable amounts of water in heavy seas.
### General characteristics and machinery
D'Entrecasteaux was 120 m (393 ft 8 in) long between perpendiculars and 120.92 m (396 ft 9 in) long overall, with a beam of 17.85 m (58 ft 7 in) and a draft of 7.52 m (24 ft 8 in). She displaced 7,995 long tons (8,123 t). Her hull had a flush deck and a pronounced ram bow, and was sheathed in teak and a copper layer to protect it from biofouling on long voyages overseas. As was typical for French warships of the period, she had a significant tumblehome shape.
The ship proved to be poorly ventilated and thus very hot in service, necessitating cooling equipment in her ammunition magazines. D'Entrecasteaux was fitted with a pair of light pole masts for observation and signalling purposes. Her superstructure was fairly minimal, consisting of a small conning tower and bridge structure forward and a smaller, secondary conning position aft. Because she was intended to serve as a flagship, she was outfitted with accommodations for an admiral and his staff. Her crew numbered 559 officers and enlisted men, and a flag staff added another 28 officers and men.
The ship's propulsion system consisted of a pair of 3-cylinder vertical triple-expansion steam engines driving two screw propellers. The engines were placed side by side amidships, each in an individual engine room. Steam was provided by five coal-burning, double-ended fire-tube boilers; four were placed further forward, ducting into two funnels, and the fifth boiler was further aft, with its own funnel. The forward set of boilers was divided into two boiler rooms. The boilers proved to be troublesome in service, particularly in comparison to the water-tube boilers used in other French cruisers.
Her machinery was rated to produce 8,500 metric horsepower (8,400 ihp) normally and up to 13,500 CV (13,300 ihp) on forced draft, for a top speed of 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph). She reached a maximum speed of 19.2 knots (35.6 km/h; 22.1 mph) during sea trials in 1899. Coal storage amounted to 960 long tons (980 t), which allowed D'Entrecasteaux to steam for 5,500 nautical miles (10,200 km; 6,300 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).
### Armament
The ship was armed with a main battery of two 240 mm (9.4 in) 40-caliber (cal.) M1893 guns, which were placed in single-gun turrets, one forward and one aft on the centerline. These guns were the largest to be installed aboard a French cruiser of any type. The turrets were electrically operated, and allowed elevation of the guns to 20 degrees. Three types of shell were carried, including a 145 kg (320 lb) cast iron projectile, along with armor-piercing and semi-armor-piercing shells, both of which weighed 170 kg (370 lb). The shells had a muzzle velocity of 830 to 865 m/s (2,720 to 2,840 ft/s), depending on the type.
These were supported by a secondary battery of twelve 138.6 mm (5.46 in) Model 1893 45-cal. guns, eight of which were carried in individual casemates in the main deck. The other four were in gun shield-protected pivot mounts on the upper deck. For close-range defense against torpedo boats, she carried twelve 47 mm (1.9 in) 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns and six 37 mm (1.5 in) 1-pounder guns.
She was also armed with four 450 mm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes, two in her hull below the waterline and the other two in trainable, deck-mounted launchers. The deck tubes were placed amidships, one on each broadside, while the submerged tubes were just aft of the forward main battery gun and were in fixed positions. These were supplied with a total of twelve Model 1892 torpedoes. They carried a 75 kg (165 lb) warhead and had a range of 800 m (2,600 ft) at a speed of 27.5 knots (50.9 km/h; 31.6 mph). She had a storage capacity for twenty naval mines, which was typical for cruisers intended to serve overseas. She had no minelaying apparatus, as the mines were only intended to be used to help defend a port, and they would have been laid by smaller boats.
### Armor
Armor protection consisted of nickel steel armor. She had a curved armor deck; on the flat portion in the central part of the ship where it protected the machinery spaces, the deck was 30 mm (1.2 in) thick. It sloped downward at the sides and increased in thickness to 80 mm (3.1 in). Toward the bow and stern, the deck was decreased slightly to 20 mm (0.79 in) on the flat and 60 mm (2.4 in) on the slopes. All of the deck armor was attached to a pair of underlying layers of 10 mm (0.39 in) thick mild steel. A second deck consisting of another double layer of 10 mm steel was above the flat portion of the main deck with a cofferdam connecting it to the main deck; this upper deck formed the roof of the secondary battery. The cofferdam was subdivided extensively to contain flooding in the event of damage.
D'Entrecasteaux's conning tower was heavily armored with 230 mm (9.1 in) of nickel steel on the sides, also backed by two layers of 10 mm mild steel. The tower's roof consisted of two layers of 25 mm (0.98 in) of steel. Her semi-elliptical main battery turrets received the same level of protection on the front, but thinned at the sides and rear to 190 mm (7.5 in) with the same mild steel backing. Their supporting barbettes were 170 mm (6.7 in) above the battery deck and 120 mm (4.7 in) below. Each casemate consisted of 52 mm (2 in) plating with the double 10 mm backing.
## Service history
### French career
D'Entrecasteaux, named for Admiral Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux, was built at the Société Nouvelle des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée shipyard in La Seyne-sur-Mer. She was ordered on 8 November 1893 and was laid down in June 1894, was launched on 12 June 1896, and was commissioned on 1 January 1898 to begin sea trials. During testing on 28 April, one of her boilers burst, scalding four stokers badly and delaying her completion by six months. The ship was completed in early 1899 and was placed in full commission on 15 February. She was immediately ordered to the Far East to join the Division navale d'Extrême-Orient et du Pacifique occidental (Naval Division of the Far East and Western Pacific) and serve as its flagship, where she replaced the old ironclad Vauban. After departing on 6 April, she reached Saigon in French Indochina on 12 May, where she joined the protected cruisers Descartes, Pascal, and Jean Bart. Rear Admiral de Courejolles hoisted his flag aboard D'Entrecasteaux on 1 June and she thereafter embarked on a long voyage around East Asia, sailing as far north as China.
She took part in the colonialist response to the Boxer Uprising in China in 1900, joining in the Battle of the Taku Forts in June as part of the Eight-Nation Alliance. During the bombardment, she suffered problems with her main battery guns' breech blocks and locking mechanisms. These deficiencies compelled D'Entrecasteaux's return to Toulon for repairs; she arrived there on 9 January 1901. There, her main battery guns were removed and sent to the factory in Ruelle to have new breech blocks installed; the work lasted until June. While D'Entrecasteaux was in Toulon, Rear Admiral Charles-Jesse Bayle replaced de Courejolles as the divisional commander, and he brought with him Captain Louis Dartige du Fournet as his flag captain. She then returned to East Asia, arriving in Saigon on 8 August. The ship spent the next two in the region, taking cruises in Chinese and Japanese waters in 1901 and 1902 before returning to Toulon in 1903, being decommissioned there on 12 February for a major overhaul that lasted through 1905.
After emerging from the shipyard, D'Entrecasteaux was recommissioned on 1 September 1905, and sailed on 25 November 1905 for French Indochina, by way of a brief assignment to the Indian Ocean command. She then moved to the Naval Division of the Far East and Western Pacific. On 15 August, she resumed flagship duties when Rear Admiral Boisse transferred from the protected cruiser Guichen. The unit also included the armored cruisers Bruix and Dupetit-Thouars, the protected cruiser Alger, four gunboats, and five destroyers. D'Entrecasteaux served on the station for the next four years, and during this period, she was involved in the unsuccessful attempt to re-float the armored cruiser Chanzy on 20 May 1907, which had run aground off the coast of China. D'Entrecasteaux departed Saigon on 25 October 1909 to return to Toulon.
The French Navy considered converting D'Entrecasteaux into a training ship for naval cadets following her return home in 1909 to replace the armored cruiser Jeanne d'Arc, but the plan came to nothing. She instead was decommissioned on 1 January 1910, to undergo an extensive overhaul that included repairs to her propulsion system and her hull. Cooling systems for her secondary battery magazines were also installed, along with improved fire-control systems, a new Barr & Stroud rangefinder, and a wireless telegraphy compartment. Her torpedo tubes were also removed, as she had never used them. The ship was recommissioned on 1 January 1912 to serve as the flagship of the Training Division of the Mediterranean Squadron, replacing the old battleship Brennus in that role, and flying the flag of Rear Admiral Bertrand Sourrieu. D'Entrecasteaux was in turn replaced by the battleship Suffren on 15 November 1913, and she was decommissioned ten days later. In early 1914, the navy considered using D'Entrecasteaux to replace Pothuau as a gunnery training vessel, but the changes had not been made by the outbreak of World War I in August.
#### World War I
At the start of World War I in August 1914, D'Entrecasteaux was part of the Division spéciale, along with Pothuau and the old pre-dreadnought battleships Jauréguiberry and Charlemagne. Both of the cruisers required refits before they would be ready for active service, which were completed by the end of the month. On 5 November, France and Britain declared war on the Ottoman Empire, and D'Entrecasteaux was sent to the coast of Ottoman Syria, arriving there on 29 November to join the Division de Syrie (Syrian Division) with the armored cruiser Amiral Charner. The two cruisers were tasked with patrolling the 600 km (370 mi) length of coastline between Jaffa to Alexandretta.
D'Entrecasteaux was sent to Port Said at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal in January 1915 to reinforce the defenses there against an impending Ottoman attack. During this period, on 31 January, French naval forces in the region were reorganized as the 3<sup>e</sup> Escadre (3rd Squadron) and D'Entrecasteaux became the flagship of now-Vice Admiral Dartige du Fournet. She and the old coastal defense ship Requin played a critical role in defeating the Ottoman infantry in their assault on 3 February. Their gunfire broke up the advancing Ottoman columns and Requin silenced the Ottoman heavy artillery battery. D'Entrecasteaux fired a total of five 240 mm shells and thirty-six 138 mm rounds at a range of 6,300 to 6,700 m (20,700 to 22,000 ft) in the course of the action. The next day, Dartige du Fournet transferred to the pre-dreadnought Saint Louis.
On 25 March, D'Entrecasteaux bombarded Ottoman positions in Gaza. In late April, fears that the Ottoman Empire was planning an attack on the Suez Canal prompted the French to send D'Entrecasteaux, the protected cruiser D'Estrées, and Jeanne d'Arc to Port Said to reinforce the warships supporting the land defenses of the canal. No attacks materialized, and the ships were sent to bombard Ottoman positions along the coast to force them to disperse their units rather than make attacks on the Suez Canal. Dartige du Fournet also established a set of three patrol zones to cover the Syrian coast on 6 May, and D'Entrecasteaux was assigned to the first sector, which covered the area between the Suez Canal and Tyre. The French declared a blockade of the coast on 25 June. The ship was detached for a refit in Brest late in the year. As additional forces arrived in the region, the French reorganized the squadron into two divisions, D'Entrecasteaux being assigned to the 2nd Division in November. She became the flagship of Rear Admiral Henri de Spitz, though she did not arrive on the Syrian coast until 20 December.
Vice Admiral Frederic Moreau, the squadron commander by early 1916, opposed continuing patrols of the Syrian coast, as Ottoman maritime traffic had essentially stopped and he could not justify the expenditure of coal. The sinking of Amiral Charner by a German U-boat on 8 February strengthened his position, and further patrols were curtailed. D'Entrecasteaux was again detached in March for another refit. After its conclusion, the ship was assigned to the Moroccan Naval Division, but on 14 September, the protected cruiser Lavoisier arrived in Tangier to relieve her. D'Entrecasteaux was sent to Ethiopia with Pothuau in October in response to unrest in the country, but pressure from Britain, which feared that France was trying to assert influence in the country, led the French to withdraw the cruisers.
In late 1916, Ottoman forces had made significant progress toward defeating the Arabs who had rebelled against Ottoman rule at the instigation of the British. Vice Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss requested French assistance in the form of D'Entrecasteaux and Pothuau, which the French Navy dispatched to the Red Sea to provide fire support to the beleaguered Arab forces. The two cruisers operated out of Port Suez; one was on station at either of the main Arab cities of Jeddah and Rabegh while the other replenished coal at Port Suez. On 11 February 1917, the cruisers were released from these duties, as the Arabs had secured their position and the cruisers were needed elsewhere. They were then sent to the Gulf of Aden to strengthen the vessels available for convoy escort in the Indian Ocean. They were joined there by D'Estrées. D'Entrecasteaux and D'Estrées escorted convoys from Madagascar to Djibouti through May. D'Entrecasteaux was sent home for another refit in July, her place in the area eventually being taken by the protected cruiser Du Chayla.
### Postwar career and service in the Belgian and Polish navies
D'Entrecasteaux was sent to Durazzo and Cattaro on 25 January 1919 as part of the fleet that monitored the transfer of ex-Austro-Hungarian Navy ships to the victorious Allied powers. On 5 September 1919, she was assigned to the training division based in Brest. She was later involved in the repatriation of elements of the Armée d'Orient (Army of the East) from Macedonia. On 2 July 1920, the ship was placed in reserve at Brest and was decommissioned on 1 June 1921. She was struck from the naval register on 27 October 1922 and transferred temporarily to the Belgian Navy the following year, being towed to Zeebrugge on 24 May 1923. She was used as a depot ship for ex-German torpedo boats that had been abandoned in Belgium after the war, serving in that role until mid-1926, when the Belgians disbanded the torpedo boat flotilla. The Belgians had made significant reductions in their naval budget and had no further need for the cruiser. The ship was towed to Cherbourg on 4 February, where she remained until 7 March 1927, when the French sold her to the Polish Navy.
In the early 1920s, the Polish Navy had explored the possibility of buying a cruiser from France to strengthen the nascent Polish fleet. The naval command initially wanted a vessel that could be used as a submarine tender to support their submarines, but the early plans fell through. After the Poles purchased D'Entrecasteaux, she was renamed Król Władysław IV (Polish for: King Władysław IV) and was then towed to Gdynia. The Minister for Military Affairs, Daniel Konarzewski, renamed her Bałtyk (Polish for Baltic Sea) on 17 September 1927. By that time, the ship was armed with only six of her 47 mm guns; plans in the late 1920s to rearm her with a battery of eight 75 mm (3 in) anti-aircraft guns to use her as a floating anti-aircraft battery came to nothing due to fears that she would be too vulnerable to air attack. The vessel was instead used as a stationary training ship in Gdynia beginning in early 1929. She became the headquarters for the naval specialists school on 1 April 1930, and during this period, she served as the flagship of Commander Józef Unrug.
During the German invasion of Poland that began on 1 September 1939, Bałtyk was hit by a bomb on her quarterdeck, which started a small fire. The Poles positioned the ship to block the entrance to the military port at Gdynia. Her crew remained aboard to help defend Gdynia from German bombers before abandoning her on 11 September as she was a large target in the harbor. Her crew thereafter served ashore and saw action at the Battle of Kępa Oksywska. German artillery bombarded the ship on 16–17 September, and on the 19th, German forces occupied the port and seized the ship. She was then used as a barracks ship by the Germans. The ship was ultimately broken up for scrap by the Germans starting in 1941; the work was completed by August 1942. |
812,186 | Poison dart frog | 1,173,470,785 | Family of amphibians | [
"Aposematic species",
"Dendrobatoidea",
"Neotropical realm fauna",
"Poison dart frogs",
"Taxa named by Edward Drinker Cope"
]
| Poison dart frog (also known as dart-poison frog, poison frog or formerly known as poison arrow frog) is the common name of a group of frogs in the family Dendrobatidae which are native to tropical Central and South America. These species are diurnal and often have brightly colored bodies. This bright coloration is correlated with the toxicity of the species, making them aposematic. Some species of the family Dendrobatidae exhibit extremely bright coloration along with high toxicity, while others have cryptic coloration with minimal to no amount of observed toxicity. The species that have great toxicity derive this feature from their diet of ants, mites and termites. However, other species that exhibit cryptic coloration, and low to no amounts of toxicity, eat a much larger variety of prey. Many species of this family are threatened due to human infrastructure encroaching on their habitats.
These amphibians are often called "dart frogs" due to the Native Americans' use of their toxic secretions to poison the tips of blowdarts. However, out of over 170 species, only four have been documented as being used for this purpose (curare plants are more commonly used for Native American darts) all of which come from the genus Phyllobates, which is characterized by the relatively large size and high levels of toxicity of its members.
## Characteristics
Most species of poison dart frogs are small, sometimes less than 1.5 cm (0.59 in) in adult length, although a few grow up to 6 cm (2.4 in) in length. They weigh 1 oz. on average. Most poison dart frogs are brightly colored, displaying aposematic patterns to warn potential predators. Their bright coloration is associated with their toxicity and levels of alkaloids. For example, frogs of the genus Dendrobates have high levels of alkaloids, whereas Colostethus species are cryptically colored and are not toxic.
Poison dart frogs are an example of an aposematic organism. Their bright coloration advertises unpalatability to potential predators. Aposematism is currently thought to have originated at least four times within the poison dart family according to phylogenetic trees, and dendrobatid frogs have since undergone dramatic divergences – both interspecific and intraspecific – in their aposematic coloration. This is surprising given the frequency-dependent nature of this type of defense mechanism.
Adult frogs lay their eggs in moist places, including on leaves, in plants, among exposed roots, and elsewhere. Once the eggs hatch, the adult piggybacks the tadpoles, one at a time, to suitable water: either a pool, or the water gathered in the throat of bromeliads or other plants. The tadpoles remain there until they metamorphose, in some species fed by unfertilized eggs laid at regular intervals by the mother.
## Habitat
Poison dart frogs are endemic to humid, tropical environments of Central and South America. These frogs are generally found in tropical rainforests, including in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Suriname, French Guiana, Peru, Panama, Guyana, Nicaragua, and Hawaii (introduced).
Natural habitats include moist, lowland forests (subtropical and tropical), high-altitude shrubland (subtropical and tropical), moist montanes and rivers (subtropical and tropical), freshwater marshes, intermittent freshwater marshes, lakes and swamps. Other species can be found in seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland, arable land, pastureland, rural gardens, plantations, moist savanna and heavily degraded former forest. Premontane forests and rocky areas have also been known to hold frogs. Dendrobatids tend to live on or close to the ground, but also in trees as much as 10 m (33 ft) from the ground.
## Reproduction
Many species of poison dart frogs are dedicated parents. Many poison dart frogs in the genera Oophaga and Ranitomeya carry their newly hatched tadpoles into the canopy; the tadpoles stick to the mucus on the backs of their parents. Once in the upper reaches of the rainforest trees, the parents deposit their young in the pools of water that accumulate in epiphytic plants, such as bromeliads. The tadpoles feed on invertebrates in their nursery, and their mother will even supplement their diet by depositing eggs into the water. Other poison frogs lay their eggs on the forest floor, hidden beneath the leaf litter. Poison frogs fertilize their eggs externally; the female lays a cluster of eggs and a male fertilizes them afterward, in the same manner as most fish. Poison frogs can often be observed clutching each other, similar to the manner most frogs copulate. However, these demonstrations are actually territorial wrestling matches. Both males and females frequently engage in disputes over territory. A male will fight for the most prominent roosts from which to broadcast his mating call; females fight over desirable nests, and even invade the nests of other females to devour competitor's eggs.
The operational sex ratio in the poison dart frog family is mostly female biased. This leads to a few characteristic behaviors and traits found in organisms with an uneven sex ratio. In general, females have a choice of mate. In turn, males show brighter coloration, are territorial, and are aggressive toward other males. Females select mates based on coloration (mainly dorsal), calling perch location, and territory.
## Taxonomy
Dart frogs are the focus of major phylogenetic studies, and undergo taxonomic changes frequently. The family Dendrobatidae currently contains 16 genera, with about 200 species.
### Color morphs
Some poison dart frogs species include a number of conspecific color morphs that emerged as recently as 6,000 years ago. Therefore, species such as Dendrobates tinctorius, Oophaga pumilio, and Oophaga granulifera can include color pattern morphs that can be interbred (colors are under polygenic control, while the actual patterns are probably controlled by a single locus). Differing coloration has historically misidentified single species as separate, and there is still controversy among taxonomists over classification.
Variation in predation regimens may have influenced the evolution of polymorphism in Oophaga granulifera, while sexual selection appears to have contributed to differentiation among the Bocas del Toro populations of Oophaga pumilio.
## Toxicity and medicine
The chemical defense mechanisms of the Dendrobates family are the result of exogenous means. Essentially this means that their ability to defend has come through the consumption of a particular diet. In fact, captive raised species exhibited non-detectable levels of toxins whereas the wild-caught species did as a result of their calcium and vitamin-rich Drosophila and cricket diet. The secretion of these chemicals is released by the granular glands of the frog. The discharge happens as a result of acetylcholine being released into the body which triggers the sympathetic or parasympathetic system depending on the species. The chemicals secreted by the Dendrobatid family of frogs are unique alkaloids that consist of greatly different and unique chemical structures and toxicity. It has been suggested that initially the granular glands were solely responsible for the production and synthesis of the diverse toxins in different species of Dendrobates, then through evolution the glands were adapted to also be responsible for storage, and then finally even the secretion of them upon triggering.
Many poison dart frogs secrete lipophilic alkaloid toxins such as allopumiliotoxin 267A, batrachotoxin, epibatidine, histrionicotoxin, and pumiliotoxin 251D through their skin. Alkaloids in the skin glands of poison dart frogs serve as a chemical defense against predation, and they are therefore able to be active alongside potential predators during the day. About 28 structural classes of alkaloids are known in poison dart frogs. The most toxic of poison dart frog species is Phyllobates terribilis. It is argued that dart frogs do not synthesize their poisons, but sequester the chemicals from arthropod prey items, such as ants, centipedes and mites – the diet-toxicity hypothesis. Because of this, captive-bred animals do not possess significant levels of toxins as they are reared on diets that do not contain the alkaloids sequestered by wild populations. In fact, new studies suggest that the maternal frogs of some species lay unfertilized eggs, which are laced with trace amounts of alkaloids, to feed the tadpoles. This behavior shows that the poisons are introduced from a very young age. Nonetheless, the captive-bred frogs retain the ability to accumulate alkaloids when they are once again provided an alkaloidal diet. Despite the toxins used by some poison dart frogs, some predators have developed the ability to withstand them. One is the snake Erythrolamprus epinephalus, which has developed immunity to the poison.
Chemicals extracted from the skin of Epipedobates tricolor may have medicinal value. Scientists use this poison to make a painkiller. One such chemical is a painkiller 200 times as potent as morphine, called epibatidine; however, the therapeutic dose is very close to the fatal dose. A derivative, ABT-594, developed by Abbott Laboratories, was named as Tebanicline and got as far as Phase II trials in humans, but was dropped from further development due to dangerous gastrointestinal side effects. Secretions from dendrobatids are also showing promise as muscle relaxants, heart stimulants and appetite suppressants. The most poisonous of these frogs, the golden poison frog (Phyllobates terribilis), has enough toxin on average to kill ten to twenty men or about twenty thousand mice. Most other dendrobatids, while colorful and toxic enough to discourage predation, pose far less risk to humans or other large animals.
### Conspicuousness
Conspicuous coloration in these frogs is further associated with diet specialization, body mass, aerobic capacity, and chemical defense. Conspicuousness and toxicity may be inversely related, as polymorphic poison dart frogs that are less conspicuous are more toxic than the brightest and most conspicuous species. Energetic costs of producing toxins and bright color pigments lead to potential trade-offs between toxicity and bright coloration, and prey with strong secondary defenses have less to gain from costly signaling. Therefore, prey populations that are more toxic are predicted to manifest less bright signals, opposing the classical view that increased conspicuousness always evolves with increased toxicity.
### Aposematism
Skin toxicity evolved alongside bright coloration, perhaps preceding it. Toxicity may have relied on a shift in diet to alkaloid-rich arthropods, which likely occurred at least four times among the dendrobatids. Either aposematism and aerobic capacity preceded greater resource gathering, making it easier for frogs to go out and gather the ants and mites required for diet specialization, contrary to classical aposematic theory, which assumes that toxicity from diet arises before signaling. Alternatively, diet specialization preceded higher aerobic capacity, and aposematism evolved to allow dendrobatids to gather resources without predation. Prey mobility could also explain the initial development of aposematic signaling. If prey have characteristics that make them more exposed to predators, such as when some dendrobatids shifted from nocturnal to diurnal behavior, then they have more reason to develop aposematism. After the switch, the frogs had greater ecological opportunities, causing dietary specialization to arise. Thus, aposematism is not merely a signaling system, but a way for organisms to gain greater access to resources and increase their reproductive success.
### Other factors
Dietary conservatism (long-term neophobia) in predators could facilitate the evolution of warning coloration, if predators avoid novel morphs for a long enough period of time. Another possibility is genetic drift, the so-called gradual-change hypothesis, which could strengthen weak pre-existing aposematism.
Sexual selection may have played a role in the diversification of skin color and pattern in poison frogs. With female preferences in play, male coloration could evolve rapidly. Sexual selection is influenced by many things. The parental investment may shed some light on the evolution of coloration in relation to female choice. In Oophaga pumilio, the female provides care for the offspring for several weeks whereas the males provides care for a few days, implying a strong female preference. Sexual selection increases phenotypic variation drastically. In populations of O. pumilio that participated in sexual selection, the phenotypic polymorphism was evident. The lack of sexual dimorphism in some dendrobatid populations however suggests that sexual selection is not a valid explanation.
Functional trade-offs are seen in poison frog defense mechanisms relating to toxin resistance. Poison dart frogs containing epibatidine have undergone a 3 amino acid mutation on receptors of the body, allowing the frog to be resistant to its own poison. Epibatidine-producing frogs have evolved poison resistance of body receptors independently three times. This target-site insensitivity to the potent toxin epibatidine on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors provides a toxin resistance while reducing the affinity of acetylcholine binding.
## Captive care
All species of poison dart frogs are Neotropical in origin. Wild-caught specimens can maintain toxicity for some time (this can be obtained through a form of bioaccumulation), so appropriate care should be taken when handling them. While scientific study on the lifespan of poison dart frogs is scant, retagging frequencies indicate it can range from one to three years in the wild. However, these frogs typically live for much longer than that in captivity, having been reported to live as long as 25 years. These claims also seem to be questionable, since many of the larger species take a year or more to mature, and Phyllobates species can take more than two years. In captivity, most species thrive where the humidity is kept constant at 80 to 100% and where the temperature is around 72 °F (22 °C) to 80 °F (27 °C) during the day and no lower than 60 °F (16 °C) to 65 °F (18 °C) at night. Some species tolerate lower temperatures better than others.
## Conservation status
Many species of poison dart frogs have recently experienced habitat loss, chytrid diseases, and collection for the pet trade. Some are listed as threatened or endangered as a result. Zoos have tried to counteract this disease by treating captive frogs with an antifungal agent that is used to cure athlete's foot in humans.
## Behavior as tadpoles
The poison dart frog is known for its aggressive and predatory behavior. As tadpoles, the individuals of the genus Dendrobates are said to exhibit some unique cannibalistic tendencies, along with many other forms of predatory behavior. Dendrobates tadpoles that either consumed three or more conspecific tadpoles and/or relatively large larvae of a specific species of mosquito by the name of Trichoprosopon digitatum common in their environment led them to having a much higher growth rate and typically lived much longer lives. Reasons for this behavior could be that predation and aggression was selected for and favored for a few reasons. One reason is to eliminate predators, and the second reason is that it serves as a source of food in habitats that were low in resources. This predation could have evolved over time and led to cannibalism as another form of predatory behavior that had benefitted individuals survival fitness. However one observation has been noted in the general characteristic of Dendrobates tadpoles including D. arboreus, D. granuliferus, D. lehmanni, D. occultator, D. pumilio, D. speciosus, and many other Dendrobates species is that they have reduced mouth parts as young tadpoles which limits their consumption typically to unfertilized eggs only. Thus, it can be assumed that the cannibalistic tendencies of Dendrobates is limited to their lifetime as a tadpole and does not cross over into their adult life.
## Aggressive behavior and territoriality
The Dendrobatidae are a family of species very well known for their territorial and aggressive behavior not only as tadpoles, but as adults too. These aggression behaviors were not only limited to males, as many female Dendrobatidae also are known to defend their own native territory very aggressively. These areas that were being defended aggressively by Dendrobatidae were typically found to be regions that served as male calling sites. In fact, the males were seen wrestling with intruders of their territory in order to defend their calling sites as well as their vegetation. The different ways in which Dendrobatidae defended their own territories included physical combat and aggression. While vocalization and various behavioral displays served as a way of exhibiting one's strength or fitness, territorial disputes and fights led to physical combat and aggression at times too. Physical violence and aggression is particularly common at times of calling. If it was seen that an intruder was making calls in the territory of a Dendrobatidae frog then the resident frog would attempt to eliminate the competition to claim the territory and the females in it to himself. The resident frog would initially try to make its presence known by the means of vocalization and various behavioral displays as a way to exert dominance. If this did not scare away the intruder, then the resident frog would move towards the intruder and strike them. This encounter would immediately escalate into a full on fight where both are striking each other and grasping each other's limbs. Similarly, the females also often would get into fights and display aggressive behaviors in disputes over territory or a mating conflict. It was also observed that females who were going after the same male, after hearing their call, would chase each other down and wrestle to fight for the male. After a female courts with a male, they are also very likely to exhibit aggressive behavior towards any females that approach that male. Both the males and females bought their own respective sexes for each other in a fairly similar fashion.
## Mating behavior
Observations of the Dendrobatidae family suggest that males of the species would typically make their mating call in morning between the times of 6:30 am to 11:30 am. The calling would typically come from a place of elevation from various pieces of nature. The males would usually be on average one meter above the ground on limbs, trunks, and stems, or logs of trees so that their voice traveled further as well as the fact that it would help themselves be seen. The calls were signaled towards the stream as the females typically were in that area. Each male typically had their own region in which they only made calls from, and typically an individual would repeat their calls from the same spot during a mating season. After the call is received, the female makes its way to the male, and fertilization occurred in a few instances. This observed fertilization was not accomplished through amplexus. Initiation and interaction during courtship typically were the result of active females rather than males. The females stroked, climbed on, and jumped on the other in tactile courtship, and were by far the more active sex. The duration of courtship in poison frogs is long and females could even reject males even after an entire day of active following which was found to occur in a few instances. In the majority of cases, the males in fact chose the oviposition site and led the way and females usually followed the male to the site. In some Dendrobatidae species, such as strawberry poison frog, visual cues under high light intensity were also used to identify individuals from the same population. Different species use different cues to identify individuals from their same population during the time of mating and courtship.
## Diet
The diet of the Dendrobatidae is unique and vital in giving this family of frogs characteristics that are distinct from the rest. The diet of Dendrobatidae is what gives them the alkaloids that are found in their skin. This unique skin color and pigmentation and ability to transform color is an distinct feature that finds its basis in its diet. The diet is also what allows this family of frogs to have a defense mechanism such as poison, which is why it's commonly referred to as the poison dart frog. Both skin alkaloids and venoms and toxins are substances that can be from endogenous sources. Endogenous sources essentially means that the individual themselves is producing or synthesizing those substances on their own, or they can be obtained through exogenous sources like consumption. Researchers have studied these characteristics and have formed the diet-toxicity hypothesis which just implies that they believe that the diet of these Dendrobatidae is what gives them their toxicity and skin alkaloids. The data from numerous studies has led to the conclusions that there are direct correlations present between the frog's diet and its skin alkaloids that act as evidence to prove the diet-toxicity hypothesis. The diet that is responsible for these characteristics consists primarily of small and leaf-litter arthropods found in its general habitat, typically ants. Their diet, however, is typically separated into two distinct categories. The first is the primary portion of Dendrobatidae's diet which include prey that are slow-moving, large in number, and small in size. This typically consists of ants, while also including mites, small beetles, and minor litter-dwelling taxa. The second category of prey are much rarer finds and are much larger in body size, and they tend to have high palatability and mobility. These typically consist of the orthopteroids, lepidopteran larvae, and spiders. The natural diet of an individual dendrobatid depends on its species, prey abundance in its location, as well as many other factors. The available species present in the individual's enivornment can influence its diet vastly. Frogs of one species can specialize in preying on one particular prey, whereas another can focus on a different type of prey. The preference is one that depends on various factors that are calculated and decided upon as the most beneficial for one's own fitness.
## Post-mating behavior
Typically in many species the larger portion of parental investment falls on the shoulders of the female sex, whereas the male sex has a much smaller portion. However, it has been studied that in the family of Dendrobatidae, many of the species exhibit sex role reversal in which the females are competing for a limited number of males and the males are the choosers and their parental investment is much larger than the females. This theory also says that the female will typically produce eggs at an exceedingly fast rate that the males cannot possibly take full care of them which then leads to some of the males becoming unreceptive. Dendrobatidae also exhibit the parental quality hypothesis. This is where the females mating with the males try to ensure that their male mates with as few individuals as possible so that their number of offspring is limited, and thus each individual offspring receives a larger portion of care, attention, and resources. However, this creates an interesting dynamic of balance as there is a limited number of males available, and with many females competing for a limited number of males for courtship this makes it difficult to limit the number of individuals a male mates with. Whereas in many species, the competition is flipped in that the competition is prominent among the males, among the Dendrobatidae it is the opposite as the females seem to have a great deal of competition among themselves for males. Females will even take the drastic measures and resort to the destroying of other female's eggs in order to make sure that the male they mated with is receptive and that it scares the male from mating with other females.
## Threats
### Parasites
Poison dart frogs suffer from parasites ranging from helminths to protozoans.
### Diseases
Poison dart frogs suffer from chytridiomycosis, which is a deadly disease that is caused by the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). This infection has been found in frogs from Colostethus and Dendrobates.
## See also
- Mantella – Malagasy poison frogs
- Poisonous amphibians |
230,325 | Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire | 1,170,415,567 | 2002 video games | [
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| and are 2002 role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, published by The Pokémon Company and Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. They are the first installments in the third generation of the Pokémon video game series, also known as the "advanced generation". After years of Nintendo being the sole publisher of the franchise in all regions, The Pokémon Company co-published the games for the first time since the establishment of the joint-owned company in 1998. They were first released in Japan in late 2002, and internationally in 2003. Pokémon Emerald, a third version, was released two years later in each region. Remakes of the two games, titled Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, were released for the Nintendo 3DS worldwide in November 2014, exactly twelve years to the date of the original Ruby and Sapphire release date, with the exception of Europe, where it released a week later.
The gameplay is mostly unchanged from the previous games; the player controls the main character from an overhead perspective, and the controls are largely the same as those of previous games. As with previous games, the main objectives are to catch all of the Pokémon in the games and defeat the Elite Four; also like their predecessors, the games' main subplot involves the player character defeating a criminal organization that attempts to take over the region. New features, such as double battles, Pokémon abilities, Pokémon Contests, and 135 new Pokémon were added. Owing to the increased capabilities of the Game Boy Advance, four players may be connected to each other at a time instead of the previous limit of two. Additionally, the games can be connected to an e-Reader or other third-generation Pokémon games.
Ruby and Sapphire received mostly positive reviews. Praise was given to the new features and Pokémon designs, though critics were divided in their assessment of the games, especially on the gameplay and graphics. Most of the complaints focused on gameplay not changing much in relation to previous generations, and connectivity issues versus past generations of the series. With over 16.22 million copies sold, they were a commercial success and became the best-selling games for the Game Boy Advance; The games sold less than previous generations with Red and Blue having sold nearly 31 million units worldwide, and Gold and Silver selling over 23.1498 million units.
## Gameplay
The basic mechanics of Ruby and Sapphire are largely the same as their predecessors'. As with all Pokémon games for handheld consoles, gameplay is in third-person, overhead perspective and consists of three basic screens: a field map, in which the player navigates the main character; a battle screen; and the menu, in which the player configures their party, items, or gameplay settings. Players begin the game with one Pokémon, and can capture more using Poké Balls. They can also use their Pokémon to battle other Pokémon. When the player encounters a wild Pokémon or is challenged by a trainer to a battle, the screen switches to a turn-based battle screen where the Pokémon fight. During a battle, the player may use a move, use an item, switch their active Pokémon, or flee, although fleeing is not an option in battles against trainers. All Pokémon have hit points (HP); when a Pokémon's HP is reduced to zero, it faints and cannot battle until it is revived. If the player's Pokémon defeats the opposing Pokémon (causes it to faint), it receives experience points. After accumulating enough experience points, it will level up; most Pokémon evolve into a new species of Pokémon when they reach a certain level.
Apart from battling, capturing Pokémon is the most essential element of Pokémon gameplay. During a battle with a wild Pokémon, the player may use a Poké Ball on them. If successful, the Pokémon will be added to the player's active party, or stored if the player already has the maximum six Pokémon in their party. Factors in the success rate of capture include the HP, status effects such as Paralysis or Sleep, and the strength of the Poké Ball used: the lower the target's HP and the stronger the Poké Ball, the higher the success rate of capture is. Other trainers' Pokémon cannot be captured.
### New features
The most prominent change in the battle mechanics is the introduction of double battles, in which the opposing parties each use two Pokémon at the same time. Consequently, certain Pokémon moves can affect multiple combatants at once. Multi battles were added alongside double battles. They are identical to double battles, but there are two trainers to a side, each controlling one of the two Pokémon sent out. Also new to the games are innate abilities and natures; the former is shared by every Pokémon of a certain species, while the latter may vary among a particular species. Abilities grant their holders certain powers in battle, such as immunity against certain types of moves or strengthening a certain type of move. Natures, like innate abilities, affect the strength of Pokémon in battle; however, they affect the stats of the Pokémon rather than directly affecting the strength of the moves. Another stat introduced in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire is Condition, an important factor in Pokémon Contests, mini-games in which participants perform moves before a judge. Both Pokémon and their moves have a Condition, which is increased by using Pokéblocks, which are candies made from berries. Secret bases were added as a one-off feature where players could open up a hole in the world and customize the area with various items picked up in-game. Players who linked up with others who set up secret bases were able to battle an NPC version of that trainer within their secret base.
Like Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire keep track of real-life time; this influences events like tides and berry plant growth. However, unlike their predecessors, Ruby and Sapphire do not differentiate between day and night. Also, due to the differences in the technical specifications of Game Boy link cables and Game Boy Advance link cables, Ruby and Sapphire cannot be linked with Pokémon games of previous generations; one cannot battle with or trade to the previous generations.
### Connectivity to other devices
Ruby and Sapphire have limited e-Reader support. Nintendo released Battle-e Cards, a set of e-Reader cards that contained trainer battles in which the player could see previously-hidden Pokémon. A special e-Reader card called the Eon Ticket was also released; obtained through the Mystery Gift function, the Ticket allows the player to reach a place called Southern Island. There, the player faces either Latios or Latias, depending on which version of the game is used.
Ruby and Sapphire are also able to connect to the GameCube games Pokémon Colosseum, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness and Pokémon Box: Ruby and Sapphire. In the former two, once players reach a certain point in the game, they are able to transfer Pokémon between Colosseum / XD and Ruby / Sapphire. Additionally, those who pre-ordered Colosseum were able to access the Pokémon Jirachi and see a preview of the movie Pokémon: Jirachi Wish Maker. Pokémon Box allows players to store and organize their Pokémon on the GameCube. Also, in the European version of Pokémon Channel, players could receive a Jirachi at a certain point in the game, which they could then transfer over to Ruby or Sapphire.
## Plot
### Setting
Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire take place in the Hoenn region, located some distance from the Kanto and Johto regions featured in previous games. The design of Hoenn was based on the Japanese island and region of Kyushu; however Hoenn is rotated 90° relative to Kyushu, as Junichi Masuda felt that it would provide a better gameplay balance. Like Kyushu, Hoenn possesses many smaller islands, and part of the region is dominated by sea routes, several of which contain areas where the player can dive underwater.
### Story
Like other Pokémon games, Ruby and Sapphire's gameplay is linear; the main events occur in a fixed order. The protagonist of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire is Brendan and May, who have recently moved to a small town called Littleroot Town. At the beginning of the games, the player chooses either Treecko, Torchic, or Mudkip to protect Professor Birch, the regional professor, from an attacking Poochyena. After defending Birch, the player is taken to his lab and receives the chosen Pokémon as their starter Pokémon. After that the player encounters May/Brendan, the child of Professor Birch. The player's rival, who appears as the professor's child, is also a Pokémon Trainer and occasionally battles the player. The games' two main goals are defeating the eight Gym Leaders, proving oneself worthy of challenging the Elite Four and Champion to become the new Champion and completing the Pokédex by capturing, evolving, and trading to obtain all 202 Pokémon available between Ruby and Sapphire. It is possible to obtain all 386 Pokémon, but this requires trading with Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen.
In addition to the main quest of defeating the Gym Leaders, there are side quests in which the player can aid NPCs by fulfilling tasks, usually by obtaining items. The most prominent subplot involves Team Aqua and Team Magma, crime syndicates who want to use Pokémon to alter the climate of Hoenn: in Ruby, the villains, Team Magma, want to use the legendary Pokémon Groudon to dry up the oceans of Hoenn and increase the region's landmass; in Sapphire, Team Aqua are the villains and they try to use Groudon's counterpart, Kyogre, to flood the landmasses of Hoenn and increase the region's ocean. Prior to facing the eighth Gym Leader, the player has a showdown with Magma or Aqua where the team's leader uses a mystical orb that awakens the slumbering Pokémon, believing it has the power to enthrall their respective target, only for the Pokémon to become enraged and cause catastrophic, region-wide climate changes—a drought in Ruby, and heavy rainfall in Sapphire—until it is defeated or captured by the protagonist. The player's father also introduces them to Wally, a sickly young boy whom the player helps capture a Pokémon to be his companion as he moves away from the big city. Wally eventually overcomes his illness and becomes a successful Pokémon trainer, ultimately becoming the final challenger the player must face before the Elite Four.
## Development
Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire were developed by Game Freak and Nintendo under the direction of Junichi Masuda. As with its predecessors, Ken Sugimori was the art director, although these were the first games in which he did not single-handedly produce all of the art. When asked where his design team came up with the ideas for all of the new Pokémon, Sugimori stated that they got their ideas from past experiences in their childhood involving nature, animals, and the media and then base them on insects. Even looking at the world in a different perspective sometimes provided inspiration for the creatures. "First we select an insect and after that we add essential elements to the insects to make it more like Pokemon, such as adding some hard shape to it, to be more like steel," Sugimori said, describing the process of creating a Pokémon.
As the Game Boy Advance was able to handle enhanced graphics, Ruby and Sapphire were the first games in the series that allowed up to four people to share information at one time, as opposed to the previous limit of two. However, the development team used a more basic graphics engine in order to keep the game simple and not overly confusing. The team wanted the games to appeal to a large audience, so the game was designed to be easy enough for younger generations of children to play, but new features were added to bring the veteran gamers back.
Masuda stated that the basic philosophy of all Pokémon games is communication; in the Pokémon series, this is manifested in trading and battling with other people. When asked about the new concept of double battles, the developers noted that they tried to focus more on the original one-on-one battles as the main type of competition and only added the double battles as a "new challenge". They stated that if they receive positive feedback about the double battles, the feature may appear more in future generations.
The games were the first in the series that did not contain all of the Pokémon from previous generations. Sugimori stated that the team tried to include all the new Pokémon as well as some from previous generations. When asked about any features that could not be included due to technical restrictions, Masuda noted that he wanted each individual Pokémon to make up to three different cries depending on its mood.
### Audio
The audio of Ruby and Sapphire consists entirely of game music and sound effects; all dialogue is on-screen. The music, composed by Junichi Masuda, Go Ichinose and Morikazu Aoki, is completely instrumental except for two tracks with vocals, "Trick Master" and "Slateport City". The soundtrack of the game was released under the Mediafactory label in Japan on April 26, 2003; the album reached \#297 on the Oricon charts and charted for one week. Junichi Masuda wrote only battle tunes, Go Ichinose wrote most of the town, route, fanfare & 'Spotted' tunes, whereas Morikazu Aoki did the remainder.
The soundtrack is noted for its heavy use of trumpets, but it also makes heavy use of French horns, strings ensembles, and even pianos.
## Release
Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire were released in Japan on November 21, 2002, in North America on March 19, 2003, in Australia on April 3, 2003, and in Europe on July 25, 2003. Nintendo did not promote Ruby and Sapphire at E3 2002; however, it launched a \$7 million promotional campaign that lasted from March to May 2003. In July and August 2002 they were promoted through a tour across Japan at Pokémon Festa 2002. In addition to rewarding pre-orders of the games with merchandise, Nintendo held a contest in which participants submitted videos of themselves singing the Pokémon theme song with their own re-written lyrics; the grand prize for that event was a Lugia PT Cruiser. Later that year, Nintendo launched the EON Ticket Summer Tour, in which 125 Toys "R" Us stores across the United States offered the Eon Ticket e-Card in stores from July 19 to September 1. Nintendo aired two television advertisements, "Faces" and "Names", on prime-time network, cable, and syndication. "Faces" featured Pokémon juxtaposed with human look-alikes; "Names" featured people shouting out the names of Pokémon and emphasized the fact that the games introduced 100 new Pokémon. Additionally, Nintendo collaborated with United Kingdom beverage brand Vimto to promote the games.
### Pokémon Emerald
`is a third version after Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, developed by Game Freak, published by The Pokémon Company and Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. It was first released in Japan in 2004, and was later released internationally in 2005. Emerald received generally positive reception and by fiscal year 2007 sales had reached 6.32 million units.`
## Reception
### Critical response
The games met with mostly positive reviews. IGN gave them an "Amazing" 9.5 out of 10 rating and awarded them the Editor's Choice Award; in 2007, the games were collectively named the tenth best Game Boy Advance game of all time in an IGN article. GameZone also gave the games a 9.5 out of 10 rating and awarded them an Outstanding Award. GamePro gave the games 5 out of 5 stars and named them Editor's Choices. ComputerAndVideoGames.com gave the games a 9 out of 10, and GameSpot gave the games 8.1 out of 10, naming it the best Game Boy Advance game of March 2003. Eurogamer and 1UP.com were less enthusiastic about the games, however; Eurogamer gave the games 7 out of 10, and 1UP.com gave them a B-.
Reviewers were divided in their critiques of the games, especially concerning the gameplay and graphics. IGN praised the "deep design" and noted that the addition of features such as double battles greatly increased the strategic aspect of the games. GamePro also thought that the addition of double battles "add[ed] challenge" and "made the harder battles far more strategic than before—the way the game should be". Likewise, ComputerAndVideoGames.com called the gameplay "incredibly compelling and addictive". GameZone noted that the gameplay was more refined and challenging than that of previous titles. However, GameSpot called the games "a cakewalk from start to finish" and claimed that Ruby and Sapphire "don't offer much of a challenge". Eurogamer also felt that the mechanics "[get] very tired, very fast". 1UP.com also felt that the games were formulaic and that double battles were underused.
ComputerAndVideoGames.com was enthusiastic over the graphics, calling them "gorgeous". Other reviewers were less enthusiastic, however. GamePro felt that the graphics were only "a fair bit prettier" than those of the Game Boy Color games; GameZone said that the games "still [use] the simple animations and basic character designs that were created for the original, color-less Game Boy". IGN and 1UP.com noted that the graphics had received only a minor upgrade, and Eurogamer felt that the graphics had been upgraded to a "functional level at best". The audio was generally well-received: GameZone and GameSpot both felt the audio was catchy; GameZone gave the audio an 8 out of 10 score, saying that while the music "was annoying at times, [...] it's also very good. [...] I found myself humming the music when I wasn't playing". Other complaints included the removal of the time system of Gold and Silver and the inability to import Pokémon from the games of previous generations.
### Sales
Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire were highly anticipated. In Japan, they sold 1.25 million units within the first four days of release and were the best-selling games of the 2002 holiday season; sales totaled around 4.4 million within six weeks of release. They also became the first games to sell 2 million copies in Japan since 2001's Final Fantasy X and the first games for a handheld console to do so since 2000's Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4.
In North America, Nintendo sold 2.2 million units by April 2003, less than one month after the games' release in that region. In the United States, Ruby and Sapphire were the second- and third-best-selling games of 2003, respectively. The games enjoyed success in Europe as well. Even before release, European retailers imported cartridges from the United States to meet the high demand. Upon release, 500,000 copies were sold in its first weekend and 1.5 million within eight weeks. They were the second-best-selling games of the holiday season in 2002. The games were brought up at E3 2003 by Satoru Iwata as a symbol of how successful the Game Boy Advance was at the time.
With 16.22 million units sold worldwide, they are the best-selling games for the Game Boy Advance. However, analysts noted that with "young kids...gravitating toward Yu-Gi-Oh!" at the time, Pokémon's popularity was waning. This was reflected in the games' sales compared to those of previous generations: Red and Blue sold nearly 27 million units worldwide, and Gold and Silver sold over 23 million units.
### Awards
## Legacy
### Remakes
`and are enhanced remakes of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. The new titles were developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS. They were released worldwide for the Nintendo 3DS on November 21, 2014, exactly twelve years after the original release date of Ruby and Sapphire, while the European release was the following week.`
### Related games
#### Pokémon Box: Ruby and Sapphire
`or simply , is a spin-off Pokémon game for the GameCube, bundled with a GameCube – Game Boy Advance link cable and a Memory Card 59. It was released in Japan on May 30, 2003, and in North America on July 11, 2004, but only through the New York Pokémon Center and its online store, and it is no longer available in either location. The game was released in some parts of Europe as Pokémon Memory Magic due to translation problems and Europeans could only get the game by using points from Nintendo of Europe's loyalty program or by buying the Pokémon Colosseum Mega Pack.`
The game is essentially a storage system for the Game Boy Advance Pokémon games that allow players to trade and store Pokémon that they have caught in Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed and LeafGreen onto a GameCube memory card. Players can then organize and interact with their Pokémon on the GameCube, such as allowing them to breed. Unique Pokémon can also be acquired. Another feature allows Ruby and Sapphire to be played on the television via the GameCube – Game Boy Advance link cable. Options such as taking screenshots of the game are available in this mode. Another addition is the "Showcase", where players can create and display game pieces of Pokémon.
Nintendo referred to the game as "the most exclusive Pokémon software ever offered to North American Pokémon fans," but it was generally considered to be unnecessary, receiving a score of 50% on GameRankings from 1 review. Craig Harris of IGN gave the game a "Meh" rating of 5.0 out of 10, praising the interface, which makes the organization of Pokémon much easier as compared to the Game Boy Advance interface, as well as the emulator which allows Ruby and Sapphire to be played on the GameCube. He also stated that the game was a good deal due to the inclusion of a memory card and link cable. However, Harris cited the "Showcase" as "entirely unnecessary and completely out of place," and said that overall the game lacked much to do. He wrote, "It's targeted specifically for the truly die-hard Pokemon fan, but it requires so many specific elements to actually be useful to anyone." Allgame gave the game three and a half out of five stars. |
26,012,749 | The Baby Show | 1,127,158,725 | null | [
"2007 American television episodes",
"30 Rock (season 1) episodes"
]
| "The Baby Show" is the ninth episode of the first season of the American television comedy series 30 Rock. It was written by co-executive producer Jack Burditt and directed by Michael Engler. The episode originally aired on NBC in the United States on January 4, 2007. Guest stars in this episode include Katrina Bowden, Rachel Dratch, John Lutz, Bridget Moloney, Maulik Pancholy, Chris Parnell, Keith Powell, and Lonny Ross.
In the episode, Cerie Xerox (Katrina Bowden) gets engaged so that she can be a "young hot mom", causing Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) to think about marriage and having a family. Meanwhile, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) has trouble dealing with his own domineering mother, who wants to move in with him, and at the same time, Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) becomes upset by Josh Girard's (Lonny Ross) impression of him.
## Plot
Cerie Xerox (Katrina Bowden) announces her engagement during a gathering for Jenna Maroney's (Jane Krakowski) birthday, and says that she wants to be a "young hot mom". Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) confronts her own marital and maternal status. She speaks with Jenna about this, and Jenna proceeds to tell all of the men in the office—Frank Rossitano (Judah Friedlander), James "Toofer" Spurlock (Keith Powell), and J. D. Lutz (John Lutz) that Liz is looking for someone to get her pregnant. Later that day, Liz sees Cerie in the makeup department getting herself made up. Anna (Bridget Moloney), the makeup artist has her baby at work with her. She asks Liz to hold the baby for a while, so Liz takes the baby for a stroll around the 30 Rock building. Suddenly she realizes that she is no longer in the building, but is now in her apartment. She hurries back to the office with the baby, and Pete Hornberger (Scott Adsit) fixes the situation.
Meanwhile, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) is being harassed by his mother over the phone. She calls him repeatedly, with the intention of moving in with him. The situation causes him to exhibit some stress-eating tendencies. At the same time, Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) and Josh Girard (Lonny Ross) begin to hang out, but Tracy gets annoyed of Josh's impression of him. He demands that Liz fire Josh, but she refuses, so instead she tries to fix the situation, but Tracy threatens to go to Jack if she does not. Josh tries to avoid getting in trouble by calling Tracy and impersonating Jack, and then calling Jack and impersonating Tracy. It is not long before he is caught and Jack and Tracy have their revenge on him. As part of his punishment, Jack forces Josh to talk to his mother "Every day, for the rest of your or her life."
## Production
"The Baby Show" was written by co-executive producer Jack Burditt and directed by Michael Engler. This was Burditt's second writing credit, having written the episode "Jack Meets Dennis", and was Engler's first directed episode. "The Baby Show" originally aired on January 4, 2007 on NBC as the ninth episode of the show's first season and overall of the series. This was the first of several episodes to make reference to Liz's desire to become a mother. This plot came to a head in the third season episode "Do-Over" in which Liz attempts to adopt a child.
## Reception
"The Baby Show" received mixed reviews from television critics. According to the Nielsen ratings system, "The Baby Show" was watched by 5.9 million households, the same as the previous week's episode "The Break-Up", in its original American broadcast. It received a 3.0 rating/7 share among viewers in the 18–49 demographic. This means that it was seen by 3.0 percent of all 18- to 49-year-olds, and 7 percent of all 18- to 49-year-olds watching television at the time of the broadcast.
IGN contributor Robert Canning said the episode "had plenty of standout bits" but that it "represented a major flaw" and "perhaps in the program as a whole", citing that "[t]here seems to be more of an emphasis on comedic 'bits' rather than comedic 'situations,' which doesn't bode well for a situation comedy." He explained that "The Baby Show" in particular "felt very disjointed, bouncing between jokes more than storylines. It even opened with a Jenna surprise-birthday segment that was funny for what it was, but had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the show." Canning gave the episode a 7.0 out 10 rating. TV Guide's Matt Mitovich liked that Josh had a story in this episode, and said that his impression of Tracy was "pretty good". He remarked that "The Baby Show" was "a solid episode, if a bit too theme-y for my broad-sitcom liking." |
33,042,692 | Independiente (Ricardo Arjona album) | 1,153,542,440 | null | [
"2011 albums",
"Ricardo Arjona albums",
"Spanish-language albums",
"Warner Music Latina albums"
]
| Independiente is the thirteenth Spanish-language studio album by Guatemalan singer-songwriter Ricardo Arjona, released on 23 September 2011. Recorded in the United States and Mexico, it was produced by Arjona with Dan Warner, Carlos Cabral "Junior", Lee Levin and Puerto Rican singer-songwriter Tommy Torres. The album—the first independent release by Arjona after he was signed by Sony Music in 1993 and Warner Music in 2008—was issued by his own label, Metamorfosis.
Composed and written in a year, the record marks Arjona and Torres' fourth collaboration. For Independiente, Arjona returns to his trademark sound after his stylistic departure for Poquita Ropa (2010). While producing the latter, he had used fewer instruments to simplify his sound, having introduced what had been called a "stripped-down acoustic effort" in his music. Independiente has been compared to his earlier recordings, Historias (1994) and Animal Nocturno (1993).
Independiente became Arjona's fourth number-one album on the Billboard Top Latin Albums where it debuted for the week ending 22 October 2011. For thirteen non-consecutive weeks it topped the Latin Pop Albums chart, and reached number one on the Mexican Albums Chart. It is his fifth consecutive album to chart on the Billboard 200 (reaching number sixty-five), and his fourth album to chart in Spain (peaking at number sixty-eight). Within one week after its release Independiente was certified gold in Chile, the United States and Mexico and certified platinum in Venezuela and Argentina.
Five singles have been released from the album. The lead single, "El Amor", became a commercial success in several Latin American countries and was number one on the Billboard Latin Songs and Latin Pop Songs charts. It was followed by "Fuiste Tú" (featuring Gaby Moreno), which reached number one on the Latin Pop Songs, number two on the Latin Songs charts and topped several other national charts. "Mi Novia Se Me Está Poniendo Vieja" was released in May 2012; "Te Quiero" in July 2012, and "Si Tu No Existieras" in November 2012. To promote Independiente, Arjona embarked on his Metamorfosis World Tour.
## Background
In 2010, Arjona wanted to change his musical style; after experimenting with using as few instruments as possible, he obtained a sound similar to an a capella performance (simplifying his sound) and introduced what he called a "stripped-down acoustic effort" to his music. This was heard on his twelfth studio album, Poquita Ropa. Arjona produced the album with Dan Warner, who has worked with Shakira, Celine Dion and Christina Aguilera. When promoting the album Arjona said, "[songs] are like women; they get things up and are so concerned about this that they forget that the less clothes, more beauty. The songs are often overwhelmed by ourselves, because we saturate them with arrangements looking to exalt their qualities and we end up hiding them". Poquita Ropa became the first album since Adentro which Arjona recorded without Torres.
Weeks before the release of Independiente, Arjona issued a letter raising the issue of his past relationships with recording companies. He revealed the circumstances of his first contract: "a producer, friend of mine, told them [the record label] that if they did not sign me in, they won't sign two artists he had [at that time]". Arjona further explained that he received the "minimum royalty percentage" from his most successful albums. Independiente is Arjona's first independent release through his own label: Metamorfosis, a company he created to refocus his career. The company is presided by Arjona and several friends (including photographer-director Ricardo Calderón, Universal Music México executive Humberto Calderon and BMG's Miriam Sommerz), and is based in Miami and Mexico City. Arjona commented that his independence represented compromise more than freedom, stating that "Inside the word 'Independent', even when it sounds like extreme freedom, there's a big amount of compromise and the responsibility of being able to administrate, in the best way possible, such independence". Billboard notes that, although other groups have released independent albums following contracts with major labels, Arjona is the most important Latin pop artist to do so. Although the album is marketed within the new label, distribution was handled by Warner Music.
## Production and recording
Independiente marked Arjona's fourth collaboration with Torres. The latter was a composer and producer, also receiving background-vocal credit. The musicians first worked together in 2005, when Arjona released his tenth studio album (Adentro). He stated that he first "tested" Torres by sending him the "hookiest and darkest tracks" on the album: "Acompañame A Estar Solo" and "Iluso". Torres then "went all out on the first demo, hiring a full band that included a string orchestra". In Quién Dijo Ayer (2007), Torres produced the singles "Quién" and "Quiero" and provided background vocals on the remastered versions of Arjona's past hits. In 5to Piso (2008), Torres produced several tracks; one was the lead single "Como Duele", considered Arjona's "biggest hit in years" by Jason Birchmeier of Allmusic.
The album was composed over a one-year period. Most of its production was handled by three producers familiar with Arjona's work: Dan Warner, Lee Levin and Dan Rudin. Tommy Torres also produced three tracks: the lead single "El Amor", second single "Fuiste Tú" and "Hay Amores". Victor Patrón produced two songs, ("Caudillo" and the piano version of "Mi Novia Se Me Está Poniendo Vieja") and Julio Chávez aided in the production of "Reconciliación". Arjona wrote all the songs except "El Amor" (which was co-written with Torres). The album was recorded and produced in several cities in the United States and Mexico. Independiente was mixed at the Blue Grotto in Nashville, Tennessee, and mastered by Tom Coyne and Aya Merrill at Sterling Sound in New York City. With Torres' return to producing Arjona regained the classic, trademark sound which Torres helped develop since 2005.
## Composition
Independiente opens with "Lo Que Está Bien Está Mal", a Latin pop song and the only track composed by Dan Warner instead of Arjona (who wrote the lyrics). "El Amor" was motivated by Arjona's desire to examine "those big, dark events within love that nobody talks about"; he continued, "[the] dark sides of love are extremely fundamental to understand its great value." Arjona added, "So many good things abould love has been shown that somebody had to turn it around and tell the bad ones". In a February 2012 interview, Arjona stated that "El Amor" was the "most tawdry" song he had released to date, explaining that their choice of the song was a "contradiction" because it was not "the song which could better represent the entire album". He described it as "very strong" and "a bit dark". The single marked Arjona's return to his signature, mainstream sound after the Cuban music influenced Poquita Ropa'''s lead single "Puente", a mixture of salsa and merengue which failed to make an impact in the United States.
The album includes "Fuiste Tú", a duet with Guatemalan singer Gaby Moreno. Its instrumentation consists of piano, violin, guitars, drums and other percussion. Although Arjona stated that he "had the possibilities to record this song with very well known people" he expressed his happiness with Moreno, revealing that "the possibilities of doing it with her, for me, are a celebration". He described Moreno as "incredibly talented", a "countrywoman" and a "fantastic human being". Arjona named "Fuiste Tú" as one of the most important songs on the album. "Mi Novia Se Me Está Poniendo Vieja" took two years to complete and Arjona dedicated it to his mother, Noemí Morales. He stated that he wrote it "as a gift for my mom on Mother's Day" and that he thought "the idea of including it on the album was very good". As with his single "Señora De Las Cuatro Decadas" (on 1994's Historias), at first he never thought to include the song on an album. "Caudillo" evokes "the image of some friends" Arjona had at college; he asserted that he "appears constantly there because sometimes we transform ourselves into a contradiction of all those things we fought in those moments. It's the history of a student leader that becomes a president". Arjona dedicated the album to his father, who died in 2011.
## Release and promotion
Independiente was first digitally released in some South American countries on 23 September 2011 as a special edition, dubbed the Cono Sur Edition. This version included a different mix of "Reconciliación". On 30 September, the digital download for the standard edition of the album was released in several Latin American and European countries. On 4 October, the album was officially released as a digital download and compact disc in most of these same markets as well as North America; an iTunes edition was released as a digital download on the iTunes music store. This version included an album-only video, entitled "Independiente". In Germany, the album was first available on the Kiwi label on 4 October and on 11 October through Warner Music. In Canada and Spain, the compact-disc version of the album was available on 25 October.
Arjona appeared on a television special in 2011 to promote Independiente. The special featured guest appearances by Gaby Moreno, Ricky Muñoz (of the Mexican band Intocable) and Paquita la del Barrio. Broadcast by Televisa, the program showcased the fourteen songs on Independiente. Muñoz said that he was "happy to do things for Ricardo [Arjona]", elaborating that they met each other "some time ago" and it was "a very special situation". The show was later rebroadcast on 5 November by Canal de las Estrellas.
## Singles
The first single from Independiente is "El Amor", released on 23 August 2011. In the United States it reached number one on the Billboard Top Latin Songs chart (Arjona's fourth number one on that chart, following "Desnuda", "Cuando" and "El Problema") and number one on the Billboard Latin Pop Songs chart. It was also a hit in Latin America, reaching number one in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama and Guatemala. The music video for "El Amor", filmed in black-and-white, was released on 8 September 2011. It was directed by Ricardo Calderón (who also directed Arjona's music video for "Como Duele") and filmed in Mexico City. The second single from the album is "Fuiste Tú", a duet with Guatemalan singer Gaby Moreno. The music video for the song was shot in Guatemala (around the tropical areas of Antigua Guatemala, Río Dulce, the Atitlán lake, Semuc Champey and the Tikal ruins) and directed by Argentine director Joaquín Cambre. Arjona commented that "this video recreates the battle on the couple when someone starts to talk 'is the beginning of the end'". "Fuiste Tú" reached number two on the Billboard Top Latin Songs and number one on the Latin Pop Songs charts.
"Mi Novia Se Me Está Poniendo Vieja" was released as the third single. Arjona wrote the song for his mother, Noemí Morales. The music video for the song, released in April 2012, was filmed at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. It features Arjona and his son, Ricardo Arjona Jr., and was directed by Robert García. The song was used by American telecommunications corporation AT&T for a Nokia Lumia 900 smartphone commercial featuring Arjona and was released in music stores in May 2012. The fourth single from the album, "Te Quiero", was released in July 2012. The music video for the song was filmed during Arjona's concerts at Vélez Stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina during his Metamorfosis World Tour. It marks Arjona's first music video taken from a live performance. The song reached number ten in Mexico and number one on both the Billboard Latin Songs and Latin Pop Songs chart. "Si Tu No Existieras" was released in November 2012 as the set's fifth and final single, and was intended to promote the re-release of the album. The song, which music video was similar to that of "Te Quiero", managed to peak at number 14 in Mexico.
## Tour
Beginning on 27 January 2012 in Toluca, Mexico, Arjona embarked on a world tour to promote the album. The Metamorfosis World Tour was announced in December 2011, and visited the Americas. The show consisted of four theatrical sets on a revolving stage; Arjona performed on each in turn, as it related to each song. Fellow Guatemalan singer-songwriter Gaby Moreno appeared in several performances, joining Arjona for "Fuiste Tú". The tour was praised by critics and fans. Natalie Torres of Dia a Dia reported, "Arjona knows how to handle his 'girls', with a mix of attitudes from a 'rough' male and seductive lyrics".
Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that "Arjona is one of Latin pop’s finest lyricists: observant, nuanced, sometimes wry, sometimes melancholy and especially fond of the play of opposites". He added, "unlike some of his fellow Latin pop stars, Mr. Arjona is no saccharine lover boy". The tour broke records for ticket sales, commercial gross and attendance. In Buenos Aires it was the most popular show at José Amalfitani Stadium, with a total attendance of more than 160,000 for four consecutive sold-out concerts. In Guatemala City Arjona was the first artist with two consecutive sold-out concerts at Mateo Flores Stadium, with a combined attendance of more than 50,000. As of October 2012, the tour has been performed for close to one million people in more than eight countries.
## Commercial performance
Independiente debuted at the top of the Billboard Top Latin Albums for the week ending 22 October 2011, and remained at that position the following week. It was the third album by Arjona to remain for more than a week at number one, after Galería Caribe (2000) and 5to Piso. Independiente became his fourth chart-topper, following Poquita Ropa (2010). For its third week it fell to number two, replaced by Chino & Nacho's Supremo. The album also debuted at number one on the Latin Pop Albums chart for the week ending 22 October, becoming Arjona's fifth album to do so. It remained at number one the following week; for its third week, it was replaced by Supremo. The album reached number one again for the week ending 12 November, and later for the week ending 11 February 2012. For its second run it remained three weeks at the top before being replaced by Maná's Drama y Luz for a week; for its third run at number one, it remained at the top spot for five weeks. For the week ending 2 June 2012, Independiente returned again to number one.
For the week it debuted atop both the Latin Albums and Latin Pop Albums charts, Independiente also appeared as number 65 on the Billboard 200. It is Arjona's fifth consecutive album to chart on that list (following Adentro, Quién Dijo Ayer, 5to Piso and Poquita Ropa), although it has only charted higher than Adentro. In Mexico, Independiente debuted at number one for the week ending 9 October 2011. The following week it fell to number two, replaced at the top by Espinoza Paz' Canciones Que Duelen. For its third week, the album fell to number three. In Argentina, Independiente debuted at number one for the week ending 9 October 2011; it remained at the top position for a single week, dropping to number five the following week. The album also charted on Spain, reaching number 76. The following week it fell off the chart but later re-entered, reaching its peak at number 68. Independiente is Arjona's fourth album to chart in Spain, following Adentro, 5to Piso and Poquita Ropa. On the 2011 year-end charts, Independiente was the 50th best-selling album on the Latin Albums chart and the 15th best-seller on the Latin Pop Albums chart. In Mexico, it was the 19th best-selling album of 2011.
Independiente was certified platinum by the Argentine Chamber of Phonograms and Videograms Producers in recognition of 40,000 copies sold. It was also certified gold and platinum by the Mexican Association of Producers of Phonograms and Videograms for 90,000 copies shipped. In the United States, Independiente was certified Latin platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for 100,000 copies shipped. In Venezuela, the album was certified double platinum for more than 40,000 copies sold. It was certified gold in Chile for 5,000 copies shipped, and in Colombia for 10,000 copies sold. As of November 2012, Independiente has sold 75,000 copies in the United States.
## Critical reaction and awards
David Jeffries of Allmusic gave the album a mildly positive review, citing Arjona's return to his more mainstream style after the "stripped-down acoustic effort" Poquita Ropa. He compared (as did Arjona and other critics) the production values and musical style of Independiente with past albums Animal Nocturno and Historias. Finally, he stated that "Returning fans will revel in this combination of freedom and growth, and appreciate the return of producer Tommy Torres, the man who has been behind the boards for quite a few of Arjona's most popular releases" (referring to Torres' absence from the production of Poquita Ropa).
A contributor to the Colombian website CMI commented that "listening to Independiente is a labyrinth to go through, each song is a huge path that seems to have no end, because it involves imagination, it invites you to dream, to charm, to bewitch. But neither leaves behind the problematic requirements of love, its loopholes, hideouts and concerns, as well as its bad times in this joke that's life". Independiente was nominated at the Premios Juventud of 2012 for the "Lo Toco Todo (I Play It All)" award. On 25 September 2012, the album received two nominations at the 13th Annual Latin Grammy Awards: Album of the Year and Best Singer-songwriter album. On 3 December 2012, Independiente received a nomination for "Pop Album of the Year" at the 2013 Premios Lo Nuestro awards. It also received a nomination for Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Album at the Grammy Awards of 2013. Arjona does not win the latter award since 2005 with Adentro in a shared win with Mexican singer Julieta Venegas. In February 2013, Independiente received a nomination for "Latin Pop Album of the Year" at the Billboard Latin Music Awards of 2013.
## Track listing
## Personnel
Credits are taken from Independiente'' liner notes.
- Paul Abbot – viola
- Monisa Angell – viola
- Ricardo Arjona – composer, chorus, lyrics
- Richard Bravo – percussion
- Carlos "Junior" Cabral – arrangements
- Ricardo Cortés – drums
- Monica del Aguila – cello
- Roger Hudson – chorus
- James Grosjean – viola
- Anthony LaMarchina – cello
- Elizabeth Lamb – viola
- Lee Levin – arrangement, drums, percussion
- Chris Macdonald – direction
- Victor Patron – piano
- Matt Rollings – Hammond B3, organ, piano, Wurlitzer
- Julia Tanner – piano
- David Thoener – mixing
- Tommy Torres – chorus
- Peter Wallace – Hammond B3, organo, Wurlitzer
- Dan Warner – arrangement, banjo, composer, ukulele
- Ben Wisch – mixing
- Xarah – Pro Tools
## Chart performance
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Certifications
!scope="row"\|Argentina (CAPIF) \|2× Platinum \|80,000<sup>x</sup> \|- !scope="row"\|Chile (IFPI) \|Platinum \| 10,000<sup>^</sup> \|- !scope="row"\|Colombia (ACPF) \|Platinum \| 10,000<sup>x</sup> \|-
\|- !scope="row"\|United States (RIAA) \|Platinum (Latin) \|100,000<sup>^</sup> \|- !scope="row"\|Venezuela (APFV) \|4× Platinum \|40,000<sup>x</sup> \|-
## Release history
## See also
- 2011 in Latin music
- List of number-one Billboard Latin Albums from the 2010s
- List of number-one Billboard Latin Pop Albums from the 2010s
- List of number-one albums of 2011 (Mexico)
- Ricardo Arjona discography |
12,285,096 | Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church | 1,145,704,367 | null | [
"Bolton Hill, Baltimore",
"Landmarks in Baltimore",
"Landmarks in Maryland",
"Presbyterian churches in Baltimore",
"Presbyterian churches in Maryland",
"Ralph Adams Cram church buildings"
]
| Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church of Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., is a large, Gothic Revival-style church built in 1870 and located at Park Avenue and Lafayette Avenue in the city's Bolton Hill neighborhood. Named in memory of a 19th-century Baltimore financier, the ornate church is noted for its exquisite stained glass windows by renowned artist Louis Comfort Tiffany, soaring vaulted ceiling, and the prominent persons associated with its history. Maltbie Babcock, who was the church's pastor 1887–1900, wrote the familiar hymn, This is My Father's World. Storied virtuoso concert performer Virgil Fox was organist at Brown Memorial early in his career (1936–1946).
Called "one of the most significant buildings in this city, a treasure of art and architecture" by Baltimore Magazine, the church underwent a \$1.8 million restoration between 2001 and 2003. It is part of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) denomination.
## History
The Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church building was dedicated on December 4, 1870, in memory of George Brown, chairman of the Baltimore-based investment firm, Alex. Brown & Sons, and one of the founders of the pioneering Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1827.
Construction was funded by a gift of \$150,000 from his widow, Isabella McLanahan Brown, an amount equivalent to more than \$4 million in 2009. George Brown was described by a Baltimore historian as a successful businessman and civic leader who "regarded religion as preeminent above all other things and loved his church with all the ardor of his noble nature". John Sparhawk Jones was the church's first pastor, serving from 1870 to 1884. Several of his collected sermons were later published in such books as Seeing Darkly, The Invisible Things, and Saved by Hope.
The church's pastor between 1887 and 1900 was Maltbie Babcock, who was formally installed on September 28, 1887. His biography in a 1910 encyclopedia described him as "a fluent speaker, with a marvelous personal magnetism which appealed to all classes of people, and the influence of which became in a sense national. His theology was broad and deep ... he reached people in countless ways and exerted everywhere a remarkable personal magnetism ... [having] an unusually brilliant intellect and stirring oratorical powers that commanded admiration". While at Brown, he led fund-raising efforts to assist Jewish refugees from Russia who were victims of an anti-Jewish pogrom. He was also a popular speaker with students at Johns Hopkins University. Under Babcock, the church acquired additional property at North and Madison Avenues for a chapel and Sunday School complex.
When Babcock was called to New York City's Brick Presbyterian Church in 1900, many prominent Baltimoreans, including the faculty of Johns Hopkins University, unsuccessfully implored Babcock to remain at Brown instead of accepting the call to Brick Church. Babcock resigned on January 17, 1900, to pastor the Manhattan church but died suddenly the following year at age 42. At his New York funeral, the presiding clergyman eulogized him, "We do not need a candle to show a sunbeam...The work our brother has done – the life he lived speaks for him." A memorial service for the esteemed former pastor was held at Brown Memorial on May 22, described as "impressive" by the New York Times. So inspired was former U.S. Postmaster General James Albert Gary, a member of Brown Memorial, that he chaired a committee to raise \$50,000 (the equivalent of \$1.4 million in 2009) for construction of a new church in memory of the beloved former pastor. More than half of that amount was raised the first day from the wealthy congregation, the New York Times reported, and the new Babcock Memorial Presbyterian Church was soon constructed on Brown Memorial Church's North Avenue property.
Babcock's successor as minister of Brown Memorial, John Timothy Stone, also presided over a large memorial gathering in Baltimore on June 2, 1901, choosing as the text for his address to the throng: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matthew 6:21). Babcock was eulogized at the Baltimore service by various prominent educators, including Daniel C. Gilman, the first president of Johns Hopkins University, John F. Goucher, the founder of Goucher College, and Francis L. Patton, president of Princeton University. A poem by Babcock was published posthumously the following year by his wife as the familiar hymn, This is My Father's World.
The sanctuary was enlarged in 1905 with the addition of a transept and several Tiffany windows while Stone was minister. Further significant development occurred in 1931 under T. Guthrie Speers, with the addition of the current chancel designed by notable architect Ralph Adams Cram and the installation of the present 4-manual pipe organ by Ernest M. Skinner. Speers had a popular ministry at Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church from 1928 to 1957. He began an outreach program to Baltimore's Jewish community, occasionally exchanging pulpits with local rabbis.
After Speers' retirement in 1957, John Middaugh was minister from 1958 to 1968. Middaugh was a regular panelist for ten years on the weekly television program To Promote Goodwill, an interfaith discussion of social and religious issues produced by WBAL-TV and broadcast worldwide on the Voice of America. He was also in the forefront of the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Along with William Sloan Coffin and dozens of other clergymen and civil rights activists, Middaugh was arrested in a clash with police at Baltimore's Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in July 1963 over efforts to desegregate the popular attraction.
Membership peaked at 1,336 in 1952 but subsequently declined in the late 1950s as much of the city's population migrated to the suburbs. In response, a portion of the congregation decided in 1956 to build a church in the suburban Woodbrook area north of Baltimore. Other members wished to remain at the Bolton Hill location, prompting a decision to operate one church at two locations, with a shared ministerial staff. In the early 1970s, the church began a tutoring program for neighborhood children and a "Meals on Wheels" service under then-ministers Iain Wilson, pastor, and Clinton C. Glenn Jr., assistant minister. In 1980, the congregations of the two churches voted for separation. The original Bolton Hill church was subsequently constituted as "Brown Memorial Park Avenue", to distinguish it from "Brown Memorial Woodbrook", when the separation was completed in October, 1980. The Woodbrook church had more than 500 members at the time, but eventually dwindled to an average of only 45 persons attending Sunday services by 2017, when the Woodbrook church property was closed and put up for sale.
The immediate past minister of the Park Avenue church is Roger J. Gench, pastor from 1990 to 2002, who then was pastor of historic New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., from 2002 to 2019.
The full list of senior ministers from 1870 to present is:
## Current ministry
The current pastor of Brown Memorial Park Avenue Church since 2004 is Andrew Connors. A native of Raleigh, North Carolina, he earned a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University and a Master of Divinity degree from Columbia Theological Seminary in 2001. He is a recipient of the prestigious David H. C. Read Preaching Award, named for Presbyterian clergyman and author David H. C. Read of New York City's Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church.
Under the pastorate of Andrew Connors, the church's historic leadership continues in social justice issues including national peace efforts, a statewide campaign for marriage equality, local efforts to rebuild blighted neighborhoods, and advocacy of after-school programs to invest in the youth of Baltimore. His views on current affairs are frequently reported in the Baltimore Sun daily newspaper. Connors has also taken an active role in dialogues between the Jewish and Christian faith communities.
### Music ministry
The current minister of music and organist at Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church since June, 2012, is Michael Britt, who studied music at the Peabody Conservatory and the Conservatoire de Paris. He succeeded Dr. John Walker, an internationally renowned concert organist and CD recording artist, who was minister of music between 2004 and December, 2011. Formerly director of music and organist at Riverside Church in New York City (1983–1992) and Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1992–2005), Walker has a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stanford University and is a past President of the American Guild of Organists. He was named Minister of Music Emeritus by Brown Memorial in 2012 and continues to perform there occasionally.
Other previous organists include the celebrated virtuoso Virgil Fox, who gained considerable fame as a concert performer and recording artist while at Brown Memorial early in his career, from 1936 to 1946. Later, Richard Ross was also a significant music figure in the life of the congregation, succeeding Fox as choirmaster and organist, while also composing music. Francis Eugene Belt then served as organist beginning in 1954 and continuing until shortly before his death at age 79 in 2001.
The 4-manual Ernest M. Skinner pipe organ has 2,939 pipes and remains essentially the same today as when it was installed in 1931 and tonally finished by G. Donald Harrison, as Skinner's opus 839. John Eltermann was the church's organist at the time. The organ underwent a complete restoration between 2002 and 2005, with all original 45 ranks of the instrument fully preserved. A 99-memory level Capture System was added to the organ in 2005.
The choir sings a wide range of choral music at Sunday services, from works of classical composers, such as Mozart's Ave verum corpus and choruses by Handel and Johannes Brahms, to spirituals and anthems by 20th-century composers, such as Jane Marshall's My Eternal King. Major choral works are also performed during the year, such as the oratorio Elijah by Felix Mendelssohn, conducted by Walker and accompanied by guest organist Frederick Swann, and Johann Sebastian Bach's cantata, God's time is always the very best time ("Actus Tragicus", BWV106), in the 2008–2009 season. The choir's May, 2009, performance of Elijah has since been released on CD.
### Programs and activities
Along with regular worship services on Sundays and holy days, Brown Memorial Park Avenue Church offers various programs of enrichment and outreach, such as concerts, lectures, and study forums. The "Tiffany Series" presents high quality classical concerts as well as distinguished speakers at the church. Speakers have included Harry Belafonte and Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund, who spoke on Children in Peril: What Does Our Faith Require of Us? on March 16, 2008.
With the church's motto of "Alive in the City and the World," members are active in numerous ministries, including BUILD (Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development), and many other local, national and international programs. For more than 50 years, the church has supported the Brown Memorial Tutoring Program in partnership with local public elementary schools to provide one-to-one instruction for more than 75 children weekly. High school youth participate summer missions trips, including travel to El Salvador. The church also has a longstanding outreach program with the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where Brown Memorial youth and adults conduct summer learning camps for Lakota children.
## Stained glass windows
Among the considerable number of stained glass windows, those crafted by Louis Comfort Tiffany in 1905 are especially prized for their vibrancy and exceptional depth. Baltimore City Paper called the church and its collection of eleven Tiffany windows, "the most magnificent interior space in Baltimore City". During the restoration survey in 2000, various stained glass experts praised the extent and craftsmanship of the windows. As part of the church's \$1.8 million restoration project between 2001 and 2003, all of the stained glass windows were releaded and restored to their original lustre. The Tiffany windows are:
- The Annunciation to the Shepherds – the birth of the infant Christ is announced by angels to shepherds tending their flocks. Tiffany employed a confetti glass technique for the flames of the shepherds' bonfire as the star of Bethlehem gleams with etched glass.
- The Baptism of Christ – portrays Jesus with John the Baptist at the River Jordan. Mottled glass is used for the area around the water, with a layer of wavy glass over Christ's left foot to create the illusion of looking through water.
- Christ Blessing the Children – the Lord holds a child in his lap, whose face is that of the boy for whom this window was donated as a memorial by his grieving parents.
- I am the Way – Jesus walks on tempestuous seas surrounded by storm clouds. Opalescent glass is used to create a glow of light around the figure of Jesus.
- Christ in Gethsemane – portraying Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, surrounded by trees made of stippled glass.
- If I Be Lifted Up – Christ is portrayed in the clouds, with light radiating from behind His head as the penetrating eyes seem to follow the viewer around the nave. An extra layer of mottled glass behind the clouds was used by Tiffany.
- Lead, Kindly Light – the cross at its center is made of etched glass and glows brightly in the rays of the afternoon sun.
- The Holy City – St. John's vision on the isle of Patmos of the "New Jerusalem", as described in Revelation 21:2. Brilliant red, orange, and yellow glass is etched for the sunrise, with textured glass used to create the effect of moving water. Said to be one of the two largest windows (along with The Annunciation to the Shepherds) ever made by the Tiffany Studios, this 58-panel stained glass window honors the church's beloved pastor of the 1880s–1890s, Maltbie Babcock.
- Gabriel – the archangel Gabriel in the clouds, with feathers individually made of opalescent glass by Tiffany.
- John, the Visionary – Wearing a red cloak and having an intense expression, St. John is portrayed by Tiffany in the style of the 17th-century Flemish painter Reubens. The window is made of drapery, opalescent, and mottled glass.
- The New Creation – located at the rear of the church, it is based on the description in Revelation 22:1–2, with stained glass depictions of trees, mountains, and streams of Living Water. At the top is a star morphing into a cross, with rays made of nuggets.
Some of the non-Tiffany windows in the church:
- The young David – the future Israelite king is pictured, designed by Edward Peck Sperry and made by Gorham Company.
- I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes – landscape, designed by Edward Peck Sperry and made by Gorham Company.
- I Am the Vine – by Church Glass and Decorating Company.
- The Lord Is My Shepherd – by Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company and William Willet.
- Good Shepherd – by Wilbur Burnham. |
69,087,999 | Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow | 1,113,653,872 | Autobiography of the Indian actor and politician Dilip Kumar | [
"2014 non-fiction books",
"Biographies about actors",
"Hay House books",
"Indian autobiographies",
"Indian non-fiction books"
]
| Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow is a book about the filmmaker and politician Dilip Kumar that was written by the film journalist Udaya Tara Nayar. The first part of the book chronicles Kumar's and career; using first-person narrative, the autobiography chronicles Kumar's childhood in Peshawar, British India (present-day Pakistan); his education, his 62-year-long cinematic and political career, and his two marriages. The other part contains recollections from 43 of his collaborators and acquaintances. It was published on 20 June 2014 by Hay House.
The idea for the book occurred to Nayar in mid-2004, when he was helping to rearrange Kumar's bookshelf. Nayar picked up a biography of Kumar and found some inaccurate information in it; Kumar's wife Saira Banu suggested Nayar should write an autobiography instead. Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow is based on a series of conversations between Nayar and Kumar that occurred in Bandra that year. Critical reviews of the book were generally positive; the writing and the photographs garnered praise but Kumar's selectiveness was criticised.
## Summary
The book's first 25-chapter segment focuses on Dilip Kumar's life and career; he was born Yousuf Khan on 11 December 1922 in Peshawar, British India (now Pakistan), and, having been educated at Barnes School and Khalsa College, moved to Bombay (now Mumbai) following the partition of India in 1947. His acting debut came in the drama film Jwar Bhata (1944), in which he used the stage name "Dilip Kumar". Kumar's commercially and critically successful films include Andaz (1949), Tarana (1951), Aan (1952), Azaad (1955), Devdas (1955), Naya Daur (1957), Madhumati (1958), Kohinoor (1960), Mughal-e-Azam (1960), Gunga Jumna (1961), and Ram Aur Shyam (1967). Kumar's well-publicised six-year relationship with the actor Madhubala, his marriages to Saira Banu in 1966 and Asma Rehman in 1982, and his political career are also detailed. The book's second part includes commentary from 43 of Kumar's collaborators and acquaintances.
## Development and release
In June 2004, Udaya Tara Nayar, a film journalist and former editor of Screen, was helping Saira Banu to rearrange Banu's husband Dilip Kumar's bookshelf. Occasionally, Nayar read Kumar's collection of poems, in both English and Urdu. Kumar picked up a biography of himself; he said the information in it was mostly incorrect, though the author claimed to know him personally. Banu, who had always wanted Kumar to write an autobiography, asked him to do so with enthusiasm. She believed his story would motivate young people "in any walk of life who have chased dreams of making it big in their chosen professions".<sup>:11</sup>
Concurring with her idea, Kumar wanted someone to compile his own words. Banu recommended Nayar, who was both happy and frightened because Kumar rarely publicly talked about his personal life and achievements. Nayar thought Kumar's introversion was the main reason authors who write books on him use his interviews with the media and information from his close friends.<sup>:11–12</sup> Writing an analytical column in Scroll.in, Gautam Chintamani said previous publications about Kumar are more about his career than his pre-acting and private lives.
Nayar began writing the book the same day. According to Nayar, who found Kumar's marriage to Banu the most interesting part of his life, said the "real picture began to emerge" as the writing continued.<sup>:12–13</sup> The book was titled Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow, which according to Nayar was suggested by Kumar; the "substance" means Kumar's life as Yousuf Khan and the "shadow" is his life as Dilip Kumar, according to whom; "when we walk our shadow grows larger than our actual image". The Press Trust of India announced the book in 2012, and Hay House released it on 20 June 2014 with a hardcover book. Its Amazon Kindle version was released on 28 July 2014.
## Critical reception
Nayar's writing met with critical acclaim. Deepa Gahlot concluded: "The book ... is a precious addition to the Bollywood bookshelf—at least it all comes from the star himself and the words are not recycled." Arvind Gigoo of Daily News and Analysis commended Nayar for having "performed the role of an understanding Father Confessor". Madhu Jain from India Today called it "measured, evidently calibrated and impossibly calm". Mahbubar Rahman of The Independent said Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow "exceeds all expectations of readers" and is a "lucid reminiscence" that "is intricately laced with candid observation and comments which are uniquely his own". Jawed Naqvi of Dawn said the book is "crammed with ... abiding sentiment". Meghnad Desai praised Nayar for doing a good job, and Saibal Chatterjee from Tehelka said the book is a "goldmine of information". In The Free Press Journal, P. P. Ramachandran commented of the book's authentic and deep narration, calling it "outstanding". Raza Rumi of The Friday Times, conversely, said Nayar's writing is "mellow and somewhat dispassionate".
The contents and photographs were also praised. Gigoo described the book as "a captivating literary tour de force". Asif Noorani said the photographs, though not all present in fine quality, add to the book's value. Rumi spoke of Kumar's "reflective tone and tender voice that makes it a book worth reading", saying that the book sums up the history of Indian cinema of almost the twentieth century; she further said the "Reminiscences" part is interesting but that it needs more editing and that the photographs make the book more attractive. S. Nanda Kumar of Deccan Herald wrote that Kumar told his stories with attention to even the tiniest details, and likened the book's opening to the introduction of a film. and Ziya Us Salam, sharing similar thoughts, said it "sheds fair light on the person he is". Another Daily News and Analysis review, this time by Boski Gupta, labelled it a "treat for every cinema lover". Sanjukta Sharma, in her review for Mint, wrote:
> The first few chapters ... have the architecture and visual breadth of a novel. He writes about his youth with self-deprecating honesty. Given the tone of the book until it reaches the phase of his youth, middle age and late life read like parodies. A voice so different, it seems someone else took over the project entirely. The last section of the book is a series of tributes by close friends—a strange section to have in an autobiography.
Kumar's selectiveness of giving information regarding his personal life was met with a somewhat mixed reception. The News International's Sarwat Ali gave a scathing comment, saying the book should have been written when Kumar was younger and had the energy to give more attention "to the final product which suffers badly from supervision in editing and graphic design". Ali bemoaned that some events of Kumar's life, such as his second marriage and his affair with Madhubala, are not explained detailly. Gahlot felt "it has the informality of a diary rather than a serious memoir". Baradwaj Rangan described Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow as "a lopsided autobiography" that "sheds light on his early life and career, but skimps on what we really want to know". According to Shahabuddin Gilani of The Express Tribune, Kumar was not entirely open in the book, having noted that many events he did not speak of in detail.
Sangeetha Devi Dundoo included it in her "Reading List" of the year in The Hindu. |
25,117,785 | National Weather Service Lincoln, Illinois | 1,154,037,152 | Forecast office in central Illinois | [
"Buildings and structures in Logan County, Illinois",
"Lincoln, Illinois",
"National Weather Service Forecast Offices"
]
| National Weather Service Lincoln, Illinois also known as National Weather Service Central Illinois is a weather forecast office responsible for monitoring weather conditions for 35 counties in Central and Southeastern Illinois. The Central Illinois office initially consisted of two forecast offices in Peoria and Springfield until the current location in Lincoln became the sole local forecast office in 1995. Federal meteorology offices and stations in the region date back to the 19th century when the Army Signal Service began taking weather observations using weather equipment at the Springer Building in Springfield. Since that time the presence of the National Weather Service greatly increased with the installation of new weather radars, stations and forecast offices. The current office in Lincoln maintains a WSR-88D (NEXRAD) radar system, and Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) that greatly improve forecasting in the region. Lincoln is in charge of weather forecasts, warnings and local statements as well as aviation weather.
## History
### Early history (1879–1930)
On July 1, 1879, the Army Signal Service began taking weather observations using weather equipment at the Springer Building in Springfield becoming the first federal weather station in the region. Eleven years later the U.S. Weather Bureau was founded and the equipment in Springfield was transferred from the Signal Service to the Weather Bureau. In 1898 Springfield became the site of a new weather station that used kites to measure data in the atmosphere using tethered instruments. In 1905 Peoria became the site of a new U.S. Weather Bureau, constructed at the cost of \$7,969 the station measured temperatures, wind speeds, precipitation, snowfall, and barometric pressure. A year later at the Peoria Station a telegraph was installed to help better transmit weather data and observations. In Springfield the Weather Bureau was officially moved from its original location to a new building at 7th and Monroe. In 1928 the Springfield Weather Bureau moved temporarily to the Abe Lincoln Hotel and the old office was subsequently destroyed for construction of a new federal courthouse. Finally in 1930 the Springfield office was moved to its new location at the Springfield federal building.
### Aviation Weather Stations (1931–1954)
In 1931 the Peoria Weather Bureau began 24-hour operations, and in the following years the office began direct radio broadcasts, through local radio station WMBD. As the aviation industry grew a Weather Bureau Airport Station (WBAS) was opened at the Peoria Municipal Airport, initial observations included temperature, wind and rain readings. Only a couple of months later another WBAS station was opened at a small airport in Springfield. In 1943 weather bureau operations at the original Peoria office merged with the airport station and in 1944 the original station closed permanently. In 1947 the airport weather station in Springfield was moved to the new Lincoln Capital Airport. In 1954 the Springfield Weather Bureau was closed and the airport station picked up the responsibilities of the old office.
### Introduction of Radars (1955–1992)
In 1955 parts of Central and Western Illinois became covered by the new weather radar WSR-1 at Lambert Field in Saint Louis. Radar coverage continued to improve after a new WSR-57 radar was installed in Saint Louis. In 1965 the weather bureau becomes part of the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA) and only a few years later it became the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Weather Bureau became the National Weather Service (NWS). The Peoria and Springfield offices become known as "Weather Service Offices" under the new agency. In 1974 another radar (WSR-74S) was installed in Marseilles greatly improving the radar coverage in Central Illinois. A new radar, WSR-74C, was installed in Moline and helped the Peoria NWS issue severe weather warnings for the region. In 1980 the Springfield office received a WSR-74C radar system to use for local warning operations. In 1992 Automated Surface Observing Systems (ASOS) were installed at both the Peoria and Springfield airports.
### National Weather Service Lincoln (1993–)
In 1993 construction began on a new NWS Weather Forecast Office at the Logan County Airport in Lincoln. The new office would be part of a modernization plan that relocate all operation to Lincoln and close the Peoria and Springfield offices. In 1994 the new Lincoln office was officially accepted by the federal government but did not have any operational responsibilities to begin with. The following year the upper air equipment from the National Weather Service Paducah was moved to the new Lincoln location, the only function the new office had at the time was to take observations using this equipment. In the spring of 1995 construction began on a new WSR-88D radar system in Lincoln. The first five meteorologists reported to the Lincoln location, but forecasting responsibilities remained at the Peoria and Springfield offices. By September 1995 the Lincoln office began full-time operations and picked up the counties from the Peoria and Springfield offices as well as a few from the Saint Louis and Evansville offices. On October 1, 1995 the National Weather Service offices in Peoria and Springfield were officially closed after serving Central Illinois since the early 20th century.
In 1996 the WSR-88D radar was completed and joins a network of other "NEXRAD" radars throughout the country, while the WSR-74C in Springfield was officially decommissioned. In 1998 an Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) is installed at the office and helps forecasters make more accurate weather forecasts in the region. By the early 21st century the weather radio network in the region was greatly expanding and Lincoln could transmit warnings and general forecasts via such stations.
## Operations
Lincoln is equipped with a WSR-88D (NEXRAD) radar, one of 159 high-resolution Doppler weather radars operated by the National Weather Service. The Lincoln office is also equipped with an Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) that greatly increases monitoring capabilities of weather, satellite, and computer model data by forecasters. In addition the Lincoln office is also in charge of Automated Surface Observing Systems (ASOS) at General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport and Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport. NWS Lincoln employs both short and long term weather forecasters who each have vital duties. The short term forecaster issues the Hazardous Weather Outlook, river forecast products and monitors thunderstorm activity as it develops. The long term forecaster plans weather forecasts up until seven days into the future, coordinates with other long term forecasters in neighboring regions and issues advisories for Winter weather and dense fog. There are also meteorologists assigned to data acquisition responsibilities, staff in this position are responsible for monitoring weather balloons, river stage observations, operation of the NOAA weather radio system and operations of the Cooperative Observer network. During times of Severe Weather NWS Lincoln divides its covered area into various geographic districts with different forecasters handling the severe weather operation of his or her own sector. Depending on the severity of the outbreak NWS Lincoln employs 2 to 6 meteorologists to issue any warnings. Volunteer HAM radio operators are also present during most severe weather outbreaks, coordinating information between weather spotters and forecasters.
### Area of Responsibility
The National Weather Service Central Illinois is in charge of weather forecasts, warnings and local statements for 35 counties in Central and Southeastern Illinois: Cass, Champaign, Christian, Clark, Clay, Coles, Crawford, Cumberland, De Witt, Douglas, Edgar, Effingham, Fulton, Jasper, Knox, Lawrence, Logan, McLean, Macon, Marshall, Mason, Menard, Morgan, Moultrie, Peoria, Piatt, Richland, Sangamon, Schuyler, Scott, Shelby, Stark, Tazewell, Vermilion, and Woodford. In addition the office is in charge of aviation forecasts for five regional airports, Peoria, Springfield, Decatur, Champaign and Bloomington/Normal.
## Significant events
In June 1957 Hurricane Audrey's extratropical remnants caused a major rain, and flooding event across much of Central Illinois. The Weather Bureau used many rain gauges across the region to measure the impacts of the storm. The National Weather Service in Lincoln has covered many significant weather events in its history. Early in the Lincoln office's history, an F3 tornado that was part of the May 1995 Tornado Outbreak Sequence passed within two miles of the new office. During the North American blizzard of 1999 several Lincoln forecasters were forced to spend 1–2 consecutive days at the office when their replacements could not get to them. Two violent tornadoes have occurred during the office's period of operation, the Roanoke, Illinois F4 tornado of July 13, 2004, and the Washington, IL EF4 during the tornado outbreak of November 17, 2013.
## NOAA Weather Radio
National Weather Service Lincoln, Illinois forecast office provides programming for nine NOAA Weather Radio stations in Illinois. |
17,016,026 | 2002 Oman cyclone | 1,172,393,963 | North Indian cyclone in 2002 | [
"2002 North Indian Ocean cyclone season",
"Cyclonic storms",
"Tropical cyclones in 2002",
"Tropical cyclones in Oman"
]
| The 2002 Oman cyclone (JTWC designation: 01A, officially known as Cyclonic Storm ARB 01) was a tropical cyclone that struck the Dhofar region of Oman in May 2002. The first storm of the 2002 North Indian Ocean cyclone season, it developed on May 6 in the Arabian Sea, and it maintained a general west-northwest track for much of its duration. The system reached cyclonic storm status on May 9, meaning it attained winds of greater than 65 km/h (40 mph), and on May 10 it made landfall near Salalah; shortly thereafter it dissipated. The storm was rare, in the sense that it was one of only twelve tropical cyclones on record to approach the Arabian Peninsula in the month of May.
The storm brought the heaviest number of people to Dhofar in 30 years, causing flooding and creating rivers in wadis, or typically dry riverbeds. Several people drowned after their vehicles were swept away by the flooding. The storm caused locally heavy damage, totaling \$25 million (2002 USD).
## Meteorological history
An area of convection developed on May 2, 2002 near Sri Lanka, associated with a weak and broad circulation center. The system tracked west-northwestward through the Arabian Sea along a trough near the equator. Its thunderstorm activity was enhanced by a ridge to its north, though was also removed from the center. By May 5, the circulation had become better defined, and concurrently the convection increased over the center. After further organization, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) classified the system as Depression ARB01A on May 6. Around the same time, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) classified it as Tropical Depression 01A, while located about 1,300 km (810 mi) southeast of Salalah, Oman.
After becoming a tropical cyclone, the depression turned to a northwest motion before resuming a track to the west-northwest. On May 7 it intensified into a deep depression, and though its winds had increased, the structure became disorganized as the center became exposed from the thunderstorm activity. The convection waned, due to the influence of dry air from the Arabian Peninsula, as well as from wind shear. As a result, the IMD downgraded it to depression status early on May 8. However, later in the day, convection redeveloped over the western half of the circulation, and it again reached deep depression status, about 830 km (520 mi) southeast of Oman.
The storm maintained poleward outflow as it continued west-northwestward. Early on May 9 the IMD upgraded the system to a cyclonic storm, estimating winds of 65 km/h (40 mph) and a pressure of 994 mbar (29.4 inHg). Around that time, the storm was estimated by the JTWC to have attained peak winds of 85 km/h (50 km/h), with an atmospheric pressure of 991 mbar. While located a short distance offshore, the storm turned to the northwest and weakened slightly. At about 0900 UTC on May 10, the storm made landfall near Salalah, Oman. Shortly thereafter, it began dissipation over Oman. Its landfall in the Dhofar region of Oman was uncommon; in the period from 1891 to 1990, only 17 tropical depressions or storms struck the region.
## Impact
Along the coastline, the arrival of the storm resulted in strong waves of up to 4 metres (13 feet). The storm dropped heavy rainfall in the vicinity of its landfall, which were the greatest totals in 30 years in the Dhofar region. The city of Salalah reported 58 mm (2.3 in) in a 24‐hour period as the storm moved ashore, which was more than 300% of its average monthly for May. As a result, some flooding was reported in the city, and several wadis, or typically dry riverbeds, became sudden rivers in the area; one station recorded a discharge of 1146 m<sup>3</sup>/s (40,470 ft<sup>3</sup>/s). In Qairoon, precipitation amounted to 251 mm (9.9 in), which was the highest total in Oman. Severe thunderstorms were reported during its passage, with wind gusts peaking at 106 km/h (66 mph). In neighboring Yemen, the city of Al Ghaydah reported light winds of about 45 km/h (30 mph).
Damage was severe and widespread, estimated at \$25 million (2002 USD). Storm impact included property, crop, transportation, and agricultural damage, with hundreds of cattle drowning during the passage of the storm. Across the Dhofar region of Oman, the storm caused several injuries and a total of nine fatalities; most of the deaths were drownings, occurring when their vehicles were swept away by flooding in typically dry areas. Two army soldiers and one police officer drowned while saving other people in danger.
In the aftermath of the storm, the Omani government received 4,000 requests for assistance, and in turn provided financial aid to 500 families; additionally, the government supplied temporary housing for displaced people.
## See also
- List of Arabian Peninsula tropical cyclones
- 1996 Oman cyclone |
50,375,420 | Socony–Mobil Building | 1,171,276,865 | Office skyscraper in Manhattan, New York | [
"1956 establishments in New York City",
"42nd Street (Manhattan)",
"Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan",
"Harrison & Abramovitz buildings",
"Lexington Avenue",
"Midtown Manhattan",
"Modernist architecture in New York City",
"New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan",
"Office buildings completed in 1956",
"Skyscraper office buildings in Manhattan",
"Third Avenue"
]
| The Socony–Mobil Building, also known as 150 East 42nd Street, is a 45-story, 572-foot-tall (174 m) skyscraper in the Murray Hill and East Midtown neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It occupies the block bounded by 41st Street, 42nd Street, Lexington Avenue, and Third Avenue.
The Socony–Mobil Building contains a three-story base with a primary entrance on 42nd Street, a secondary entrance on Lexington Avenue, and a basement that is visible along Third Avenue. Above the base is a 42-story tower that brings the structure to its maximum height; this is flanked to the west and east by wings that rise to the 13th story. The stories above the base are completely clad with stainless steel, comprising 7,000 panels. The structure was designed in two sections. The consultant John B. Peterkin designed the original plans to comply with the 1916 Zoning Resolution, while architects Harrison & Abramovitz became involved in 1952 and redesigned the structure in the International and Moderne styles.
The Socony–Mobil Building was constructed between 1954 and 1956 as a speculative development by Peter B. Ruffin, who acquired a long-term lease from the site's owners, the Goelet family. Ruffin persuaded several tenants to move into 150 East 42nd Street, including the Socony–Mobil oil company, which occupied half the building upon its completion. The Socony–Mobil Building was renamed the Mobil Building in 1966 and was sold to Hiro Real Estate Company in 1987. After a series of renovations in the 1990s, it was sold to real estate investor David Werner in 2014. The building was designated a New York City landmark in 2003.
## Site
The Socony–Mobil Building is in the Murray Hill and East Midtown neighborhoods of Manhattan, New York City, occupying a full city block bounded by 42nd Street to the north, Third Avenue to the east, 41st Street to the south, and Lexington Avenue to the west. It is less than a block east of Grand Central Terminal. The Chrysler Building is across 42nd Street while the Chanin Building is across Lexington Avenue. Other nearby buildings include the Grand Hyatt New York to the northwest, as well as 110 East 42nd Street and the Pershing Square Building west of the Chanin Building. The site occupies 83,000 square feet (7,700 m<sup>2</sup>).
The site of the Socony–Mobil Building was initially owned by the Goelet family, namely Robert Goelet Sr. (1809–1879) and Peter Goelet (1800–1879), co-founders of the Chemical Bank. The Goelet brothers began acquiring land on the current Socony–Mobil Building site in 1848, close to the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street on the block's northwest corner, then leased the land. The largest lessee, furniture-design company Pottier & Stymus, built a six-story brick factory/showroom building on the site that burned down in 1888 and was rebuilt by the Goelets. The block also contained numerous hotels, a garage, and two theaters. An entrance to the New York City Subway's Grand Central–42nd Street station was built within a structure on 42nd Street after 1915. The subway entrance is owned by the New York City Transit Authority and consists of two escalators, a maintenance room, and a heating plant. It was the only preexisting structure to be preserved in the Socony–Mobil Building.
The completion of the underground Grand Central Terminal in 1913 resulted in the rapid development of the areas around Grand Central and a corresponding increase in real-estate prices. An elevated railroad line, running above 42nd Street to the Grand Central station, was closed in 1923, leading to the development of such structures as the Chanin Building and 110 East 42nd Street to the west of Lexington Avenue. However, the neighborhood east of Lexington Avenue continued to be made up of mostly low-rise buildings; these blocks were adjacent to the Second Avenue and Third Avenue elevated lines and so these areas were initially considered unattractive for major development. With the 1942 closure and demolition of the Second Avenue line, the Goelets purchased more lots at Third Avenue and 41st Street, accurately foreseeing that the Third Avenue elevated would eventually be closed and the area would be redeveloped.
## Architecture
The Socony–Mobil Building was designed by architects Harrison & Abramovitz in the International and Moderne Styles. The structure comprises 45 stories in total, with a roof height of 572 feet (174 m). The base is composed of three stories and occupies the whole block. Because the topography descends from Lexington Avenue to Third Avenue, the basement story is visible along Third Avenue, making that side four stories tall. The 42-story upper section is centrally located within the block and is flanked by thirteen-story wings to the east and west, giving the upper stories an "H"-shaped layout. The building has capacity for over 8,000 office workers.
### Facade
The facade is made of two sections: a base with a tinted-glass facade and an upper section with a metal facade. Both materials are used in Harrison & Abramovitz's other works, as well as other structures in New York City. In addition, the Socony–Mobil Building includes 3,200 vertically-pivoting single-pane windows. These windows could withstand wind gusts of up to 145 miles per hour (233 km/h).
#### Base
The base is four stories tall and occupies the entire block. The facade of the base is composed mostly of dark-blue, opaque tinted glass windows, with slightly projecting moldings made of stainless steel; this contrasts with the adjacent buildings, which are primarily clad with terracotta. At 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, there are large metallic entrance archways at the center of the base. There are ground-floor storefronts at all corners of the building, except at the southwest corner. An entrance to the New York City Subway's Grand Central–42nd Street station, leading to the platform for the , is within the building east of the 42nd Street archway.
#### Upper section
The facade of the upper 42 stories consists of approximately 750,000 pounds (340,000 kg) of 0.038-inch (0.97 mm) thick pleated chromium nickel panels, described as being 20-gauge "Type 302" stainless steel. There are 7,000 panels, embossed with pyramidal forms in high relief, on the building. These panels can be grouped into four types: singular rosettes vertically adjacent to the windows; pairings of large and small rosettes beside the windows; and two types of interlocking pyramidal forms. The panels were designed so that rain could be washed away easily. To ensure the patterns would be created to the correct specifications, the architects made full-sized plaster models and hired metal-die workers.
Harrison & Abramovitz had briefly considered using aluminum, but because of developers Peter B. Ruffin and John W. Galbreath's connections to the steel industry, the architects instead decided to clad the facade in steel. According to architectural historian Christopher Gray, "By using steel panels on the 1.6 million square foot [150,000 m<sup>2</sup>] building, the team gained several inches of floor space on the inside wall, greatly reduced labor costs on the skin, and saved weight—the panels weighed two pounds per square foot [9.8 kg/m<sup>2</sup>] as opposed to 48 pounds per square foot [230 kg/m<sup>2</sup>] for brick". It continues to be among the world's largest stainless-steel-clad skyscrapers.
### Interior
The structure contains about 1.8 million square feet (170,000 m<sup>2</sup>) in total interior space. Stainless steel was used in the lobby and for the elevator doors. The panels were press-formed into a trihedral pattern to prevent waviness and to break up reflections. Near the top of the building are three mechanical floors. At the time of the Socony–Mobil Building's completion, the 75,000 square feet (7,000 m<sup>2</sup>) on the square floor represented the single largest concentration of enclosed office space on a single floor in New York City.
A 215-foot-long (66 m) passageway under Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street was completed along with the building in 1955, connecting the basement to the rest of the Grand Central–42nd Street subway complex. Originating inside the basement of the Socony–Mobil Building, the passage curved northwest and then west under 42nd Street to the mezzanine of the subway station. The passageway was closed prior to 1991. The tunnel was reopened in the late 2010s as part of the complex's renovation, and new sidewalk staircases were built at the southeastern corner of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue.
## History
### Planning and construction
Developers John W. Galbreath and Peter B. Ruffin convinced the Goelet estate, the previous owners of the site, to erect an office building on their land at Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street. Subsequently, in 1942, the Goelets hired John B. Peterkin as a consultant. Peterkin published his first plan for an office building in the early 1940s. Based on proposals for Rockefeller Center, it called for a brick-clad office tower over an airport-bus terminal at ground level. At the time, structures with metal facades were not common and would not become a trend until the end of World War II. The plan did not progress because of doubts over how the large site would be developed, as well as the challenges in securing the long-term leases that the Goelets wanted.
The plans were then brought up by Ruffin, head of Galbreath's Galbreath Corporation, which was headquartered nearby. At the time, the Goelet estate "wanted the property improved but not exploited". Ruffin and Galbreath hired Harrison & Abramovitz to design the building in 1952. The developers convinced Mobil (at the time known as Socony-Vacuum) to be the anchor tenant, leasing nearly half of the structure. Socony-Vacuum would relocate from a headquarters at 26 Broadway in Lower Manhattan. Construction of a 42-story skyscraper was officially announced in 1953, and the developers decided to call the structure the Socony-Vacuum Building. At the time of the announcement, the site was still occupied by Volk's, a German bar on Third Avenue; the five-story Pershing Square Hotel on 42nd Street; a six-story loft next to the hotel; and numerous one-story structures with stores.
After the Mobil deal was finalized, the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States and the National City Bank of New York collectively loaned \$37.5 million for the project. In planning the building's exterior, Harrison and Abramovitz collaborated with Ruffin and Galbreath to devise a design. In 1953 and 1954, the original plans for a brick-faced structure were changed to that for a structure with embossed steel panels, even though at the time, steel was more expensive than brick. Ruffin and Galbreath had connections to U.S. Steel, which offered to cover the cost difference of steel, and because such a design would show off the potential uses of steel on buildings. Prior to the decision to use steel, Harrison & Abramovitz had briefly considered using aluminum. German architect Oscar Nitzchke, of Harrison & Abramovitz's office, may have been involved in designing the steel panels, though the extent of his involvement is unclear. For the steel panels, over 100 designs were said to have been reviewed.
Harrison & Abramovitz hired Turner Construction as general contractors and Edwards & Hjorth as structural engineers. A groundbreaking ceremony for 150 East 42nd Street was held on March 31, 1954. Girder construction started in November 1954 and was completed by the following July. The installation of steel panels then started in May 1955 and completed that December. Though the builders later claimed that "no accidents" had occurred during construction, there was an incident in August 1955 in which the scaffolding sagged, forcing an evacuation of nearby blocks.
### Opening and early years
The first tenants started moving into the building in April 1956, and the structure was declared finished on October 3, 1956. The opening ceremony occurred two weeks later, on October 17, with a cornerstone-laying ceremony attended by the leaders of several large tenants. These leaders made predictions of "scientific commonplaces" within the next hundred years, and they placed their predictions within the cornerstone. At the time of its completion, the Socony–Mobil Building was the first skyscraper to have its exterior wall entirely clad with stainless steel, as well as being the largest air-conditioned building in the world.
Ruffin, the Socony–Mobil Building's owner, had been placed in charge of leasing the office space. Though the building was a speculative development, it was successful: The space had been completely leased by February 1955, leading Ruffin to say that it was the first time he had seen a building fully leased "before [it] was even near completion". Numerous companies had followed Socony–Mobil's example of moving from Lower Manhattan to Midtown Manhattan, though many corporations were moving to the suburbs at the time.
At opening, Mobil had 2,500 employees working on the floors that they occupied. Another early tenant was the building's own contractor, Turner Construction, whose occupancy was described as an "ultimate compliment" to the Socony–Mobil Building's design. Other tenants included American Express Company, F. W. Woolworth Company, and First National City Bank at the base, as well as Air Reduction Company, International General Electric Company, American Tobacco Company, Hill & Knowlton, and St. Regis Paper Company on the upper floors. Shortly after the Socony–Mobil Building's opening, the Pinnacle Club of New York was established near the top stories as a corporate club; it rivaled the Chrysler Building's Cloud Club. Architectural historian Robert A. M. Stern wrote that the development of the Socony–Mobil Building represented the gradual move of office tenants from lower to midtown Manhattan.
### Later use
When the Socony–Mobil Company became the Mobil Oil Corporation in 1966, its headquarters was renamed the Mobil Building. The structure was the subject of several bomb attacks by the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN) in the 1970s. One such attack in 1970 targeted numerous office buildings in the area. Another bomb, in 1977, killed an office worker in the building. At the time of the 1970 attack, The New York Times stated that the Mobil Building was owned by the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company. Because of an increase in crime in the 1980s, as well as the fact that the Mobil Building was largely occupied by a single tenant, a security desk was installed in the lobby, which required that all visitors and employees sign in prior to entering the building.
In 1987, the building was sold to the Japanese firm Hiro Real Estate Company in a transaction estimated to be worth \$200 million. The building's occupancy rate decreased to 15 percent, partially because Mobil then relocated elsewhere and partially because of the early 1990s recession, even though neighboring buildings generally had over 80 percent occupancy. The Socony–Mobil Building was renovated in 1995, during which it was cleaned for the first time, and the elevators, mechanical systems, lobby, and concierge desk were restored. By that year, occupancy had increased to 25 percent. Several major tenants, including HypoVereinsbank, Pfizer, Gruner + Jahr, and American Airlines, rented space in the building, bringing the building to 70 percent occupancy by 1996. The building was 89 percent occupied by 1997. Hiro also extended the ground lease from 2013 to 2028 to show its long-term commitment; previously, companies had hesitated at moving into the building because the short term of the ground lease had indicated an uncertain future for the building.
Hiro acquired a long-term lease from the Goelet estate in 2001 and began renovating the structure for \$15 million. Around the same time, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission began considering the structure for official landmark status. Lawyers for Hiro objected, saying, "We don't believe the case [for landmark status] has been successfully made." In 2003, the Socony–Mobil Building was designated as an official landmark despite these objections. Financial firm Wells Fargo leased some space in 2011 for its New York City headquarters.
Hiro placed the building on the market in March 2014. The next month, real estate investor David Werner entered a contract to purchase the building for \$900 million. Meridian Capital Group and Eastdil financed Werner's purchase with a loan of \$700 million. By the 2010s, the building's tenants included Dentsu Aegis Network, as well as Mount Sinai Health System on multiple floors.
## Critical reception
The Socony–Mobil Building's design received mixed criticism. A contemporary Architectural Forum article said that much of the controversy revolved around the facade: "some dislike it because it reminds them of the metal ceiling of an old store. Others like it because it reminds them of an old store. Some who disliked it to begin with are now pleased with the sparkle. Some like it less now that the building is finished." Architectural critic Lewis Mumford was among the detractors: He described the facade as "a disaster" and said that "From the street, this new building looks as if it were coming down with measles." Similarly, critic Henry Hope Reed Jr. stated that "technical triumphs make for nothing but greater ugliness", while writer John Tauranac stated that "its design is uninspired".
The building also received praise for its design. A writer for The New York Times stated that "the curtain-wall or shell type of construction around skyscrapers has brought the metallic look to the skyline". In its 2003 designation report, the Landmarks Preservation Commission described the building as "one of New York's most striking skyscrapers".
## See also
- List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets |
21,602,990 | The Juice Is Loose | 1,155,254,676 | null | [
"2009 American television episodes",
"Cultural depictions of O. J. Simpson",
"Family Guy (season 7) episodes",
"O. J. Simpson murder case"
]
| "The Juice Is Loose" is the ninth episode of the seventh season of the American animated television series Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on March 15, 2009. In the episode, Peter cashes in an old raffle ticket from 1989 and wins a golf outing with O. J. Simpson. When he befriends Simpson and brings him home to meet the family, the residents of Quahog are not as welcoming of the infamous running back and try to force him out of town.
The episode was written by Andrew Goldberg and directed by Cyndi Tang. According to Nielsen ratings, the episode was viewed in 7.21 million homes in its original airing. The episode received mixed reviews, with most criticism being directed towards the episode's use of a three-minute-long live-action segment of Conway Twitty. Series regular Mike Henry provided the voice of O. J. Simpson, Cathy Cahlin Ryan guest-starred as Fred Goldman's wife in a cutaway, and Jeff Bergman guest-starred as a parody of Homer Simpson.
## Plot
According to an opening title card, this is one of several recently discovered "lost episodes" found in the Griffin family basement; it takes place in March 2007, prior to O. J. Simpson's September 2007 arrest for armed robbery.
Lois goes to her book club and asks Peter to babysit Stewie. Instead, he invites Cleveland, Quagmire, and Joe and they all play Truth or Dare, which results in a make out session between Cleveland and Joe. After a fiasco involving Stewie attempting to fix their satellite TV, and getting stuck on the roof, due to Peter's lack of supervision, Brian tries to tell Peter but he does not listen and instead reads a magazine featuring Nick Jonas. After Peter starts a pillow fight that turns violent, Lois comes in after Cleveland accidentally punches her in the nose, angry at Peter for not watching Stewie, who has gotten stuck on the roof. Peter attempts to go fix the satellite himself, at which point he comes across a raffle ticket from 1989 that he had forgotten to cash in, winning him a chance to play golf with a celebrity of his choice. Ultimately, he chose O. J. Simpson.
Unaware at first of Simpson's accusation for the murders of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, he grows fearful after Joe convinces him to walk around town with the song "Dust in the Wind" while thinking about the murders. Ultimately deciding to cash in the ticket, his friends suggest he spy on Simpson during the golf game and try to get him to confess to the murders. Hooking Peter to a wire, his cover is blown when the device shorts out. Simpson laments having lost a chance of escaping the accusation. Feeling guilty, Peter decides that Simpson is actually innocent, and decides to befriend him.
Peter brings Simpson home with him to meet the family, who are initially less tolerant of Simpson than Peter (except Stewie). Brian tries to tell Peter that he should not trust Simpson just because he idolized him as a child but Peter refuses.
Deciding to let Simpson stay at their house, word soon gets out of Simpson's presence in Quahog, causing Peter to decide to throw a house party and help everyone else get to know him better. Later that day, Peter and Simpson are met with an angry mob instead led by Mayor Adam West, intent on driving the latter out of town. Desperate for a place to live without being bothered by furious citizens, Simpson makes a heartfelt speech, professing that he is just as imperfect as everyone else, causing the residents of Quahog to apologize and embrace with him. A split second later, however, the tables turn to a surprise ending as Simpson takes out a knife and kills three people before running off. A furious mob goes on to chase after Simpson, as the Griffins look on, with Peter, wearing a guilty disappointed look, indifferently declaring, "I guess he did do it."
## Production
"The Juice Is Loose" was written by Andrew Goldberg and directed by Cyndi Tang. The writing process began when Goldberg was creator Seth MacFarlane's assistant and was given a freelance episode. He wrote "Believe It or Not, Joe's Walking on Air", and executive producer David A. Goodman thought he did a "fantastic job". Goldberg submitted a three-page list of ideas for his next episode, and MacFarlane especially liked the story for "The Juice Is Loose". They had to add a title card in the beginning of the episode saying that it was a "lost episode", as O. J. Simpson was sent to jail before the episode aired. The episode features a three-minute-long segment of an archive video of Conway Twitty performing "I See the Want To in Your Eyes", and executive producer Chris Sheridan had to explain to the Fox executives why the segment should be featured in the episode.
Series regular Mike Henry provided the voice of O. J. Simpson in the episode, and Cathy Cahlin Ryan guest-starred as Fred Goldman's wife in a cutaway gag. In addition to Henry and Ryan, actors Reid Bruton, Jules Green, Augie Castagnola, Virenia Lind guest-starred in the episode. Recurring voice actors Jeff Bergman, Max Burkholder, Ralph Garman, writer Danny Smith, writer Alec Sulkin, and writer John Viener made minor appearances in the episode.
## Reception
In its original airing on March 15, 2009, "The Juice is Loose" was watched by 7.21 million households and acquired a 3.6 rating in the 18–49 demographic. It was the most-watched show in the "Animation Domination" block, surpassing The Simpsons, American Dad! and King of the Hill. The episode received mixed reviews from television sources and critics. Ahsan Haque of IGN gave "The Juice Is Loose" 5.5/10, saying that the episode was "a largely forgettable episode with only a few moments of brilliance". The review criticized the usage of a three-minute-long Conway Twitty live-action singing clip which was received as an "effort to reduce the amount of animation ... for the episode". Alex Rocha of TV Guide said that he "did enjoy this episode" but called the Conway Twitty clip a "filler" and that he would have wanted to see a "blank screen or even commercials" instead. Steve Heisler of The A.V. Club stated that the episode "relied on an overabundance of pop culture riffs far too dated to elicit much more than a brief chuckle", and also criticized the Conway Twitty clip. He graded "The Juice Is Loose" a C+. |
30,340 | Pre-Socratic philosophy | 1,171,279,021 | Greek philosophers active before and during the time of Socrates | [
"Presocratic philosophy"
]
| Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as Early Greek Philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of these early philosophers spanned the workings of the natural world as well as human society, ethics, and religion. They sought explanations based on natural law rather than the actions of gods. Their work and writing has been almost entirely lost. Knowledge of their views comes from testimonia, i.e. later authors' discussions of the work of pre-Socratics. Philosophy found fertile ground in the ancient Greek world because of the close ties with neighboring civilizations and the rise of autonomous civil entities, poleis.
Pre-Socratic philosophy began in the 6th century BCE with the three Milesians: Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. They all attributed the arche (a word that could take the meaning of "origin," "substance" or "principle") of the world to, respectively, water, apeiron (the unlimited), and air. Another three pre-Socratic philosophers came from nearby Ionian towns: Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Pythagoras. Xenophanes is known for his critique of the anthropomorphism of gods. Heraclitus, who was notoriously difficult to understand, is known for his maxim on impermanence, ta panta rhei, and for attributing fire to be the arche of the world. Pythagoras created a cult-like following that advocated that the universe was made up of numbers. The Eleatic school (Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, and Melissus) followed in the 5th century BCE. Parmenides claimed that only one thing exists and nothing can change. Zeno and Melissus mainly defended Parmenides' opinion. Anaxagoras and Empedocles offered a pluralistic account of how the universe was created. Leucippus and Democritus are known for their atomism, and their views that only void and matter exist. The Sophists advanced philosophical relativism.
The impact of the pre-Socratics has been enormous. The pre-Socratics invented some of the central concepts of Western civilization, such as naturalism and rationalism, and paved the way for scientific methodology.
## Terminology
Pre-Socratic is a term adopted in the 19th century to refer to this group of philosophers. It was first used by the German philosopher J.A. Eberhard as "vorsokratische Philosophie''' in the late 18th century. In earlier literature they were referred to as physikoi ("physicists", after physis, "nature"), and their activity, as physiologoi (physical or natural philosophers), with this usage arising with Aristotle to differentiate them from theologoi (theologians) and mythologoi (storytellers and bards who conveyed Greek mythology), who attributed natural phenomena to the gods.
The term was coined to highlight a fundamental change in philosophical inquiries between the philosophers who lived before Socrates, who were interested in the structure of nature and cosmos (i.e., the universe, with the implication that the universe had order to it), and Socrates and his successors, who were mostly interested in ethics and politics. The term comes with drawbacks, as several of the pre-Socratics were highly interested in ethics and how to live the best life. Further, the term implies that the pre-Socratics are less significant than Socrates, or even that they were merely a stage (implying teleology) to classical era philosophy. The term is also chronologically inaccurate, as the last of the pre-Socratics were contemporaries of Socrates.
According to James Warren, the distinction between the pre-Socratic philosophers and philosophers of the classical era is demarcated not so much by Socrates, but by geography and what texts survived. The shift from the pre-Socratic to the classical periods involves a shift from philosophers being dispersed throughout the Greek-speaking world to their being concentrated in Athens. Further, starting in the classical period we have complete surviving texts, whereas in the pre-Socratic era we have only fragments. Scholar André Laks distinguishes two traditions of separating pre-Socratics from Socratics, dating back to the classical era and running through current times. The first tradition is the Socratic-Ciceronian, which uses the content of their philosophical inquires to divide the two groups: the pre-Socratics were interested in nature whereas Socrates focused on human affairs. The other tradition, the Platonic-Aristotelian, emphasizes method as the distinction between the two groups, as Socrates moved to a more epistemological approach of studying various concepts. Because of the drawbacks of the term pre-Socratic, Early Greek Philosophy is also used, most commonly in Anglo-Saxon literature.
André Laks and Glenn W. Most have especially popularized this shift in describing the era as "Early Greek Philosophy" over "Pre-Socratic Philosophy" through their comprehensive, nine volume Loeb editions of Early Greek Philosophy. In their first volume, they distinguish their systematic approach from that of Hermann Diels, beginning with the choice of "Early Greek Philosophy" over "pre-Socratic philosophy" most notably because Socrates is contemporary and sometimes even prior to philosophers traditionally considered "pre-Socratic" (e.g., the Atomists).
## Historical background
Philosophy emerged in ancient Greece in the 6th century BCE. The pre-Socratic era lasted about two centuries, during which the expanding Persian Achaemenid Empire was stretching to the west, while the Greeks were advancing in trade and sea routes, reaching Cyprus and Syria. The first pre-Socratics lived in Ionia, on the western coast of Anatolia. Persians conquered the towns of Ionia c. 540 BCE and Persian tyrants then ruled them. The Greeks revolted in 499 BCE, but ultimately were defeated in 494 BCE. Slowly but steadily Athens became the philosophical center of Greece by the middle of the fifth century. Athens was entering its Classical Era, with philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, but the impact of the pre-Socratics continued.
Several factors contributed to the birth of pre-Socratic philosophy in Ancient Greece. Ionian towns, especially Miletus, had close trade relations with Egypt and Mesopotamia, cultures with observations about the natural world that differed from those of the Greeks. Apart from technical skills and cultural influences, of paramount significance was that the Greeks acquired the alphabet c. 800 BCE.
Another factor was the ease and frequency of intra-Greek travel, which led to the blending and comparison of ideas. During the sixth century BCE, various philosophers and other thinkers moved easily around Greece, especially visiting pan-Hellenic festivals. While long-distance communication was difficult during ancient times, persons, philosophers, and books moved through other parts of the Greek peninsula, the Aegean islands, and Magna Graecia, a coastal area in Southern Italy.
The democratic political system of independent poleis also contributed to the rise of philosophy. Most Greek towns were not ruled by autocrats or priests, allowing citizens to question freely a wide range of issues. Various poleis flourished and became wealthy, especially Miletus. which was a centre of trade and production during the early phases of pre-Socratic philosophy. Trade of grain, oil, wine, and other commodities among each polis and colonies meant these towns were not isolated but embedded – and economically dependent – on a complex and changeable web of trade routes.
Greek mythology also influenced the birth of philosophy. The philosophers' ideas, were, to a certain extent, answers to questions that were subtly present in the work of Homer and Hesiod. The pre-Socratics arose from a world dominated by myths, sacred places, and local deities. The work of epic poets such as Homer, Hesiod and others reflected this environment. They are considered predecessors of the pre-Socratics since they seek to address the origin of the world and to organize traditional folklore and legends systematically. Greek popular religion contained many features of the religions of neighboring civilizations, such as the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Hittites. The first pre-Socratic philosophers also traveled extensively to other lands, meaning that pre-Socratic thought had roots abroad as well as domestically.
Homer, in his two epic poems, not only personifies gods and other natural phenomena, such as the Night, but he hints at some views on the origin and the nature of the world that came under scrutiny by the pre-Socratics. In his epic poem Theogony (literally meaning the birth of gods) Hesiod (c. 700 BCE) describes the origin of gods, and apart from the solid mythical structure, one can notice an attempt towards organizing beliefs using some form of rationalization; an example would be that Night gives birth to Death, Sleep and Dreams. Transmigration of life, a belief of the Orphics, a religious cult originating from Thrace, had affected the thought of the 5th century BCE but the overall influence of their cosmology on philosophy is disputed. Pherecydes, a poet, magician, and contemporary of Thales, in his book describes a particular cosmogony, asserting that three gods pre-existed – a step towards rationality.
## General features
The most important feature of pre-Socratic philosophy was the use of reason to explain the universe. The pre-Socratic philosophers shared the intuition that there was a single explanation that could explain both the plurality and the singularity of the whole – and that explanation would not be direct actions of the gods. The pre-Socratic philosophers rejected traditional mythological explanations of the phenomena they saw around them in favor of more rational explanations, initiating analytic and critical thought. Their efforts were directed at the investigation of the ultimate basis and essential nature of the external world. Many sought the material principle (arche) of things, and the method of their origin and disappearance. They emphasized the rational unity of things and rejected supernatural explanations, seeking natural principles at work in the world and human society. The pre-Socratics saw the world as a cosmos, an ordered arrangement that could be understood via rational inquiry. In their effort to make sense of the cosmos they coined new terms and concepts such as rhythm, symmetry, analogy, deductionism, reductionism, mathematization of nature and others.
An important term that is met in the thought of several pre-Socratic philosophers is arche. Depending on the context, it can take various related meanings. It could mean the beginning or origin with the undertone that there is an effect on the things to follow. Also, it might mean a principle or a cause (especially in Aristotelian tradition).
A common feature of the pre-Socratics is the absence of empiricism and experimentation in order to prove their theories. This may have been because of a lack of instruments, or because of a tendency to view the world as a unity, undeconstructable, so it would be impossible for an external eye to observe tiny fractions of nature under experimental control.
According to Jonathan Barnes, a professor of ancient philosophy, pre-Socratic philosophy exhibits three significant features: they were internal, systematic and economical. Internal meaning they tried to explain the world with characteristics found within this world. Systematic because they tried to universalize their findings. Economical because they tried to invoke only a few new terms. Based on these features, they reached their most significant achievement, they changed the course of human thought from myth to philosophy and science.
The pre-Socratics were not atheists; however, they minimized the extent of the gods' involvement in natural phenomena such as thunder or totally eliminated the gods from the natural world.
Pre-Socratic philosophy encompasses the first of the three phases of ancient Greek philosophy, which spanned around a thousand years. The pre-Socratic phase itself is divided into three phases. The first phase of pre-Socratic philosophy, mainly the Milesians, Xenophanes, and Heraclitus, consisted of rejecting traditional cosmogony and attempting to explain nature based on empirical observations and interpretations. A second phase – that of the Eleatics – resisted the idea that change or motion can happen. Based on their radical monism, they believed that only one substance exists and forms Kosmos. The Eleatics were also monists (believing that only one thing exists and everything else is just a transformation of it). In the third phase, the post-Eleatics (mainly Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Democritus) opposed most Eleatic teaching and returned to the naturalism of the Milesians.
The pre-Socratics were succeeded by the second phase of ancient philosophy, where the philosophical movements of Platonism, Cynicism, Cyrenaicism, Aristotelianism, Pyrrhonism, Epicureanism, Academic skepticism, and Stoicism rose to prominence until 100 BCE. In the third phase, philosophers studied their predecessors.
## Pre-Socratic philosophers
### Milesian beginning: Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes
The Milesian school was located in Miletus, Ionia, in the 6th century BCE. It consisted of Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, who most probably had a teacher-pupil relationship. They were mainly occupied with the origin and substance of the world; each of them attributed the Whole to a single arche (beginning or principle), starting the tradition of naturalistic monism.
#### Thales
Thales (c. 624–546 BCE) is considered to be the father of philosophy. None of his writings have survived. He is considered the first western philosopher since he was the first to use reason, to use proof, and to generalize. He created the word cosmos, the first word to describe the universe. He contributed to geometry and predicted the eclipse of 585 BCE. Thales may have been of Phoenician ancestry. Miletus was a meeting point and trade centre of the then great civilizations, and Thales visited the neighbouring civilizations, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete, and Phoenicia. In Egypt, geometry was advanced as a means of separating agricultural fields. Thales, though, advanced geometry with his abstract deductive reasoning reaching universal generalizations. Proclus, a later Athenian philosopher, attributed the theorem now known as Thales's theorem to Thales. He is also known for being the first to claim that the base angles of isosceles triangles are equal, and that a diameter bisects the circle. Thales visited Sardis, as many Greeks then, where astronomical records were kept and used astronomical observations for practical matters (oil harvesting). Thales was widely considered a genius in ancient times and was revered as one of the Seven Sages of Greece.
Most importantly, what marks Thales as the first philosopher is the posing of the fundamental philosophical question about the origin and the substance of the world, while providing an answer based on empirical evidence and reasoning. He attributed the origin of the world to an element instead of a divine being. Our knowledge of Thales' claim derives from Aristotle. Aristotle, while discussing opinions of previous philosophers, tells us that "Thales, the founder of this type of philosophy, says the principle (arche) is water." What he meant by arche, is a matter of interpretation (might be the origin, the element, or an ontological matrix), but regardless of the various interpretations, he conceived the world as One thing instead of a collection of various items and speculated on the binding/original elements.
Another important aspect of Thales' philosophy is his claim that everything is full of gods. What he meant by that is again a matter of interpretation, that could be from a theistic view to an atheist one. But the most plausible explanation, suggested by Aristotle, is that Thales is advocating a theory of hylozoism, that the universe, the sum of all things that exist, is divine and alive. Lastly, another notable claim by Thales is that earth "rests on water"- maybe that was a conclusion after observing fish fossils on land.
#### Anaximander
Anaximander (610–546 BCE), also from Miletus, was 25 years younger than Thales. He was a member of the elite of Miletus, wealthy and a statesman. He showed interest in many fields, including mathematics and geography. He drew the first map of the world, was the first to conclude that the earth is spherical, and made instruments to mark time, something like a clock. In response to Thales, he postulated as the first principle an undefined, unlimited substance without qualities (apeiron), out of which the primary opposites, hot and cold, moist and dry, became differentiated. His answer was an attempt to explain observable changes by attributing them to a single source that transforms to various elements. Like Thales, he provided a naturalistic explanation for phenomena previously given supernatural explanations. He is also known for speculating on the origin of mankind. He proclaimed that the earth is not situated in another structure but lies unsupported in the middle of the universe. Further, he developed a rudimentary evolutionary explanation for biodiversity in which constant universal powers affected the lives of animals. According to Giorgio de Santillana, a philosophy professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Anaximander's conception of a universe governed by laws shaped the philosophical thinking of centuries to come and was as important as the discovery of fire or Einstein's breakthroughs in science.
#### Anaximenes
Little is known of Anaximenes' (585–525 BCE) life. He was a younger contemporary and friend of Anaximander, and the two worked together on various intellectual projects. He also wrote a book on nature in prose. Anaximenes took for his principle aēr (air), conceiving it as being modified, via thickening and thinning, into the other classical elements: fire, wind, clouds, water, and earth. While his theory resembled that of Anaximander, as they both claimed a single source of the universe, Anaximenes suggested sophisticated mechanisms in which air is transformed to other elements, mainly because of changes of density. Since the classical era, he was considered the father of naturalistic explanations. Anaximenes expanded Anaximander's attempt to find a unitary cause explaining natural phenomena both living and nonliving, without, according to James Warren, having to "reduce living things in some way to mere locations of material change".
### Xenophanes
Xenophanes was born in Colophon, an Ionian town near Miletus. He was a well-traveled poet whose primary interests were theology and epistemology. Concerning theology, he pointed out that we did not know whether there was one god or many gods, or in such case whether there was a hierarchy among them. To critique the anthropomorphic representation of the gods by his contemporary Greeks, he pointed out that different nations depicted their gods as looking like themselves. He famously said that if oxen, horses, or lions could draw, they would draw their gods as oxen, horses, or lions. This critique was not limited to the looks of gods but also their behaviour. Greek mythology, mostly shaped by the poets Homer and Hesiod, attributed moral failures such as jealously and adultery to the gods. Xenophanes opposed this. He thought gods must be morally superior to humans. Xenophanes, however, never claimed the gods were omnipotent, omnibenevolent, or omniscient. Xenophanes also offered naturalistic explanations for phenomena such as the sun, the rainbow and St. Elmo's fire. Traditionally these were attributed to divine intervention but according to Xenophanes they were actually effects of clouds. These explanations of Xenophanes indicate empiricism in his thought and might constitute a kind of proto-scientism. Scholars have overlooked his cosmology and naturalism since Aristotle (maybe due to Xenophanes' lack of teleology) until recently but current literature suggests otherwise. Concerning epistemology, Xenophanes questioned the validity of human knowledge. Humans usually tend to assert their beliefs are real and represent truth. While Xenophanes was a pessimist about the capability of humans to reach knowledge, he also believed in gradual progress through critical thinking. Xenophanes tried to find naturalistic explanations for meteorological and cosmological phenomena.
Ancient philosophy historian Alexander Mourelatos notes Xenophanes used a pattern of thought that is still in use by modern metaphysics. Xenophanes, by reducing meteorological phenomena to clouds, created an argument that "X in reality is Y", for example B32, "What they call Iris [the rainbow] that too is in reality a cloud: one that appears to the eye as purple, red, and green. This is still use[d] today 'lightning is massive electrical discharge' or 'items such as tables are a cloud of micro-particles'." Mourelatos comments that the type of analogy that the cloud analogy is remains present in scientific language and "...is the modern philosopher's favourite subject for illustrations of inter-theoretic identity".
According to Aristotle and Diogenes Laertius, Xenophanes was Parmenides' teacher; but is a matter of debate in current literature whether Xenophanes should also be considered an Eleatic.
### Heraclitus
The hallmark of Heraclitus' philosophy is flux. In fragment DK B30, Heraclitus writes: This world-order [Kosmos], the same of all, no god nor man did create, but it ever was and is and will be: everliving fire, kindling in measures and being quenched in measures. Heraclitus posited that all things in nature are in a state of perpetual flux. Like previous monist philosophers, Heraclitus claimed that the arche of the world was fire, which was subject to change – that makes him a materialist monist. From fire all things originate and all things return to it again in a process of eternal cycles. Fire becomes water and earth and vice versa. These everlasting modifications explain his view that the cosmos was and is and will be. The idea of continual flux is also met in the "river fragments". There, Heraclitus claims we can not step into the same river twice, a position summarized with the slogan ta panta rhei (everything flows). One fragment reads: "Into the same rivers we both step and do not step; we both are and are not" (DK 22 B49a). Heraclitus is seemingly suggesting that not only the river is constantly changing, but we do as well, even hinting at existential questions about humankind.
Another key concept of Heraclitus is that opposites somehow mirror each other, a doctrine called unity of opposites. Two fragments relating to this concept state, "As the same thing in us is living and dead, waking and sleeping, young and old. For these things having changed around are those, and those in turn having changed around are these" (B88) and "Cold things warm up, the hot cools off, wet becomes dry, dry becomes wet" (B126). Heraclitus' doctrine on the unity of opposites suggests that unity of the world and its various parts is kept through the tension produced by the opposites. Furthermore, each polar substance contains its opposite, in a continual circular exchange and motion that results in the stability of the cosmos. Another of Heraclitus' famous axioms highlights this doctrine (B53): "War is father of all and king of all; and some he manifested as gods, some as men; some he made slaves, some free", where war means the creative tension that brings things into existence.
A fundamental idea in Heraclitus is logos, an ancient Greek word with a variety of meanings; Heraclitus might have used a different meaning of the word with each usage in his book. Logos seems like a universal law that unites the cosmos, according to a fragment: "Listening not to me but to the logos, it is wise to agree (homologein) that all things are one" (DK 22 B50). While logos is everywhere, very few people are familiar with it. B 19 reads: [hoi polloi] "...do not know how to listen [to Logos] or how to speak [the truth]" Heraclitus' thought on logos influenced the Stoics, who referred to him to support their belief that rational law governs the universe.
### Pythagoreanism
Pythagoras (582–496 BCE) was born on Samos, a small island near Miletus. He moved to Croton at about age 30, where he established his school and acquired political influence. Some decades later he had to flee Croton and relocate to Metapontum.
Pythagoras was famous for studying numbers and the geometrical relations of numbers. A large following of Pythagoreans adopted and extended his doctrine. They advanced his ideas, reaching the claim that everything consists of numbers, the universe is made by numbers and everything is a reflection of analogies and geometrical relations. Numbers, music and philosophy, all interlinked, could comfort the beauty-seeking human soul and hence Pythagoreans espoused the study of mathematics.
Pythagorianism perceived the world as perfect harmony, dependent on number, and aimed at inducing humankind likewise to lead a harmonious life, including ritual and dietary recommendations. Their way of life was ascetic, restraining themselves from various pleasures and food. They were vegetarians and placed enormous value on friendship. Pythagoras politically was an advocate of a form of aristocracy, a position which later Pythagoreans rejected, but generally, they were reactionary and notably repressed women. Other pre-Socratic philosophers mocked Pythagoras for his belief in reincarnation.
Notable Pythagorians included Philolaus (470-380 BCE), Alcmaeon of Croton, Archytas (428-347 BCE) and Echphantus. The most notable was Alcmaeon, a medical and philosophical writer. Alcmaeon noticed that most organs in the body come in pairs and suggested that human health depends on harmony between opposites (hot/cold, dry/wet), and illness is due to an imbalance of them. He was the first to think of the brain as the center of senses and thinking. Philolaus advanced cosmology through his discovery of heliocentricism – the idea that the Sun lies in the middle of the earth's orbit and other planets.
Pythagoreanism influenced later Christian currents as Neoplatonism, and its pedagogical methods were adapted by Plato. Furthermore, there seems to be a continuity in some aspects of Plato's philosophy. As Prof. Carl Huffman notes, Plato had a tendency to invoke mathematics in explaining natural phenomena, and he also believed in the immortality, even divinity of the human soul.
### The Eleatics: Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus
The Eleatic school is named after Elea, an ancient Greek town on the southern Italian Peninsula. Parmenides is considered the founder of the school. Other eminent Eleatics include Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos. According to Aristotle and Diogenes Laertius, Xenophanes was Parmenides' teacher, and it is debated whether Xenophanes should also be considered an Eleatic. Parmenides was born in Elea to a wealthy family around 515 BCE. Parmenides of Elea was interested in many fields, such as biology and astronomy. He was the first to deduce that the earth is spherical. He was also involved in his town's political life.
Parmenides' contributions were paramount not only to ancient philosophy but to all of western metaphysics and ontology. Parmenides wrote a hard to interpret poem, named On Nature or On What-is, that substantially influenced later Greek philosophy. Only 150 fragments of this poem survive. It tells a story of a young man (kouros in ancient Greek) dedicated to finding the truth carried by a goddess on a long journey to the heavens. The poem consists of three parts, the proem (i.e., preface), the Way of Truth and the Way of Opinion. Very few pieces from the Way of Opinion survive. In that part, Parmenides must have been dealing with cosmology, judging from other authors' references. The Way of Truth was then, and is still today, considered of much more importance. In the Way of Truth, the goddess criticizes the logic of people who do not distinguish the real from the non-existent ("What-is" and "What-is-Not"). In this poem Parmenides unfolds his philosophy: that all things are One, and therefore nothing can be changed or altered. Hence, all the things that we think to be true, even ourselves, are false representations. What-is, according to Parmenides, is a physical sphere that is unborn, unchanged, and infinite. This is a monist vision of the world, far more radical than that of Heraclitus. The goddess teaches Kouros to use his reasoning to understand whether various claims are true or false, discarding senses as fallacious. Other fundamental issues raised by Parmenides' poem are the doctrine that nothing comes from nothing and the unity of being and thinking. As quoted by DK fragment 3: To gar auto noein estin te kai einai (For to think and to be is one and the same).
Zeno and Melissus continued Parmenides' thought on cosmology. Zeno is mostly known for his paradoxes, i.e., self-contradictory statements which served as proofs that Parmenides' monism was valid, and that pluralism was invalid. The most common theme of those paradoxes involved traveling a distance, but since that distance comprises infinite points, the traveler could never accomplish it. His most famous is the Achilles paradox, which is mentioned by Aristotelis: "The second is called the 'Achilles' and says that the slowest runner will never be caught by the fastest, because it is necessary for the pursuer first to arrive at the point from which the pursued set off, so it is necessary that the slower will always be a little ahead." (Aristotle Phys. 239b14–18 [DK 29 A26]) Melissus defended and advanced Parmenides' theory using prose, without invoking divinity or mythical figures. He tried to explain why we think various non-existent objects exist.
The Eleatics' focus on Being through means of logic initiated the philosophical discipline of ontology. Other philosophers influenced by the Eleatics (such as the Sophists, Plato, and Aristotle) further advanced logic, argumentation, mathematics and especially elenchos (proof). The Sophists even placed Being under the scrutiny of elenchos. Because of the Eleatics reasoning was acquiring a formal method.
### The Pluralists: Anaxagoras and Empedocles
The Pluralist school marked a return to Milesian natural philosophy, though much more refined because of Eleatic criticism.
Anaxagoras was born in Ionia, but was the first major philosopher to emigrate to Athens. He was soon associated with the Athenian statesman Pericles and, probably due to this association, was accused by a political opponent of Pericles for impiety as Anaxagoras held that the sun was not associated with divinity; it was merely a huge burning stone. Pericles helped Anaxagoras flee Athens and return to Ionia. Anaxagoras was also a major influence on Socrates.
Anaxagoras is known for his "theory of everything". He claimed that "in everything there is a share of everything." Interpretations differ as to what he meant. Anaxagoras was trying to stay true to the Eleatic principle of the everlasting (What-is) while also explaining the diversity of the natural world. Anaxagoras accepted Parmenides' doctrine that everything that exists (What-is) has existed forever, but contrary to the Eleatics, he added the ideas of panspermia and nous. All objects were mixtures of various elements, such as air, water, and others. One special element was nous, i.e., mind, which is present in living things and causes motion.
According to Anaxagoras, Nous was one of the elements that make up the cosmos. Things that had nous were alive. According to Anaxagoras, all things are composites of some basic elements; although it is not clear what these elements are. All objects are a mixture of these building blocks and have a portion of each element, except nous. Nous was also considered a building block of the cosmos, but it exists only in living objects. Anaxagoras writes: "In everything there is a portion (moira) of everything except mind (nous), but there are some things in which mind too is present." Nous was not just an element of things, somehow it was the cause of setting the universe into motion. Anaxagoras advanced Milesian thought on epistemology, striving to establish an explanation that could be valid for all natural phenomena. Influenced by the Eleatics, he also furthered the exploration of metatheoretical questions such as the nature of knowledge.
Empedocles was born in Akragas, a town in the southern Italian peninsula. According to Diogenes Laertius, Empedocles wrote two books in the form of poems: Peri Physeos (On nature) and the Katharmoi (Purifications). Some contemporary scholars argue these books might be one; all agree that interpreting Empedocles is difficult.
On cosmological issues, Empedocles takes from the Eleatic school the idea that the universe is unborn, has always been and always will be. He also continues Anaxagoras' thought on the four "roots" (i.e., classical elements), that by intermixing, they create all things around us. These roots are fire, air, earth, and water. Crucially, he adds two more components, the immaterial forces of love and strife. These two forces are opposite and by acting upon the material of the four roots unite in harmony or tear apart the four roots, with the resulting mixture being all things that exist. Empedocles uses an analogy of how this is possible: as a painter uses a few basic colors to create a painting, the same happens with the four roots. It is not quite clear if love and strife co-operate or have a greater plan, but love and strife are in a continual cycle that generates life and the earth we live in. Other beings, apart from the four roots and love and strife, according to Empedocles' Purifications are mortals, gods, and daemons. Like Pythagoras, Empedocles believed in the soul's transmigration and was vegetarian.
### Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus
Leucippus and Democritus both lived in Abdera, in Thrace. They are most famous for their atomic cosmology even though their thought included many other fields of philosophy, such as ethics, mathematics, aesthetics, politics, and even embryology.
The atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus was a response to the Eleatic school, who held that motion is not possible because everything is occupied with What-is. Democritus and Leucippus reverted the Eleatic axiom, claiming that since motions exist, What-is-not must also exist; hence void exists. Democritus and Leucippus were skeptics regarding the reliability of our senses, but they were confident that motion exists. Atoms, according to Democritus and Leucippus, had some characteristics of the Eleatic What-is: they were homogeneous and indivisible. These characteristics allowed answers to Zeno's paradoxes. Atoms move within the void, interact with each other, and form the plurality of the world we live in, in a purely mechanical manner.
One conclusion of the Atomists was determinism - the philosophical view that all events are determined completely by previously existing causes. As Leucippus said, (DK 67 B2) "Nothing comes to be random but everything is by reason and out of necessity." Democritus concluded that since everything is atoms and void, several of our senses are not real but conventional. Color, for example, is not a property of atoms; hence our perception of color is a convention. As Democritus said, (DK 68 B9) "By convention sweet, by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention colour; in reality atoms and void." This can be interpreted in two ways. According to James Warren there is an eliminativist interpretation, such that Democritus means that color is not real, and there is a relativist interpretation, such that Democritus means that color and taste are not real but are perceived as such by our senses through sensory interaction.
### Sophists
The sophists were a philosophical and educational movement that flourished in ancient Greece before Socrates. They attacked traditional thinking, from gods to morality, paving the way for further advances of philosophy and other disciplines such as drama, social sciences, mathematics, and history.
Plato disparaged the sophists, causing long-lasting harm to their reputation. Plato thought philosophy should be reserved for those who had the appropriate intellect to understand it; whereas the sophists would teach anyone who would pay tuition. The sophists taught rhetoric and how to address issues from multiple viewpoints. Since the sophists and their pupils were persuasive speakers at court or in public, they were accused of moral and epistemological relativism, which indeed some sophists appeared to advocate. Prominent sophists include Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, Thrasymachus, Prodicus, Callicles, Antiphon, and Critias.
Protagoras is mostly known for two of his quotes. One is that "[humans are..] the measure of all things, of things that are that they are, of things that are not that they are not" which is commonly interpreted as affirming philosophical relativism, but it can also be interpreted as claiming that knowledge is only relevant to humankind, that moral rightness and other forms of knowledge are relevant to and limited to human mind and perception. The other quote is, "Concerning the gods, I cannot ascertain whether they exist or whether they do not, or what form they have; for there are many obstacles to knowing, including the obscurity of the question and the brevity of human life."
Gorgias wrote a book named On Nature, in which he attacked the Eleatics' concepts of What-is and What-is-not. He claimed it is absurd to hold that nonexistence exists, and that What-is was impossible since it had to either be generated or be unlimited and neither is sufficient. There is an ongoing debate among modern scholars whether he was a serious thinker, a precursor of extreme relativism and skepticism, or merely a charlatan.
Antiphon placed natural law against the law of the city. One need not obey the city's laws as long as one will not get caught. One could argue that Antiphon was a careful hedonist—rejecting dangerous pleasures.
### Philolaous of Croton and Diogenes of Apollonia
Philolaus of Croton and Diogenes of Apollonia from Thrace (born c. 460 BCE) are considered the last generation of pre-Socratics. Rather than advancing a cosmological perspective on how our universe is constructed, they are mostly noted for advancing abstract thinking and argumentation.
Pythagorianism, Anaxagoras and Empedocles influenced Philolaus. He attempted to explain both the variety and unity of the cosmos. He addressed the need to explain how the various masses of the universe interact among them and coined the term Harmonia, a binding force that allows mass to take shape. The structure of the cosmos consisted of apeira (unlimiteds) and perainonta (limiters). Diogenes of Apollonia returned to Milesian monism, but with a rather more elegant thought. As he says in DK64 B2 "It seems to me, overall, that all things are alterations of the same things and are the same thing". He explains that things, even when changing shapes, remain ontologically the same.
## Topics
### Knowledge
The mythologoi, Homer and Hesiod, along with other poets, centuries before the pre-Socratics, thought that true knowledge was exclusive to the divine. But starting with Xenophanes, the pre-Socratics moved towards a more secular approach to knowledge. The pre-Socratics sought a method to understand the cosmos, while being aware that there is a limit to human knowledge.
While Pythagoras and Empedocles linked their self-proclaimed wisdom to their divinely inspired status, they tried to teach or urge mortals to seek the truth about the natural realm—Pythagoras by means of mathematics and geometry and Empedocles by exposure to experiences. Xenophanes thought that human knowledge was merely an opinion that cannot be validated or proven to be true. According to Jonathan Warren, Xenophanes set the outline of the nature of knowledge. Later, Heraclitus and Parmenides stressed the capability of humans to understand how things stand in nature through direct observation, inquiry, and reflection.
### Theology
Pre-Socratic thought contributed to the demythologization of the Greek popular religion. The narrative of their thought contributed to shifting the course of ancient Greek philosophy and religion away from the realm of divinity and even paved the way for teleological explanations. They attacked the traditional representations of gods that Homer and Hesiod had established and put Greek popular religion under scrutiny, initiating the schism between natural philosophy and theology. Pre-Socratic philosophers did not have atheistic beliefs, but it should be kept in mind that being an atheist those days was not without social or legal dangers. Despite that, arguments rejecting deities were not barred from the public sphere which can be seen in Protagoras's quotation on the gods: "About the gods I am able to know neither that they exist nor that they do not exist."
The theological thought starts with the Milesian philosophers. It is evident in Anaximander's idea of the apeiron steering everything, which had other abilities usually attributed to Zeus. Later, Xenophanes developed a critique of the anthropomorphism of the gods. Xenophanes set three preconditions for God: he had to be all good, immortal and not resembling humans in appearance, which had a major impact on western religious thought.
The theological thought of Heraclitus and Parmenides is not entirely certain, but it is generally accepted that they believed in some kind of divinity. The Pythagoreans and Empedocles believed in the transmigration of souls. Anaxagoras asserted that cosmic intelligence (nous) gives life to things. Diogenes of Appollonia expanded this line of thinking and might have constructed the first teleological argument "it would not be possible without Intellection for it so to be divided up that it has the measures of all things — of winter and summer and night and day and rains and winds and fair weather. The other things, too, if one wishes to consider them, one would find disposed of in the best possible way." While some pre-Socratics were trying to find alternatives to divinity, others were setting the foundation of explaining the universe in terms of teleology and intelligent design by a divine force.
### Medicine
Prior to the pre-Socratics, health and illness were thought to be governed by gods. Pre-Socratic philosophy and medicine advanced in parallel, with medicine as a part of philosophy and vice versa. It was Hippocrates (often hailed as the father of medicine) who separated – but not completely – the two domains. Physicians incorporated pre-Socratic philosophical ideas about the nature of the world in their theoretical framework, blurring the border between the two domains. An example is the study of epilepsy, which in popular religion was thought to be a divine intervention to human life, but Hippocrates' school attributed it to nature, just as Milesian rationalism demythologized other natural phenomena such as earthquakes. The systematic study of anatomy, physiology, and illnesses led to the discovery of cause-effect relations and a more sophisticated terminology and understanding of the diseases that ultimately yielded rational science.
### Cosmology
The pre-Socratics were the first to attempt to provide reductive explanations for a plethora of natural phenomena.
Firstly, they were preoccupied with the mystery of the cosmic matter—what was the basic substance of the universe? Anaximander suggested apeiron (limitless), which hints, as Aristotle analyzed, there is no beginning and no end to it, both chronologically and within the space. Anaximenes placed aêr (air) as the primary principle, probably after realizing the importance of air to life and/or the need to explain various observable changes. Heraclitus, also seeking to address the issue of the ever changing world, placed fire as the primary principle of the universe, that transforms to water and earth to produce the universe. Ever-transforming nature is summarized by Heraclitus' axiom panta rhei (everything is in a state of flux). Parmenides suggested two ever-lasting primary building blocs, night and day, which together form the universe. Empedocles increased the building blocks to four and named them roots, while also adding Love and Strife, to serve as the driving force for the roots to mingle. Anaxagoras extended even more the plurality of Empedocles, claiming everything is in everything, myriads of substances were mixing among each other except one, Nous (mind) that orchestrates everything—but did not attribute divine characteristics to Nous. Leucippus and Democritus asserted the universe consists of atoms and void, while the motion of atoms is responsible for the changes we observe.
### Rationalism, observation and the beginning of scientific thought
The pre-Socratic intellectual revolution is widely considered to have been the first step towards liberation of the human mind from the mythical world and initiated a march towards reason and scientific thought that yielded modern western philosophy and science. The pre-Socratics sought to understand the various aspects of nature by means of rationalism, observations, and offering explanations that could be deemed as scientific, giving birth to what became Western rationalism. Thales was the first to seek for a unitary arche of the world. Whether arche meant the beginning, the origin, the main principle or the basic element is unclear, but was the first attempt to reduce the explanations of the universe to a single cause, based on reason and not guided by any sort of divinity. Anaximander offered the principle of sufficient reason, a revolutionary argument that would also yield the principle that nothing comes out of nothing. Most of pre-Socratics seemed indifferent to the concept of teleology, especially the Atomists who fiercely rejected the idea. According to them, the various phenomena were the consequence of the motion of atoms without any purpose. Xenophanes also advanced a critique of anthropomorphic religion by highlighting in a rational way the inconsistency of depictions of the gods in Greek popular religion.
Undoubtedly, pre-Socratics paved the way towards science, but whether what they did could constitute science is a matter of debate. Thales had offered the first account of a reduction and a generalization, a significant milestone towards scientific thought. Other pre-Socratics also sought to answer the question of arche, offering various answers, but the first step towards scientific thought was already taken. Philosopher Karl Popper, in his seminal work Back to Presocratics (1958) traces the roots of modern science (and the West) to the early Greek philosophers. He writes: "There can be little doubt that the Greek tradition of philosophical criticism had its main source in Ionia ... It thus leads the tradition which created the rational or scientific attitude, and with it our Western civilization, the only civilization, which is based upon science (though, of course, not upon science alone)." Elsewhere in the same study Popper diminishes the significance of the label they should carry as purely semantics. "There is the most perfect possible continuity of thought between [the Presocratics'] theories and the later developments in physics. Whether they are called philosophers, or pre-scientists, or scientists, matters very little." Other scholars did not share the same view. F. M. Cornford considered the Ionanians as dogmatic speculators, due to their lack of empiricism.
## Reception and legacy
### Antiquity
The pre-Socratics had a direct influence on classical antiquity in many ways. The philosophic thought produced by the pre-Socratics heavily influenced later philosophers, historians and playwrights. One line of influence was the Socrato-Ciceronian tradition, while the other was the Platonic-Aristotelian.
Socrates, Xenophon and Cicero were highly influenced by the physiologoi (naturalists) as they were named in ancient times. The naturalists impressed young Socrates and he was interested in the quest for the substance of the cosmos, but his interest waned as he became steadily more focused on epistemology, virtue, and ethics rather than the natural world. According to Xenophon, the reason was that Socrates believed humans incapable of comprehending the cosmos. Plato, in the Phaedo, claims that Socrates was uneasy with the materialistic approach of the pre-Socratics, particularly Anaxagoras. Cicero analyzed his views on the pre-Socratics in his Tusculanae Disputationes, as he distinguished the theoretical nature of pre-Socratic thought from previous "sages" who were interested in more practical issues. Xenophon, like Cicero, saw the difference between pre-Socratics and Socrates being his interest in human affairs (ta anthropina).
The pre-Socratics deeply influenced both Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle discussed the pre-Socratics in the first book of Metaphysics, as an introduction to his own philosophy and the quest for arche. He was the first to state that philosophy starts with Thales. It is not clear whether Thales talked of water as arche, or that was a retrospective interpretation by Aristotle, who was examining his predecessors under the scope of his views. More crucially, Aristotle criticized the pre-Socratics for not identifying a purpose as a final cause, a fundamental idea in Aristotelian metaphysics. Plato also attacked pre-Socratic materialism.
Later, during the Hellenistic era, philosophers of various currents focused on the study of nature and advanced pre-Socratic ideas. The Stoics incorporated features from Anaxagoras and Heraclitus, such as nous and fire respectively. The Epicureans saw Democritus' atomism as their predecessor while the Sceptics were linked to Xenophanes.
### Modern era
The pre-Socratics, along with the rest of ancient Greece, invented the central concepts of Western civilization: freedom, democracy, individual autonomy and rationalism. Francis Bacon, a 16th-century philosopher known for advancing the scientific method, was probably the first philosopher of the modern era to use pre-Socratic axioms extensively in his texts. He criticized the pre-Socratic theory of knowledge by Xenophanes and others, claiming that their deductive reasoning could not yield meaningful results—an opinion contemporary philosophy of science rejects. Bacon's fondness for the pre-Socratics, especially Democritus' atomist theory, might have been because of his anti-Aristotelianism.
Friedrich Nietzsche admired the pre-Socratics deeply, calling them "tyrants of the spirit" to mark their antithesis and his preference against Socrates and his successors. Nietzsche also weaponized pre-Socratic antiteleology, coupled with the materialism exemplified by Democritus, for his attack on Christianity and its morals. Nietzsche saw the pre-Socratics as the first ancestors of contemporary science—linking Empedocles to Darwinism and Heraclitus to physicist Helmholtz. According to his narrative, limned in many of his books, the pre-Socratic era was the glorious era of Greece, while the so-called Golden Age that followed was an age of decay, according to Nietzsche. Nietzsche incorporated the pre-Socratics in his Apollonian and Dionysian dialectics, with them representing the creative Dionysian aspect of the duo.
Martin Heidegger found the roots of his phenomenology and later thinking of Things and the Fourfold in the pre-Socratics, considering Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus as the original thinkers on being, which he identified in their work as physis [φύσις] (emergence, contrasted against κρύπτεσθαι, kryptesthai, in Heraclitus’ Fragment 123) or aletheia'' [αλήθεια] (truth as unconcealment).
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"Venues of the 2014 Winter Olympics"
]
| The Bolshoy Ice Dome (Russian: Большой Ледовый дворец) is a multi-purpose indoor arena located in Olympic Park, Sochi, Russia. Opened in 2012, the 12,000-seat arena was primarily constructed to host hockey competitions during the 2014 Winter Olympics. Following the Games, it became the home arena of HC Sochi, an expansion team of the KHL. The arena has also hosted concerts and other events. Prior to the Games, the arena hosted the IIHF World U18 Championships and Channel One Cup in 2013.
The arena's exterior is distinguished by its LED-illuminated roof, which its designers described as resembling fabergé eggs and frozen water droplets.
## Name and location
The arena was named "Bolshoy", meaning "big", "large" and "huge" in Russian. This highlights the integral role of ice hockey at the Olympics, which has been dubbed "the most popular sport" of the Games by the organizers themselves. Furthermore, the name was chosen due to its universal familiarity in other countries, in addition to its allusion to the Bolshoi Theatre, Bolshoi Ballet, and other great Russian accomplishments.
The Ice Dome was situated in the Coastal Cluster zone of venues for the 2014 Winter Olympics. It served as the main arena for the men and women's ice hockey tournament throughout the Games. It is the only venue in the Olympic Park located on top of a hill, and is less than 1,000 feet (300 m) away from Shayba Arena, which was the secondary ice hockey venue that hosted mainly preliminary round matches.
## Structure and facilities
The construction of the Bolshoy Ice Dome started in 2009 and finished in 2012. It was designed by architect firm Mostovik and completed at a cost of approximately US\$180 million, although ITAR-TASS estimated the cost to be as high as \$300 million. A total of 20 architects and 70 engineers – headed by Andrey Ustinov – were responsible for the construction of the arena.
The exterior structure of the Ice Dome was designed to resemble a frozen ice droplet. It has also drawn comparisons to a Fabergé egg, due to the light-emitting diodes (LEDs) resembling the "jewel-encrusted surface" of the famous Russian art piece. Ustinov confirmed that the building was designed to be "a combination of both." The roof of the dome is mostly silver in colour and is covered with aluminium panels. It is decorated with 38,000 LED lights which illuminate the outside of the arena at night. The roof also doubles as a scoreboard that displays the live score of the game being played inside and an animation of a hockey puck whenever a goal is scored. However, it famously did not display the final score after the United States defeated the hosts Russia 3–2 in an overtime shootout during the 2014 Winter Olympics.
In the arena's interior, the 12,000 seats are arranged in bowl-like configuration. The concourse features 35,000 square feet (3,300 m<sup>2</sup>) of glazed glass, which enables spectators to have a view of the Caucasus Mountains. The hockey rink's dimensions are 60 metres (200 ft) × 30 metres (98 ft), in line with the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) specifications. This contrasts with the dimensions of the previous Olympics, which utilized National Hockey League (NHL) sized rinks that are 4 metres (13 ft) narrower in width. It contains 12 dressing rooms for players, an entry tunnel that can be accessed by large vehicles, and a practice ice rink. Moreover, the Ice Dome uses heat transfer fluids on the ice and in the air conditioning system. This helps to preserve the quality of the ice, as well as moderate the temperature within the arena so that spectators are kept warm while maintaining the coolness of the ice. These technologies – along with the arena's insulation – were developed by the Dow Chemical Company, one of the official sponsors of the Olympic Games.
## Events
In order to test the arenas built for the Olympics, the Bolshoy Ice Dome served as one of the venues for the 2013 IIHF World U18 Championships. It subsequently held the Channel One Cup from 19–22 December 2013 in final preparation before the start of the Games. As the main venue for the 2014 Olympic ice hockey competition, the Ice Dome hosted most of the preliminary round games and almost all the playoff round matches for the men's tournament, while hosting solely the medal matches of the women's tournament. On February 20, it held the gold medal match for the women's tournament, which saw Canada overcome a 0–2 deficit against the United States to tie the game with less than a minute of regulation time remaining, before scoring in overtime to secure their fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal. The arena hosted the gold medal game of the men's tournament three days later on 23 February – the final gold medal of the 2014 Games up for contention – in which Canada defeated Sweden by a score of 3–0. In doing so, the Canadian team won an Olympic gold medal outside of North America for the first time in 62 years, became the first team since the Soviet Union in 1984 to finish the tournament with a perfect record, the first team to successfully defend their gold medal since the Soviets in 1988, and the first to do both with the participation of NHL players, which started in 1998.
The venue hosted the 2015 Kontinental Hockey League All-Star Game. The arena also hosted the first edition of the VTB United Basketball League All-Star Game.
## After the Olympics
After the conclusion of the Olympics, the arena continue to host a variety of sports, in addition to becoming an entertainment centre and concert venue. The arena now hosts HC Sochi, a KHL expansion team.
## See also
- List of indoor arenas in Russia |
749,923 | Portland-class cruiser | 1,093,110,834 | Class of ships designed and constructed by the United States Navy in 1930 | [
"Cruiser classes",
"Portland-class cruisers",
"World War II cruisers of the United States"
]
| The Portland class of heavy cruisers was a class of ships designed and constructed by the United States Navy in 1930. The two ships of the class, Portland and Indianapolis, saw extensive service during the Pacific War in World War II.
Designed as a modification over the previous Northampton-class cruiser, the Portland class displaced just under 10,000 long tons (10,000 t) and featured heavier armor and armament than previous cruisers. Featuring 8"/55 caliber guns and designed to function as fleet flagships, the Portland class were intended to fix problems with armament and armor that had been a weakness of preceding U.S. cruisers. These designs were carried over to the following New Orleans class, to which six intended Portland cruisers were converted, three of which were already mid-construction.
Portland served in many engagements including the Battle of Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway and the Guadalcanal Campaign, where she was severely damaged but nonetheless able to return to service. She later fought in the Battle of Leyte Gulf and the Battle of Okinawa. Indianapolis served as a fleet flagship for much of the war and fought in the Battle of Philippine Sea and the Battle of Iwo Jima. On 30 July 1945, after transporting components for the nuclear weapons Little Boy and Fat Man from the United States, she was torpedoed by the . Due to a series of errors and miscommunications her loss was not discovered for several days, and only 316 of her 1,195 crew survived – the greatest single loss of life at sea, from a single ship, in the history of the U.S. Navy.
## Background
The Portland class was the third class of heavy cruiser to be constructed by the United States Navy following the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. The first "treaty cruisers" were the two of the Pensacola class ordered in 1926, which emphasized armament and speed at the expense of protection. These ships were followed by the six vessels of the Northampton class ordered in 1927 with slightly better armor, and introduced the configuration of three triple turrets which would become standard on U.S. Navy heavy cruisers. The Portland class was a modification of both the Pensacola and Northampton designs.
Portland was the first ship constructed under the provision of the February 13, 1929 "Cruiser Act" of the United States Congress, which authorized one aircraft carrier and 15 "light cruisers" to be built. New Orleans (CA-32) had been assigned the first hull number in this group, but was eventually laid down later.
Ordered for the U.S. Navy in fiscal year 1930, the Portland class was originally designated as a light cruiser, and given the hull classification symbol CL, being re-designated a heavy cruiser with the symbol CA on 1 July 1931, due to their armament, in accordance with the London Naval Treaty. Originally, eight cruisers were envisioned as modified Northampton-class vessels, but eventually two of these became the Portland class, with the remaining six eventually being further modified into the succeeding New Orleans class. The first three New Orleans-class cruisers, New Orleans, Astoria, and Minneapolis, were initially ordered as Portland-class vessels, but were reordered to the design of USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37).
## Design
As built, the Portland-class cruisers were to be 610 feet 3 inches (186.00 m) in length overall, 592 feet 0 inches (180.44 m) long at the waterline, 64 feet 6 inches (19.66 m) abeam, and with a draft of 21 feet 0 inches (6.40 m), and 24 feet 0 inches (7.32 m) maximum. They were designed for a standard displacement of 10,096 long tons (10,258 t), and a full-load displacement of 12,554 long tons (12,755 t). However, neither completed ship reached this weight, displacing 9,800 long tons (10,000 t) and 9,950 long tons (10,110 t), respectively. The ships featured two distinctive raked funnels, a tripod foremast, and a small tower and pole mast aft. In 1943, light tripods were added forward of the second funnel on each ship, and a prominent Naval director was installed aft.
The ships were equipped with four propeller shafts and four Parsons GT geared turbines and eight Yarrow boilers. The power plant of the ships generated 107,000 shaft horsepower (80,000 kW) and the ships had a design speed of 32 knots (59 km/h) The ships were designed for a range of 10,000 nautical miles (19,000 km; 12,000 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h). Both completed ships rolled badly until fitted with bilge keels.
The cruisers were armed with a main battery of nine Mark 9 8"/55 caliber guns arrayed in three triple mounts, a superfiring pair fore and one aft. For anti-aircraft defense, they were armed with eight 5"/25 caliber guns as well as two QF 3 pounder Hotchkiss guns. By 1945, the anti-aircraft defenses of both ships had repeatedly been upgraded, with each eventually receiving twenty four Bofors 40 mm guns. On Portland these were arranged in four quad mounts and four twin mounts, and on Indianapolis they were arrayed in six quad mounts. Both ships were also upgraded with twelve Oerlikon 20 mm cannons. No torpedo tubes were fitted on either ship of the class. The ships were outfitted with Mk. 8 rangekeepers and Mk. 27 directors which also housed auxiliary Mk. VII rangekeepers.
The Portland class was originally designed with 1 inch (25 mm) of deck protection and 1 inch (25 mm) of side protection, but during construction they were substantially up-armored. The ships were completed with belt armor 5 inches (130 mm) thick over the magazines and 3.25 inches (83 mm) elsewhere. Armored bulkheads were between 2 inches (51 mm) and 5.75 inches (146 mm), deck armor was 2.5 inches (64 mm), the barbettes were 1.5 inches (38 mm), the gunhouses were 2.5 inches (64 mm), and the conning tower was 1.25 inches (32 mm).
Additionally, the Portland-class cruisers were designed with space to be outfitted as fleet flagships, with space for a flag officer and his staff to operate. The class also featured an aircraft catapult amidships. They could carry four aircraft. The total crew complement varied, with a regular designed crew complement of 807, a wartime complement of 952, which could increase to 1,229 when the cruiser was operating as a fleet flagship.
### Comparison with previous cruiser designs
The Portland class was generally longer than the Northampton class by about 10 feet (3.0 m) and featured a revised bow shape. They were otherwise generally similar to the Northampton class, with an extended forecastle to improve sea-keeping abilities. Their masts were reduced as compared to the Northampton class in order to reduce top weight.
When completed, the Pensacola class displaced less than expected, at 9,000 long tons (9,100 t), which was 980 long tons (1,000 t) less than expected, and were found to be greatly deficient in their protection. For the following Northampton class, the armor protection was increased to 1,040 long tons (1,057 t) with 3 inches (76 mm) of armor along the main belt. Still, these ships only displaced between 8,910 long tons (9,050 t) and 9,200 long tons (9,300 t) While the Portland-class cruisers were more heavily armored than the preceding classes, this problem was found to be so significant that in fiscal year 1929, an entirely different design was formulated for a new class of cruisers, the New Orleans class. Several of the Portland hulls were then converted to New Orleans hulls during construction.
The Portland class were also designed with more advanced armament in mind. Their main guns were the first to be specially designed to fire long-point projectiles with a streamlined shape, which increased the guns' range when compared with older cruiser guns. Such projectiles were in use by ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, which until that point out-ranged U.S. cruisers with their firepower. The New Orleans class was designed with these lessons in mind, intended to create a better balance between protection, armament and speed.
## Construction
Five ships were ordered in fiscal year 1930, to be constructed by three builders. In 1931, CA-32, CA-34, and CA-36, all ordered with Westinghouse machinery, were converted to the New Orleans class. Portland was laid down by Bethlehem Steel at Quincy Shipyard on 17 February 1930, and Indianapolis was laid down by New York Shipbuilding Corporation on 31 March 1930. The hull and machinery of both ships was provided by their respective builders. Indianapolis was launched first, on 7 November 1931 and commissioned on 15 November 1932. Portland was launched on 21 May 1932 and commissioned on 23 February 1933.
## Ships in class
### USS Portland (CA-33)
Portland was the first ship on the scene when the airship Akron went down in 1933, and coordinated efforts to retrieve survivors. She conducted a number of fleet maneuvers and goodwill missions throughout the Pacific Ocean. After the start of World War II, Portland took part in the Battle of Coral Sea, there rescuing 722 survivors from the sunk aircraft carrier Lexington. She then fought at the Battle of Midway, the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, and in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, where she was hit by three dud air-launched torpedoes. She then supported U.S. Marine landings during the Battle of Guadalcanal. During the naval battle there in late 1942, she was struck and severely damaged by a torpedo from a Japanese destroyer, a hit which required interim repairs in Australia followed by extensive repairs at Mare Island Navy Yard. In spite of this damage, she was still able to inflict damage on the Japanese battleship Hiei.
Returning to the war, she bombarded Kiska as part of the Aleutian Islands campaign, played a supporting role in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, covered landings during the New Guinea campaign, and Pelelieu. She then participated in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, covered landings in the Philippines, and supported the Battle of Okinawa. At the end of the war she was decommissioned and remained in the United States Reserve Fleet until 1959, when she was broken up for scrap.
### USS Indianapolis (CA-35)
Indianapolis served as flagship of Scouting Force 1 during World War II, and saw action in a number of campaigns in the Pacific theater. She supported the Gilbert and Marshall island campaigns as well as operations off the Caroline Islands. Later in the war she fought in the Battle of Philippine Sea and later the Battle of Iwo Jima and participating in the Battle of Okinawa.
In mid-1945, she sailed from the United States to Tinian Island carrying components of Little Boy and Fat Man, the two nuclear weapons which would later be used to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sailing for Leyte unescorted under Captain Charles B. McVay III, she was sunk by on 30 July 1945, sinking in just 12 minutes. Many sailors were killed by sharks after the wreck. An estimated 900 of her 1,197 crew survived the initial sinking, but her SOS signal was not heard, and due to a series of errors and misunderstandings, her loss was not discovered until 2 August when her crew was spotted by reconnaissance plane. Only 320 men were recovered following the sinking, of whom 316 survived. McVay survived and faced a court martial and reprimand but retired in 1949 as rear-admiral, committing suicide in 1968. Following years of efforts by some survivors and others to clear his name, McVay was posthumously exonerated by the 106th United States Congress and President Bill Clinton on October 30, 2000.
## See also
- List of cruisers of the United States Navy |
35,970,661 | Hygrophorus olivaceoalbus | 1,158,653,880 | Species of fungus | [
"Edible fungi",
"Fungi described in 1815",
"Fungi of Europe",
"Fungi of North America",
"Hygrophorus"
]
| Hygrophorus olivaceoalbus, commonly known as the olive wax cap, is a species of fungus in the genus Hygrophorus. The fruit bodies (mushrooms) appear from midsummer to late autumn under conifers in North American and Eurasian mountain forests. The mushrooms have olive-brown, slimy caps with dark streaks and a dark umbo; the caps measure 3 to 12 cm (1+1⁄8 to 4+3⁄4 in) in diameter. Other characteristic features include a slimy stem up to 12 cm (4+3⁄4 in) long that is spotted with ragged scales up to a ring-like zone. As its name implies, the mushroom has a waxy cap and gills. It is native to North America and across the northern regions of Europe. According to a publication by the Council of Europe, the fungus is nearly extinct in France.
Although Hygrophorus olivaceoalbus is edible, opinions are divided regarding its taste. Besides its usage as an edible mushroom, the fungus possesses antibiotic-like compounds.
## Taxonomy and classification
The species was first officially described as Agaricus olivaceoalbus by Elias Fries in 1815. It had earlier been published as Agaricus adustus by August Johann Georg Karl Batsch in 1783, but this was an illegitimate renaming of Agaricus brunneus published in 1774 by Jacob Christian Schäffer. It received its current scientific name when Fries transferred it to the genus Hygrophorus in 1838. Paul Kummer moved the species to Limacium in 1871, but this genus has since been sunk into synonymy with Hygrophorus.
Several varieties of H. olivaceoalbus have been proposed:
Together with H. pustulatus, H. persoonii, H. mesotephrus and H. latitabundus, H. olivaceoalbus form the section Olivaceoumbrini within the genus Hygrophorus. The fungi of this section have greasy to slimy caps and stems. Their caps are darkish brown grey, olive or orange, and their stems are ed or somewhat distinctly ringed.
Common names that have been used for the mushroom include the "slimy-sheathed waxy cap", the "olive hygrophorus", the "sheated waxgill" and the "olive wax cap". The specific epithet olivaceoalbus is derived from the Latin words for olive-brown (olivaceus) and white (albus).
## Characteristics
### Fruit body
The cap of H. olivaceoalbus is 3–12 cm (1+1⁄8–4+3⁄4 in) wide and is hemispherical in young fungi; they become flatter and wider with age, but they keep their characteristic dark umbo. Underneath the slimy grey to sooty-brown surface, the cap cuticle is streaked with fine, dark grey radially arranged fibers. Young fruit bodies are covered by two velum layers; the inner velum, composed of dark fibrils, becomes a ring or sheath (annular zone) on the stem that is covered by the gelatinous outer layer.
The fruit body has a long stem ranging from 3 to 12 cm (1+1⁄8 to 4+3⁄4 in), a diameter of 1–3 cm (3⁄8–1+1⁄8 in) and a somewhat slimy surface in wet weather. It is often wavy or bent. The base of the stem is sometimes slimmer than near its apex. Above the annular zone, the stem is smooth and whitish. It is covered by two layers of tissue: the exterior sticky layer, and the comparatively thin interior layer that consists of flaky fibres, similar to those under the cap's slime layer, with which they are initially linked. As the stem grows and increases in length, the interior layer becomes ripped, and breaks up into ragged dark concentric bands. The gills of H. olivaceoalbus are thick, widely spaced and adnate (broadly attached) to decurrent (extending slightly down the stem); they are white (slightly greyish on the base), and have a waxy surface.
The flesh of the mushroom is smooth, thin and white. The taste and odor are mild and have no distinct smell. When treated with a dilute solution of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or sulfuric acid, the flesh turns reddish. The spore print of H. olivaceoalbus is white.
### Microscopic characteristics
The spores are 9–12 × 5–6 μm, ellipsoid, and are not amyloid; their surface is smooth. They are yellow in Melzer's reagent. The basidia have dimension of 46–62 × 7–10 μm, and are tetrasporic with short, stubby sterigmata. They have neither pleurocystidia nor cheilocystidia.
The cap cuticle has a width of 250 to 450 μm and consists of loopshaped, dark hyphae with a width from 2 to 3 μm, which form an ixocutis (a horizontal layer of hyphae embedded in slime) and possess clamp connections; the fungus has no hypocutis. The gill trama consists of hyphae about 3 to 8 μm thick; the cap tissue comprises radial hyphae.
The mycorrhiza, formed from H. olivaceoalbus as a fungal partner, such as the Piceirhiza gelatinosa, is white and has a smooth, waxy surface, with several layers of hyphae layered around the tree's roots; sometimes this mycorrhiza shows hypertrophy. The hyphae are covered with a jellylike mass that is secreted from the outer walls of the hyphae. The ectomycorrhizae can reach lengths of up to 10 mm (3⁄8 in) and have few side branches; many older ectomycorrhizae have a cavity at the tip that resembles a hole.
### Similar species
Hygrophorus olivaceoalbus shows similarities between other closely related fungi of the genus Hygrophorus, some of which have only minor differences in physical features. Examples include H. pustulatus, H. inocybiformis, H. tephroleucus or H. morrisii. In the field, H. olivaceoalbus is distinguished by a combination of features including the double velum, the dark streaks on the slimy cap, the ing of the stem, and growth under pines, as well as by microscopic characteristics. There is no risk of confusing it with toxic fungi.
Hygrophorus persoonii and H. olivaceoalbus produce different mycosterine (sterol) and their flesh react differently with the addition of sodium hydroxide (red on H. olivaceoalbus versus olive green on H. persoonii). Furthermore, H. persoonii favours oaks as a mycorrhizal partner. The North American species H. inocybiformis produces a smaller fruit body with caps measuring 3–6 cm (1+1⁄8–2+3⁄8 in) wide, and dry stems that measure 3–6 cm (1+1⁄8–2+3⁄8 in) long by 0.5–1.2 cm (1⁄4–1⁄2 in) thick.
## Ecology and distribution
Hygrophorus olivaceoalbus creates mycorrhizae with conifers. In the West Coast of the United States, associations are most common with Sitka spruces and giant redwoods. In the Rocky Mountains it associates with Engelmann spruce and blue spruce, and in northeast North America with hemlocks. It usually favours acidic and chalky ground with mosses in higher altitudes as well as conifer forests and occasionally mixed forests. The fruit bodies are often found singly, but may also grow in clusters.
The range of H. olivaceoalbus stretches across the northern and western North America as well as across Europe (except the Mediterranean region) and Russia. The fungus typically fruits between late summer and early winter, and occasionally (depending on the geographical location and climate) as early as June or right through December. The population is currently not endangered, except in France, where it is almost extinct.
## Importance
### Edibility
Hygrophorus olivaceoalbus finds a use especially in the kitchen, but the indistinct taste of the fruit bodies have received a mixed reception overall. Kate Mitchel considers the waxy surface "unappetizing", while David Arora described the taste as "bland and slimy". Some authors suggest removing the cap cuticle before eating. Overall, several authors call the mushroom edible, but caution is still required, as "not everyone can eat them". The popularity of this fungus varies from one region to another. It is more commonly consumed in Europe than in North America, and is differently coveted within Europe. For example, in Spain the fungi is more highly appreciated in Catalonia; mushroom dishes in this region are more common than in the rest of Spain.
### Pharmacology
Derivates of cyclopentenones, the so-called hygrophorones, can be obtained from the fruit body of H. olivaceoalbus; the fungus produces them as secondary metabolites. The detected compounds are polyols and have an antifungal and antibacterial effect, especially in connection with Gram-positive bacteria. H. olivaceoalbus is therefore an important source of antibiotics, especially as the hygrophorones also show an effect on bacterial cultures that are resistant against contemporary antibiotics such as methicillin, ciprofloxacin or vancomycin. The fungus has been used in traditional Chinese medicine, where it is known for its curing components, such as 4-, 6- or 4,5,6-tri-O-acetyl hygrophorones B<sup>14</sup>. |
8,692,493 | Dracula (1931 Spanish-language film) | 1,170,842,153 | 1931 American horror film | [
"1930s American films",
"1930s Spanish-language films",
"1930s rediscovered films",
"1931 films",
"1931 horror films",
"Alternative versions of films",
"American black-and-white films",
"American films based on plays",
"American supernatural horror films",
"American vampire films",
"Dracula (Universal film series)",
"Dracula films",
"Films based on works by John L. Balderston",
"Films directed by George Melford",
"Films produced by Carl Laemmle Jr.",
"Films set in Transylvania",
"Films set in castles",
"Films with screenplays by Garrett Fort",
"Rediscovered American films",
"Spanish-language American films",
"United States National Film Registry films",
"Universal Pictures films"
]
| Dracula is a 1931 Spanish-language American horror film directed by George Melford. The film is based on both the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker and the play Dracula by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston. The film is about Renfield (Pablo Alvarez Rubio), who travels to Translyvania to visit Conde Drácula (Carlos Villarías). He is drugged by the Count and becomes his minion. The two travel to England, where Drácula begins to seduce Lucía Weston (Carmen Guerrero) as she becomes his first victim. This leads to Professor Van Helsing (Eduardo Arozamena) to investigate, who confirms that Drácula is a vampire.
Dracula was made as part of Hollywood studios' attempts to make films for foreign-language audiences. By 1930, Universal had focused primarily on developing Spanish-language films for the foreign market. Filming began on October 10, 1930 where it was shot on the same sets as Tod Browning's production of Dracula. Director Melford watched the footage of the same day and applied what he saw to film his own version.
The film was released in Cuba in 1931 and for a long time was forgotten, only mentioned briefly by some horror film historians in the 1960s and 1970s. It received greater attention after a print for the film was found in New Jersey. A screening at the Museum of Modern Art in 1978 led to a popular home video release on VHS in 1992. Critical reception to this film often compared the two versions of Dracula with some critics weighing the pros and cons of both based on the explicitness of the Spanish version with its costumes and scenes, the film's length, and the performance of Carlos Villarías as Count Dracula. In 2015, Dracula was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
## Plot
Renfield, a solicitor, makes a journey into Transylvania via stagecoach. He mentions his destination, Castle Dracula, to the locals who react with alarm. They tell him Drácula is a vampire and when he doesn't believe them, one insists he wear a cross. When he arrives at the Castle, the Count bids him welcome. After drinking drugged wine, Renfield collapses, still wearing the cross, and is bitten. Aboard ship, a now-enslaved Renfield laughs maniacally below as Drácula picks off the crew one by one. When the ship reaches England, he is the only living person found.
Drácula meets Dr. Seward and his family at the opera. Lucía is completely fascinated by him and that night becomes his victim. Professor Van Helsing is called in, and he recognizes the danger for what it is. He also realizes that Dr. Seward's patient Renfield is somehow tied up in events. But soon after meeting the Doctor's new neighbor, Van Helsing figures out that Drácula is a vampire—based on the fact that Drácula casts no reflection in the mirror. By now, Seward's daughter Eva is falling under his spell. To her horror, she feels increasingly weak and also increasingly wild—at one point attacking her fiancé Juan. With Seward's and Harker's help, Van Helsing seeks to trap Drácula, who outwits them and escapes with Eva by seizing control of a nurse's mind. They follow Renfield into Carfax Abbey—an act which ends with Drácula killing his slave by strangulation, and then tossing him from a tall staircase. Deep in the catacombs under Carfax, they find Drácula asleep and Eva still alive. Van Helsing drives a stake through the vampire's heart, and as Eva and Harker leave, Van Helsing prays over Renfield's body.
## Cast
Cast adapted from the opening credits.
## Production
In the late 1920s, Hollywood studios depended on the successful exportation of their films to other countries. While silent films could easily be sold to other countries, sound film could not. By 1928, the preferred approach to the foreign-language market was to develop more than one version of a film using the same script, sets and costumes of the English-language original, but employing different actors who could speak the languages such as French, Spanish or German. In an April 30 issue of the Hollywood Filmograph, it was declared that Spanish-language films were "all the go and producers [were] spending millions of dollars on them". In February 1930, Universal announced that Paul Kohner would supervise numerous foreign-language productions, including several shot in Spanish. That September, Universal focused primarily on making Spanish-language versions of films for the potential market.
A Spanish-language version of Dracula was announced on October 1, 1930 with George Melford hired to direct, with actors Lupita Tovar and Carlos Villarías. Melford was a former actor who had made several directorial credits including the Rudolph Valentino film The Sheik (1921). After several years with Paramount, he began working at Universal often handling the directorial duties on Spanish version of studio films. These included the Spanish-language version of The Cat Creeps. Although Carl Laemmle Jr. is credited as the producer, the hand-on supervisor was 27-year-old Paul Kohner. The screenplay, which was adapted by Baltasar Fernández Cué from the English-language version by Garrett Fort, differs from the latter by expanding several dialogue exchanges, rearranging scenes and adding additional material with Renfield's flustered comic relief keeper, Martin.
On October 10, Melford began directing the film shooting at night while Browning's crew would shoot during the day. At certain times, the crews would shoot on the same set. Filming lasted a total of 22 shooting days. Tovar discussed the Spanish-language production as to make it for "as little money as possible. They used the same sets and everything. And those [Spanish-speaking actors] were not demanding big salaries". Melford spoke no Spanish, but used an interpreter on set to direct the film. Melford studied the English-language footage filmed during the day and composed his own shots accordingly.
The film differs from Tod Browning's Dracula, as it has a running time of 104 minutes, making it almost half-hour longer than Browning's version. Costumes in this film are also somewhat different, such as actress Lupita Tovar's more low-cut nightgowns.
## Release
Dracula opened in Havana, Cuba on March 11, 1931, New York on April 24, and in Los Angeles on May 8. The film was distributed by the Universal Pictures Corp. On its screening in Los Angeles at the California Theatre, the theatre reported a box-office take of \$5,600 for the film, which was less than the previous week's film, Paramount's Gente Alegre which grossed \$6,600. By October 1930, The Hollywood Reporter described that foreign-language versions of films had been financial flops in every country, which led to studios dubbing pictures films to reach non-English speaking markets. Melford's Dracula was among the last of these multi-lingual types of productions.
The film was described by Rhodes as "largely forgotten" with only a few horror film historians mentioning it in the 1960s and 1970s. A copy of the film was discovered in a New Jersey warehouse in the 1970s, leading to new interest towards the film began after a screening of the film in New York sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art in August 1977. The print screened was incomplete but sparked interest due to it being a largely unseen Universal horror film. A full print was found at the Cinemateca de Cuba in Havana leading to several meetings to convince the archive to allow their copy of the film to be lent out for restoration.
In October 1992, Universal released a restoration of this version of Dracula on VHS. Early home video copies of the film sold beyond the expectations of the Universal in the early 1990s. The film was released on DVD in 1999 and again in 2004 as part of the 2004 "Complete Legacy Edition". In 2012, Universal mounted a major restoration of both Browning's and Melford's Dracula for the Blu-ray release. In 2015, the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
## Reception
Among contemporary reviews, an anonymous reviewer in the Los Angeles Times commented that the film was "replete with the same thrills that characterized the original stage play" and that Count Dracula was "excellently portrayed by Carlos Villarias". The review noted that George Melford's direction was "unusually good, except for some parts, which tend to be slightly episodic in form. This has been offset by the splendid dialogue of B. Fernandez Cue, who has been responsible for not a few of the better adaptations".
The first major analysis of Dracula was by William K. Everson in his book More Classics of the Horror Film (1986). Everson proclaimed that the film made better use of sets like Dracula's Chambers than Browning's version and other events in the film such as the mist that appears out of Dracula's coffin and the sequence involving Dracula's travel to England. Everson also noted the "surprisingly erotic" qualities of the leading actress Lupita Tovar. David J. Skal's book Hollywood Gothic (1990) which included footage taken from a print of the film archived at the Cinemateca de Cuba, including footage missing from the Library of Congress copy that was screened in 1977. Skal concluded that the film was superior to Browning's film. Variety reviewed the video on its VHS release, commenting that Melford's film was "far less ambitious", noting fewer dolly and tracking shots. The review also commented that Melford's film felt more stage bound and its longer running time led to more "ponderous pauses and plodding dialog". Tom Weaver reviewed the film in Fangoria cautioning viewers on stating which film is better, proposing that "is it actually a better film than Lugosi's, or will it just seem better until the novelty wears off?"
The authors of the book Universal Horrors declared that "notwithstanding the discovery of a print of the director Rupert Julian's version of The Cat Creeps (1930), the Spanish version of "Dracula is the last great Universal horror discovery we're likely to see". While praising the faster pace of certain scenes, the authors found that some scenes were "disruptive to the film's sense of setting". The review also commented that Villaria's performance of Dracula was "the picture's most crucial weakness" and that "the performance underscores how much a personality piece the property is; like Sherlock Holmes, all his stage or movie renditions risk utter failure by its central casting" and that "Lugosi could convince anyone he was the King of the Vampires by simply striking a pose. For all of Villarias' mugging and facial gyrations, he looks like one of the count's foot soldiers". Mark Deming of AllMovie commented that "Melford's compositions and camera movements give his version a more fluid grace and subtly sinister mood, and, if his film's pace is a bit slower, the result has an effectively eerie undercurrent that Browning's sometimes lacks". Deming found that "most of the cast is just as good as, if not better than, their English-speaking counterparts" specifically noting Carmen Guerrero as Lucia (Lucy) and Lupita Tovar as Eva (Mina), Eduardo Arozamena as Van Helsing, and Pablo Alvarez Rubio as Renfield. Deming also found that "the Spanish-language Dracula (1931) suffers only when one compares Carlos Villarías' performance as Dracula to Bela Lugosi's; while Villarias is adequate, then as now, Lugosi owns the role". Paul Lenti of Variety also praised the female cast while finding that Villarias "lacks Lugosi's moth-to-the-flame allure and presence, his melodramatic pauses are almost comic".
A spin-off television series is in planning for Vix+. |
9,416,871 | Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win! | 1,166,228,572 | null | [
"1995 Japanese television episodes",
"Neon Genesis Evangelion episodes",
"Science fiction television episodes"
]
| is the ninth episode of the Japanese anime television series Neon Genesis Evangelion, which was created by Gainax. The episode, written by Hideaki Anno and Akio Satsukawa and directed by Seiji Mizushima, was first broadcast on TV Tokyo on November 29, 1995. The series is set fifteen years after a worldwide cataclysm and is mostly set in the futuristic, fortified city Tokyo-3. The series' protagonist is Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy who is recruited by his father Gendo to the organization Nerv to pilot a gigantic, bio-mechanical mecha named Evangelion into combat with beings called Angels. The episode follows two Nerv mecha pilots, Asuka Langley Soryu and Shinji, who must defeat an Angel capable of splitting into two individuals, Israfel.
Anno conceived the episode to lighten the tone of the series after the previous episodes, which were characterized by an introspective, psychological mood. Shinji Higuchi, who worked with Anno on Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water and is known for his work's humor, drew the storyboards, giving the story a comedic tone. The installment contains cultural references to history, religion, films, series and previous works by the Gainax studio.
The episode's first broadcast scored a 7.1% audience share on Japanese television, and was well-received by audiences and critics. Reviewers appreciated the episode's humor, music score and action, ranking it as one of the best episodes in the series. Particularly positive was the reception given to the second and final clash of the installment, featuring the two mecha Evangelion 01 and 02 synchronized to music, which is also considered one of the best in the anime.
## Plot
Asuka Langley Soryu, the pilot of the mecha Evangelion Unit-02 who has recently arrived in Japan from Germany, moves in with Misato Katsuragi, commander of the special agency Nerv, and starts living with Shinji Ikari, pilot of the Eva-01. She and Shinji intercept the seventh in a series of mankind's enemies called Angels, Israfel, along Suruga Bay. Asuka, eager to show off her skills, strikes the enemy by slashing it with her Sonic Glaive; shortly afterward, however, Israfel splits into two small individuals, who defeat the two pilots and are temporarily stopped by the United Nations forces.
While waiting for the enemy to resume its advance, Asuka and Shinji, under Misato's guidance, try to train themselves by synchronizing all their actions. After several days and nights spent acting in harmony in all the motions of daily life, Shinji and Asuka sleep alone at Misato's house, and Asuka urges Shinji not to enter her room. That night Asuka apparently sleepwalks into Shinji's room and lies down next to him. Shinji tries to kiss her, but stops himself when she starts calling out for her mother in her sleep. Meanwhile, Misato finds herself in a lift with her former lover, Ryoji Kaji, who kisses her. During the second clash against Israfel, Asuka and Shinji, aboard their Evangelions, perfectly synchronize their movements to a musical accompaniment and within a minute manage to defeat the enemy.
## Production
Neon Genesis Evangelion first six episodes left the staff drained and feeling weighed down by the show's heavy mood; Hideaki Anno, director of the series, consequently decided to lighten the show's tone in the following episodes. Anno then inserted Asuka to lighten the installments, introducing her as a sunny, extroverted girl, but without thinking to re-evaluate her character much as in the final episodes of the series and without foreshadowing. Particularly important was the contribution of Shinji Higuchi, who had already worked on Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water and was known for the humorous character of his works. Higuchi infused the episode with an adolescent and comic tone, similar to his previous works.
Gainax studio decided on the basic plot for "Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!" in 1993, when it published a presentation document of Neon Genesis Evangelion titled "Proposal" (企画書, Kikakusho), which describes "the Eva's first beside-water battle". Akio Satsukawa and Anno co-wrote the script for the episode, whose storyboards were edited by Higuchi. Seiji Mizushima was chosen as the director, Shinya Hasegawa worked as the chief animator, and Mahiro Maeda and Mitsumu Wogi as the assistant character designers.
Hasegawa took care of the scene in which Shinji tries to kiss Asuka, while Ogura Nobutoshi drew the scene of Shinji and Asuka's final phone call. The first battle between the Evangelions and Israfel was done by Fumitomo Kizaki. Masayuki took care of Asuka and Shinji's six days of preparation; Keisuke Watabe served as the person in charge of the first half of the final battle, while Yutaka Nakamura worked on the second half. Hasegawa also personally recruited new members to add to the animation staff, including artists not usually associated with Gainax works. The result, similar to Yoshinori Kanada's animations, such as perspective kicks and playful drawings, stood apart from the other Neon Genesis Evangelion episodes.
Compared to the other episodes, "Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!" is distinguished by the abundant use of special animation techniques such as residual images and kinetic deformations. For this purpose, the characters' faces were deformed to unreal expressions, exaggerating movements and caricatures. For the scene in which Misato screams with glasses in her hands, the staff used a wide-angle lens; this was not indicated in the script, as it was chosen later by the direction. For the final synchronized battle, the Evas' coordination is technically replicated by a montage consisting of hand-drawn and digitally composited graphics by means of which both the two Evas' and their pilots' bodies appear to merge into one single entity; the images were obtained by cutting the images of Asuka and Shinji with their respective Evangelions along the vertical central axis, combining them into one. Takehito Koyasu, Tomokazu Seki, Tetsuya Iwanaga, Hiro Yūki and Koichi Yamadera, voice actors of several main characters in the series, played unidentified characters for "Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!". In some sequences of the installment, the staff also used the songs "You Are My Only One", "Aoi Legend" and "Toi sora no yakusoku" by Kotono Mitsuishi, Misato Katsuragi's voice actress, from the image album Lilia 〜 from Ys, while Yoko Takahashi sang the final theme song for the episode, entitled "Acid Bossa Version", a rendition of "Fly Me to the Moon" with a bossa nova and acid house sound.
## Cultural references and themes
"Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!" contains references to films, historical concepts, or previous works by Hideaki Anno. Asuka, for example, awkwardly quotes an existing Confucian proverb from the Book of Rites, while the training between her and Shinji has been compared to the game of twister. During the episode, Asuka takes refuge in Misato's room to avoid sleeping alone in the same room with Shinji. The sliding door separating them is renamed by her the "unshakable walls of Jericho". This nickname refers to the battle of Jericho, a biblical episode narrated in the book of Joshua, and the movie It Happened One Night (1934). In one of the most famous scenes in the film, the two main characters spend a night in the same motel room, using a blanket as a divider between their beds, called by the characters themselves "walls of Jericho". In another scene, "Blood Type: Blue" is glimpsed on Ritsuko's PC, in reference to the Japanese title of Blue Christmas (1978).
The final battle of the episode has been compared to tokusatsu shows. Yuichiro Oguro, editor of extra materials contained in the Evangelion Japanese home video releases, compared the battle of the two Evangelions without external power with Ultraman, the protagonist of the Ultraman franchise who could only fight for a few minutes of activity; he and Gualtiero Cannarsi, responsible of the first Italian Evangelion localisation, also noted how in one sequence the body of the Angel defeated in the sixth episode, Ramiel, is visible. Oguro therefore described this episode as a more realistic version of the tokusatsu of his childhood. The cut in which the legs of the Evangelions are seen toppled under the ground has been described as an homage to Kon Ichikawa's The Inugami Family (1976) and Shinji Sōmai's Typhoon Club (1985). Even the typefaces used in the titles of this and other episodes of the series, characterized by an unconventional sense of reading, have been interpreted as an homage to the style of Ichikawa.
Writer Dennis Redmond described "Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!" as the Evangelion's most explicit comic parody of the mecha genre; he also noted that the final battle references "the shot techniques of the televised sports event and Olympic gymnastics routine". Jacob Parker-Dalton, a writer for the website Otaquest, mentioned the installment as an example of the influence of Space Battleship Yamato, Ultraman, and Mobile Suit Gundam on Anno. Other references are to earlier Gainax works. In one scene Ritsuko wears glasses similar to Electra's character from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, while the holograms with which Asuka and Shinji communicate, used unrealistically during conversations, have been compared to those in Gunbuster. During the first confrontation against Israfel, a building with the sign "Studio Fantasia", a name listed as an associate producer on the staff of Gainax's Otaku no video, appears.
The episode focuses on several themes in the series, such as the value of masculinity or the analysis of interpersonal relationships. Cannarsi noted how the script analogizes the couples of Shinji and Asuka and that of Misato and Kaji, who both during "Both of You" have kissing scenes; the former, which an official pamphlet of the series compared to the island arch of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, is characterized by adolescent tones, awkwardness, and uncertainty, while Misato and Kaji's has a much more adult sensuality. Moreover, the encyclopedia magazine Evangelion Chronicle noted how Asuka's personality is emphasized as she steps on love letters addressed to her and looks at Rei by positioning herself on an elevated plane in the first scenes; female protagonists with loud and selfish personalities were not common in television anime at the time, but gained popularity following Evangelion. Asuka flaunts her strength, but she is beaten in combat by Israfel, and in training with Shinji she is initially unsuccessful. Newtype magazine noted that she also cries in bed with Shinji, saying the word 'Mama' in her sleep. The episode, therefore, also depicts the girl's inner fragility, hidden by her aggressive and seemingly strong facade. Cannarsi also noted how in "Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!" Asuka scorns and questions Shinji's value, especially as a man, with barbs like "Are you stupid?" or "You're a man, aren't you?". Her behavior has been likened to a latent inferiority complex toward the male sex or a masculine protest.
## Reception
"Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!" was first broadcast on November 29, 1995, and drew a 7.1% audience share on Japanese television. In 1996 it ranked second in Animage's Anime Grand Prix poll of "Best Anime Episodes" with 567 votes. In July 2020, Comic Book Resources reported an 8.2/10 rating on IMDb for the installment, ranking it tenth among the highest-rated Evangelion episodes.
The episode was well received by critics, who praised the director, the humour, the action and the music of the installment, and some reviewers ranked it among the best episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Screen Rant, for example, listed the battle against Israfel among the best fights in the series. Film School Rejects's Max Covill ranked it second among the best episodes of the series; according to Covill, the installment doesn't move the plot forward in any particularly exciting way, but praised it for having the "most hilarious moments of the series" and the "excellent combat sequence". He also lauded the scene in which Asuka and Shinji blame each other for the first defeat and the one in which they try to synchronize for the final battle. The Anime Café's Akio Nagatomi praised the performance of the voice actors, the humour and the late fight. Writer Dennis Dedmond similarly praised Anno's scriptwriting, the near-kiss scene between Asuka and Shinji and the "gorgeously choreographed" final battle. KKBox's Tomoyuki Mori described the namesake soundtrack, used during the battle, as "one of the most famous Evangelion songs"; according to Mori, it combines "lightness, sadness and strength".
Other reviewers on Comic Book Resources criticized certain aspects of the characterization of the protagonists. Theo Kogod criticized Asuka's behavior, as well as Misato's decision to let her and Shinji live in her apartment. Andrew Tefft similarly took a negative view of Asuka for her authoritarian attitude in the first battle and for blaming Shinji during the synchronized training. Conversely, Kristy Anderson, writing for Supanova Expo website, mentioned the training among the best moments of Shinji's character, while SyFy Wire's Daniel Dockery described the final fight as a "beautiful display of action choreography".
Writer Dani Cavallaro saw in the second episode of FLCL, a series produced by Gainax and directed by Tsurumaki, an allusion to Israfel and the battles of Evangelion. Furthermore, according to Gualtiero Cannarsi, the synchronized combat of Asuka and Shinji was virtually reproduced in the video game Rival Schools: United by Fate. Official merchandise based on the episode has also been released, including T-shirts and action figures. |
41,717,474 | Orchestral Works by Tomas Svoboda | 1,159,240,744 | 2003 album by the Oregon Symphony | [
"2000s in Portland, Oregon",
"2003 classical albums",
"2003 in Oregon",
"Albums produced by Blanton Alspaugh",
"Albums recorded at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall",
"Oregon Symphony albums"
]
| Orchestral Works by Tomas Svoboda (sometimes abridged as Orchestral Works) is a classical music album by the Oregon Symphony under the artistic direction of James DePreist, released by the record label Albany in 2003. The album was recorded at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon during three performances in January and June 2000. It contains three works by Tomáš Svoboda, a Czech-American composer who taught at Portland State University for more than 25 years: Overture of the Season, Op. 89; Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra, Op. 148; and Symphony No. 1 (of Nature), Op. 20. The album's executive producers were Peter Kermani, Susan Bush, and Mark B. Rulison; Blanton Alspaugh served as the recording producer.
Overture of the Season and Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra were commissioned by the Oregon Symphony. The latter was dedicated to principal percussionist Niel DePonte, who encouraged Svoboda to compose the work and who is featured on marimba; it was the first concerto commissioned by the orchestra for one of its musicians. Though the album received a mixed critical reception, DePonte's performance earned him a Grammy Award nomination for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra. Selected tracks from the album have been broadcast by classical music radio stations throughout the United States.
## Background and composition
Orchestral Works by Tomas Svoboda, released by Albany Records in July 2003, was recorded under the artistic direction of James DePreist and contains three works by Czech-American composer Tomáš Svoboda: Overture of the Season, Op. 89; Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra, Op. 148; and Symphony No. 1 (of Nature), Op. 20. Svoboda has been regarded as Oregon's "most prolific and performed" classical composer. Following his education at the Prague Conservatory (1954–1962), the Academy of Music in Prague (1962–1964) and the University of Southern California (1966–1969), Svoboda taught composition and music theory at Portland State University for more than 25 years.
Overture of the Season and Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra were recorded at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in downtown Portland on January 9–10, 2000; Symphony No. 1 was recorded at the same venue on June 13, 2000. Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra features principal percussionist Niel DePonte, who joined the orchestra in 1977 at age 24, on marimba. Peter Kermani, Susan Bush and Mark B. Rulison served as the album's executive producers. Blanton Alspaugh served as the recording producer. John Newton was the recording engineer, and mastering was conducted by Mark Donahue. Svoboda is credited for the album's cover art. The album's liner notes also credit Wendy Leher, Pavlina Honcova-Summers and Henry Hillman for photography, and Dave McLaughlin for graphic design. Mixing console mastering occurred at Soundmirror, based in Massachusetts.
The recording was funded by Mary Ausplund Tooze, a longtime philanthropist and patron of Portland's arts community, who specifically requested the inclusion of Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra for being a "good, solid piece and one you find out more about each time you hear it". Tooze considered the concerto the "real star" of the recording.
### Works
Overture of the Season was commissioned by the Oregon Symphony for its 83rd season; the work's world premiere was presented by the orchestra on October 7, 1978. In 1994, the classical music writer for Philadelphia Daily News said the composition had been performed by 55 orchestras within the three previous seasons. According to Svoboda's website, as of May 2013 the work has been performed 270 times by 141 orchestras, under the direction of 93 conductors. The "festive" overture, which is approximately eight minutes in length, employs flutes, piccolo, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings.
Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra was commissioned by the orchestra in 1993 in conjunction with its centennial celebration. It features solo marimba and a "keyboard" quintet (piano, harp, celeste, orchestra bells and crotales), with parts for flutes, piccolo, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings. According to Svoboda, the work took a year to compose and marks the first concerto commissioned by the Oregon Symphony for one of its musicians. Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra is dedicated to DePonte, who encouraged Svoboda to compose a marimba concerto. For the album's liner notes, Svoboda wrote:
> "My approach to this work is to expose the beauty of the marimba. The gentle and majestic sounds found in the instrumental mixture within the orchestra is always respectful of the somewhat limited powers of projection of the solo instrument. Overall the concerto is stylistically lyrical and neo-romantic. The energy and vitality of the marimba is highlighted through the rhythmic vitality of the composition, while marimba's warm and resonant sound, emanating from its rosewood keyboard, is ideally suited for the lyrical sections of the piece."
When the concerto is performed, according to Svoboda, instruments on stage are separated into three contrasting sections: the solo marimba, the quintet, and the remainder of the orchestra. The quintet is placed near the conductor and solo marimba, "which is the prominent voice of this uncommon ensemble". The composition contains several instances where the quintet plays for extended periods, referred to as "islands" by Svoboda, which create "concerto grosso-like interplay" with the orchestra.
Symphony No. 1 was completed in 1956 and premiered in Prague on September 7, 1957. Inspired by Svoboda's exposure to nature within a pastoral setting, the composition was commissioned anonymously 25 years later (1982), providing Svoboda an opportunity to make revisions. The work was influenced by Ludwig van Beethoven, Antonín Dvořák, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky; it features polyphonic textures and asymmetrical and harmonic rhythmic elements. The symphony consists of four movements: "Moderato", "Presto", "Andante", and "Allegro – Moderato". The first, considered a chorale, is in the key of C-sharp minor and features a theme performed by flute. The second movement, a scherzo, features a "quick, motoric" triple rhythm and meter. The third is a pastorale that highlights the woodwind section and incorporates a piece called "The Bird", composed by Svoboda in 1949 at age nine. The final movement, a rondo, was influenced by Czech folk music and mixes themes supplied by earlier movements.
## Reception and broadcasts
The album received a mixed reception. Blair Sanderson of AllMusic found Svoboda's compositions to be imitative, specifically comparing Overture of the Season to work by Leoš Janáček and Symphony No. 1 to "equal parts" of Hugo Alfvén and Jean Sibelius, with "just a dash" of Carl Nielsen. Sanderson criticized the harmonic language of Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra and found DePonte's performance to be admirable but "weakly planned". Similarly, Robert Dettmer of Classical CD Review found Svoboda's work to be derivative and "expressively sterile", and "no more engaging than any other marimba concerto". However, Dettmer acknowledged that the marimba was one of his least favorite solo instruments. Dettmer wrote that DePriest "serves the composer dutifully, but not as enliveningly as one might have expected".
For his marimba performance, DePonte earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra, the first time that the Oregon Symphony or any of its musicians had been recognized by the Recording Academy. Following the announcement, DePonte admitted that he was surprised by the nomination and had not felt similar emotions since learning of his invitation to join the orchestra 26 years earlier: "I am completely overwhelmed. I had no idea the recording had been submitted." DePriest said: "The credit goes to Mary Tooze for making the recording possible, to Niel for his fine playing and to Tomas for writing such a wonderful piece. I am thrilled for everyone concerned." Svoboda said of the nomination: "The prestige goes to the orchestra. This is a great moment for our symphony." The Oregon Symphony's director of public relations commented: "The running joke is that forever more, the name of this organization is 'The Grammy-nominated Oregon Symphony Orchestra.' The Grammy acknowledgment is recognized as a mark of great artistic achievement. To be nominated is about as good as it gets."
Selected tracks from the album have been broadcast by classical music radio stations. Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra was aired by WFMT (Chicago) in March 2012, WWFM (Trenton, New Jersey) in September 2013, and KUAF (Fayetteville, Arkansas) in November 2013. Symphony No. 1 was broadcast by Interlochen Public Radio in August 2012 and by WRTI (Philadelphia) in November 2013. WNYC (New York City) has aired the marimba concerto and Symphony No. 1 as recently as January 2011 and January 2014, respectively.
## Track listing
All works by Tomáš Svoboda.
1. Overture of the Season, Op. 89 – 8:42
Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra, Op. 148
1. <li value=2>
"Con moto" – 8:48
2. "Adagio" – 8:08
3. "Vivace" – 8:39
Symphony No. 1 (of Nature), Op. 20
1. <li value=5>
"Moderato" – 10:08
2. "Presto" – 8:13
3. "Andante" – 6:56
4. "Allegro – Moderato" – 10:18
Track listing adapted from the album's liner notes.
## Personnel
- Blanton Alspaugh – producer
- Susan Bush – executive producer
- Niel DePonte – marimba
- James DePreist – conductor
- Mark Donahue – mastering
- Henry Hillman – photography
- Pavlina Honcova-Summers – photography
- Peter Kermani – executive producer
- Wendy Lehrer – photography
- Dave McLaughlin – graphic design
- John Newton – engineer
- Oregon Symphony – orchestra
- Mark B. Rulison – executive producer
- Tomás Svoboda – composer, cover photo
Credits adapted from AllMusic.
### Orchestra roster
- Clarisse Atcherson – first violin
- Aida Baker – first violin
- Kenneth Baldwin – assistant principal bass
- David Bamonte – trumpet
- Joēl Belgique – principal viola
- Joseph Berger – associate principal horn
- Heather Blackburn – second violin\*\*\*
- Ronald Blessinger – first violin
- Naomi Blumberg – cello
- David Brubaker – first violin
- Pansy Chang – cello
- JáTtik Clark – principal tuba
- Julie Coleman – second violin
- Robin Cook – first violin\*
- John Cox – principal horn
- Jennifer Craig – principal harp
- Dolores D'Aigle – assistant principal second violin
- Dan Alan Danielson – second violin\*\*\*\*
- Juan de Gomar – bassoon, contrabassoon
- Eileen Deiss – first violin
- Niel DePonte – principal percussion
- Frank Diliberto – principal bass
- Jonathan Dubay – first violin
- Cheri Ann Egbers – clarinet
- Mark Eubanks – principal bassoon
- Daniel Ge Feng – second violin
- Kenneth Finch – cello
- Lynne Finch – second violin
- Kathleen Follett – first violin\*
- Michael Foxman – concertmaster, first violin
- Leah Frajola – second violin
- Peter Frajola – associate concertmaster, first violin
- Katherine George – principal keyboard
- Mary Grant – horn
- Kathryn Gray – first violin
- Paloma Griffin – assistant concertmaster, first violin
- Lisa Hansen – second violin
- Philip Neil Hatler – trombone\*
- Donald Hermanns – bass
- John Hubbard – second violin\*\*\*
- Denise Huizenga – second violin\*\*\*\*
- Gyrid Hyde-Towle – second violin
- Marty Jennings – first violin\*\*\*
- Jeffrey Johnson – bass
- Lawrence Johnson – assistant principal horn
- Mary Ann Coggins Kaza – first violin
- Bridget Kelly – cello
- Frederick Korman – principal oboe
- Sally Kuhns – assistant principal trumpet
- Todd Kuhns – clarinet, E-flat clarinet/bass clarinet
- Eileen Lande – second violin
- Steve Lawrence – percussion
- Ann Leeder-Beesley – second violin
- Nancy Lochner – viola
- Marlene Majovski – first violin
- Virginia McCarthy – second violin
- Stephanie McDougal – cello
- Patricia Miller – viola
- Robert Naglee – bassoon
- Yoshinori Nakao – principal clarinet
- Charles Noble – assistant principal viola
- Gayle Budd O'Grady – cello
- William Ofstad – bass
- Harris Orem – English horn, oboe
- Barton Parker – horn
- Christine Perry – percussion
- Jeffrey Peyton – percussion\*\*\*
- Alan Pierce – bass trombone, trombone
- Deloris Plum – cello
- Stephen Price – viola
- Brian Quincey – viola
- Paul Salvatore – principal timpani
- Fred Sautter – principal trumpet
- Anna Schaum – viola
- Jason Schooler – bass
- Timothy Scott – cello
- Burke Shaw – bass
- Michael Sigell – second violin
- Deborah Singer – first violin
- David Socolofsky – assistant principal cello
- Rachel Sokolow – first violin
- Tomáš Svoboda – keyboard
- Peggy Swafford – viola
- Chien Tan – principal second violin
- Margo Tatgenhorst – principal cello
- Robert Taylor – principal trombone
- Tommy Thompson – bass
- Karen Wagner – oboe
- Martha Warrington – viola
- Dawn Weiss – principal flute
- Connie Whelan – viola
- Leo Whitlow – viola\*
- Carol Williams – horn\*\*\*
- Carla Wilson – piccolo
Orchestra roster adapted from the album's liner notes.
"\*" designates acting orchestra members; "\*\*" designates musicians on a leave of absence; "\*\*\*" designates extra musicians; "\*\*\*\*" designates contract musicians.
## See also
- 2003 in classical music
- List of compositions by Tomáš Svoboda |
2,907,403 | 2005 Football League Cup final | 1,161,926,183 | null | [
"2000s in Cardiff",
"2004–05 Football League",
"2004–05 in Welsh football",
"Chelsea F.C. matches",
"EFL Cup finals",
"February 2005 sports events in the United Kingdom",
"Liverpool F.C. matches"
]
| The 2005 Football League Cup final was a football match played between Liverpool and Chelsea on 27 February 2005 at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff. It was the final match of the 2004–05 Football League Cup, the 45th season of the Football League Cup, a football competition for the 92 teams in the Premier League and Football League. Liverpool were appearing in their tenth final; they had previously won seven and lost two while Chelsea were appearing in the final for the fourth time. They had previously won twice and lost once.
As both teams were in the Premier League, they entered the competition in the third round. Liverpool's matches were generally close affairs, with only two victories secured by two goals or more. A 2–0 win over Middlesbrough in the fourth round was followed by a 4–3 victory in a penalty shootout after their quarter-final match with Tottenham Hotspur finished 1–1. Chelsea's matches were also close affairs, their only victory by more than one goal was against Newcastle United in the fourth round, which they won 2–0.
Watched by a crowd of 78,000 Liverpool scored inside the first minute when John Arne Riise volleyed a Fernando Morientes pass into the Chelsea goal. Neither side was able to score despite a number of chances, until the 79th minute when Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard headed a Paulo Ferreira free-kick into his own net. José Mourinho was ordered to the stands after Chelsea's equaliser for making a gesture to the Liverpool fans. Despite the incident, Chelsea continued their dominance into extra-time and a goal each from Didier Drogba and Mateja Kežman gave them a 3–1 lead. A minute later Antonio Núñez of Liverpool scored a header to reduce the deficit to 3–2, but Chelsea held to win the match and the League Cup for the third time.
## Route to the final
### Liverpool
As Liverpool were competing in the Premier League, they entered the competition in the third round and were drawn against Millwall, who were in the Championship. Liverpool fielded a team that did not feature many of their regular starters including Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso. Despite this, they won the match at Millwall's home ground The New Den, 3–0 courtesy of two goals from striker Milan Baroš and midfielder Salif Diao. Liverpool were drawn against fellow Premier League side Middlesbrough in the fourth round. Again Liverpool manager Rafael Benítez did not field many of his first choice players, however two goals from striker Neil Mellor secured a 2–0 victory at their home ground of Anfield.
Tottenham Hotspur were the opposition in the quarter-final held at their opponent's home ground White Hart Lane. With neither side scoring during 90 minutes, the match went to extra time. Tottenham took the lead in the 108th minute when striker Jermain Defoe scored. Tottenham appeared to be on course for victory, but a handball in their penalty area by Frédéric Kanouté resulted in a Liverpool penalty, which striker Florent Sinama Pongolle scored. With no further goals, the match went to a penalty shoot-out. Liverpool won the subsequent shootout 4–3 to progress to the semi-final.
Championship side Watford were the opposition in the semi-final which were held over two legs. Unlike previous rounds, Benítez picked a near full-strength team for the first leg at Anfield. The only goal of the match was scored in the 56th minute by Liverpool captain Gerrard. The second leg at Watford's home ground, Vicarage Road finished in the same scoreline, with Gerrard again scoring the winning goal. As a result, Liverpool won the match 1–0 and 2–0 on aggregate to progress to the final.
### Chelsea
West Ham United were Chelsea's opposition, as they entered the competition in the third round due to being in the Premier League. The match held at Chelsea's home ground Stamford Bridge, saw a Mateja Kežman goal secure a 1–0 victory for Chelsea. Their opponents in the fourth round were fellow Premier League team Newcastle United. The match, held at Newcastle's home ground St James' Park, was goalless for the first 90 minutes and went to extra-time. Goals from Eiður Guðjohnsen and Arjen Robben resulted in a 2–0 victory for Chelsea.
Local rivals Fulham were Chelsea's opposition in the quarter-final, with the match held at Fulham's home ground, Craven Cottage. A goal in the 55th minute from midfielder Damien Duff gave Chelsea a 1–0 lead. However, Fulham equalised in the 74th minute when striker Brian McBride scored. With both teams pushing forward to score the winning goal, substitute Frank Lampard scored in the 88th minute to secure a 2–1 victory for Chelsea.
Chelsea were drawn against Manchester United in the semi-final. The first leg at Stamford Bridge finished 0–0 with both teams missing chances to score. The second leg was held at United's home ground Old Trafford. Chelsea took an early lead when Lampard scored in the 29th minute, but United equalised in the 67th minute when midfielder Ryan Giggs scored. In the 87th minute, Duff scored from a 50 yards (46 m) free kick to make the score 2–1. Thus, Chelsea won the tie 2–1 on aggregate to progress to the final.
## Match
### Background
Liverpool were appearing in their tenth final they had won seven (1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1995, 2001, 2003) and lost two (1978, 1987). This was Chelsea's fourth appearance in the final. They had won twice in 1965 and 1998 and lost once in 1972. The last match between the two sides before the final was on 1 January 2005, when an 80th-minute goal by midfielder Joe Cole secured a 1–0 victory for Chelsea at Anfield. Both sides last match before the final was in the 2004–05 UEFA Champions League. They were playing the first leg of their round of 16 matches. Liverpool faced German team Bayer Leverkusen, whom they beat 3–1, while Chelsea were beaten 2–1 by Spanish team Barcelona.
Liverpool manager Rafael Benítez was adamant that opponents Chelsea were the team under the most pressure to win the match: "There will be more pressure on them, they have spent a lot of money and are the best team in the league, because they are in first position, but they've lost their last two important games. That means they will be under pressure. People will see them as the favourites, I'm sure, so the pressure is on them and not us." Benítez was confident that playing in a cup final would be beneficial to his players: "We need experiences like this to progress, when I decided to come here I said I wanted to win trophies. Our challenge is to win the Premier League, the Champions League, the Uefa Cup, the FA Cup and the Carling Cup. This is a chance to start." Goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek believed winning the competition in 2003 would benefit Liverpool: "It was great to win there before and I also had one of my best performances for Liverpool. There's a great buzz around the place; we know that the club expects to win trophies, and we're in a position to deliver that later this week."
Chelsea midfielder Joe Cole was keen to win his first trophy in the final: "We don't feel under any great pressure, but we do feel excited about the possibility of winning our first trophy, we've just been imagining what it would be like to lift the trophy, who's going where in the line if we win it, and how we'll run round Cardiff with it." Teammate Frank Lampard was also keen to win his first trophy: "If you haven't won anything, a runners-up medal is not what you want at all." He also stated that Chelsea manager José Mourinho's desire to win had been rubbing off on the players: "He actually gets angrier with each one, so every time we lose it's the worst I've seen him, he's a winner, though, that's what you expect, and that's the attitude that's needed at Chelsea these days."
Chelsea goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini, who had played in four matches during the competition was suspended after being shown a red card in a FA Cup match against Newcastle United. He would be replaced by Petr Čech. Captain Steven Gerrard and striker Fernando Morientes were expected to return to the starting line-up for Liverpool, while midfielder Xabi Alonso would miss out after breaking his leg in the last fixture between the two sides. Going into the match Chelsea were the favourites with the bookmakers at Even odds to win the match, while Liverpool were 9-4. However, a poll on the BBC Sport website had 63% of fans backing Liverpool to win.
### First half
Within a minute of the kick-off, Liverpool had scored. Striker Fernando Morientes ran over to the right-hand side of the pitch, his cross to the edge of the Chelsea penalty area was met by midfielder John Arne Riise, who volleyed the ball into the Chelsea goal to give Liverpool a 1–0 lead. As of 2015 The goal was the fastest scored in a League Cup final. Liverpool continued to attack and two minutes later Riise had another chance, however his shot hit Chelsea defender Paulo Ferreira. Liverpool defender Sami Hyypiä received the first yellow card of the match in the 13th minute for a challenge on Didier Drogba. Chelsea started to come into the game and they were awarded a free-kick in the 19th minute when Liverpool defender Steve Finnan was penalised for a foul on Damien Duff. However, the free kick from Ferreira was cleared by Liverpool. A run by Finnan in the 27th minute saw him go past Duff and defender William Gallas before he passed to Luis García, but his shot was blocked by Ricardo Carvalho.
A minute later Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard was shown a yellow card for a foul on García. The resulting free-kick found Steven Gerrard, but he fell to the ground after a challenge from Claude Makélélé. The referee Steve Bennett ignored Liverpool claims for a penalty and Chelsea went straight on the attack, but an effort by Drogba went wide of the Liverpool goal. Chelsea continued to attack in an effort to score an equalising goal, but attempts by Duff and Joe Cole failed to find the target. Liverpool defender Djimi Traoré was the third player to be shown a yellow card for a foul on Ferreira in the 35th minute. However, minutes later he made an important tackle as Duff beat the Liverpool offside trap, but a poor touch outside of the Liverpool penalty area allowed Traoré to dispossess him. As half-time approached Liverpool were content to remain in their own half and allow Chelsea to attack them, but any attack was dealt with by the Liverpool defence.
### Second half
Chelsea replaced midfielder Jiří Jarošík with striker Eiður Guðjohnsen at the start of the second half, and started the second half in the same manner that they finished the first, with Liverpool withholding the pressure on their penalty area. Cole passed the ball over the Liverpool defence to Drogba in the 54th minute, but defender Jamie Carragher was able to get back and clear the ball. The ball was played back into the penalty area and met by Guðjohnsen, whose header was saved by Dudek, the ball fell to Gallas and Dudek again saved the subsequent shot. Midfielder Antonio Núñez replaced Harry Kewell in the 56th minute. Against the run of play, Liverpool had an attack in the 64th minute. A counter-attack resulted in a Dietmar Hamann shot, but it was saved by Čech. Liverpool made another substitution following the attack as Igor Bišćan replaced an injured Djimi Traoré. Chelsea continued to push forward and were close to a goal in the 71st minute, but Riise cleared a Gallas after the ball was played to him by Makélélé. Both teams made substitutions in the following minutes. Striker Milan Baroš replaced Morientes for Liverpool while Chelsea substituted Gallas for striker Mateja Kežman.
Liverpool had a chance to extend their lead in the 74th minute, but Gerrard was unable to score from a cross by Núñez, with his shot going wide of the Chelsea goal. Liverpool pressed forward and a sliding tackle from Chelsea captain John Terry prevented Baroš from shooting in the Chelsea penalty area. Chelsea were awarded a free-kick in the 79th minute which was taken by Ferreira, the ball was met by Gerrard who intended to head it clear, but scored an own goal after heading the ball into the Liverpool goal. The score was now 1–1. Chelsea made their final substitution following the goal, with Glen Johnson replacing Cole. Chelsea manager Mourinho was sent off following the goal for making a gesture towards the Liverpool fans. Chelsea nearly took the lead in the 82nd minute, but Duff's shot was saved by Dudek. Chelsea had a few chances to score in the following exchanges, but all the efforts missed the Liverpool goal. Liverpool's only chance in the rest of the half fell to Baroš, but he also put his shot wide. With the scores at 1–1, following the end of 90 minutes the match went to extra time.
### Extra time
Chelsea had the first chance in extra time when Duff's cross was met by Drogba, but his header hit the post. The pace of the game had slowed in extra time, neither side dominated the match. The best chances for both sides came in the final minutes of the first half of extra time. A García cross was met by Bišćan, but he headed the ball over the crossbar while Kežman had a shot saved by Dudek. However, in the first minute of the second half of extra time Chelsea had scored. A long throw-in to the near post of the Liverpool goal was missed by Terry and Hyypiä, but Drogba beat Carragher to the ball and gave Chelsea a 2–1 lead. Four minutes later, Chelsea had extended their lead to 3–1. A Lampard free-kick was punched clear by Dudek, but the ball fell to Guðjohnsen who played the ball across the Liverpool goal to Kežman who scored. Two minutes later Liverpool scored. A Gerrard free-kick was headed in by Núñez to make the score 3–2. However, Liverpool were unable to find an equalising goal in the remaining minutes and Chelsea won 3–2 to win the League Cup for the third time.
### Details
## Post-match
Following the match, Chelsea manager José Mourinho claimed that the gesture he made had been intended for the media and not Liverpool fans: "The signal of close your mouth was not for them but for the press, they speak too much and in my opinion they try to do everything to disturb Chelsea. Wait, don't speak too soon. We lost two matches and in my opinion you (the media) try to take confidence from us and put pressure on us." Mourinho was happy that Chelsea had won but said the victory was not special: "It's just one more. I had a few before this, I'm very happy to win. It's important for the fans, for the club and especially for the players." Striker Eiður Guðjohnsen said Chelsea's victory was down to their hard work ethic: "It was a very intense and even game and it was hard to break them down, but hard work pays off in the end."
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard was determined to move on from the final after scoring an own goal: "Losing cup finals and scoring an own goal is a bad day for myself, but I'll look forward to the next game now." He also said that Chelsea deserved the victory: "We scored early on and tried to see the clock out because we were 15 minutes away from lifting the cup, but credit to Chelsea they came back and deserved the win." Liverpool manager Rafael Benítez believed that Liverpool would have won the match had they scored when they were leading 1–0: "If you have clear chances at 1–0 and you score the second goal you finish the game, but we made some mistakes and at the end we conceded in our own goal." Despite the defeat he was proud of his players' efforts: "I say to the players we must be proud because we played a good game, Chelsea controlled the game when they started playing, but we re-organised the team with three midfielders and had some opportunities."
The two sides faced each other again in the semi-finals of the 2004–05 UEFA Champions League. A goalless first leg at Stamford Bridge was followed by a 1–0 victory for Liverpool in the second leg as they progressed to the final. A 3–2 victory in a penalty shootout against Milan after the match finished 3–3 ensured Liverpool won the UEFA Champions League for the fifth time. Chelsea would go on to win the 2004–05 FA Premier League, their first League title since 1955. |
8,140,968 | New York State Route 167 | 1,134,871,640 | State highway in New York, US | [
"State highways in New York (state)",
"Transportation in Herkimer County, New York",
"Transportation in Otsego County, New York"
]
| New York State Route 167 (NY 167) is a north–south state highway in the Mohawk Valley region of New York in the United States. It extends for 26.17 miles (42.12 km) from an intersection with U.S. Route 20 (US 20) in the Otsego County village of Richfield Springs to a junction with NY 29 in the Herkimer County village of Dolgeville. Midway between the two endpoints, NY 167 passes through the city of Little Falls, where it meets NY 5 and indirectly connects to the New York State Thruway by way of NY 169. Most of NY 167 is a two-lane rural highway; however, in Little Falls, NY 167 ranges in width from two to four lanes as it serves commercial and industrial sections of the city.
The piece of NY 167 between Richfield Springs and Paines Hollow, New York a small hamlet southwest of Little Falls, was originally part of an unsigned legislative route in the early 20th century. Farther north, the segment between Little Falls and Dolgeville was added to the legislative route system in 1910. In 1924, the Richfield Springs–Paines Hollow route became part of NY 28; however, that route was altered as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York to follow a new alignment to the west. NY 28's former routing between Richfield Springs and Paines Hollow became part of the new NY 167, which continued north through Little Falls to Dolgeville as it does today.
## Route description
### Richfield Springs to Little Falls
NY 167 begins at an intersection with US 20 (West Main Street) near the northern tip of Canadarago Lake in the village of Richfield Springs. The route proceeds north as a two-lane highway along Church Street, passing through the village's residential northern portion before leaving Richfield Springs and crossing the Otsego–Herkimer county line just a half-mile (0.8 km) from the junction with US 20. The residential surroundings follow NY 167 into the town of Warren; however, they give way to more open, undeveloped areas as the route intersects Millstone Road (County Route 78 or CR 78, an unsigned number) about a half-mile (0.8 km) from the county line. From Millstone Road, the route winds northeast through Warren, traveling through increasingly rural areas as it serves the hamlet of Cullen and intersects Cullen and Hogsback roads (CR 183) in the center of the small community.
Past Cullen, NY 167 makes a gradual bend to the northeast, passing by a series of farms on its way to the hamlet of Jordanville. Here, the highway intersects with Jordanville Road (CR 18), an east–west two-lane road that NY 167 briefly follows as it runs through the community. A short distance east of Jordanville, NY 167 splits from Jordanville Road to head northeast as a two-lane rural road. It intersects with country roads, such as Rock Hill Road (CR 135) and Robinson Road (CR 46) For the next 4 miles (6.4 km), the route meanders across Warren, following an erratic northeasterly course across largely undeveloped areas to reach the rural hamlet of Paines Hollow, located at the junction of NY 167 and NY 168.
After leaving Paines Hollow, NY 167 continues northeast into the town of Little Falls. The route remains rural through the town, intersecting with Johnny Cake and Oregon roads (CR 136 and CR 120, respectively) as it winds to the northeast. Just under 2 miles (3.2 km) from Paines Hollow, the highway briefly curves to the southeast ahead of a hairpin turn that leads northward to a junction with Newville Road (CR 45).
### Little Falls to Dolgeville
NY 167 heads generally northward through Little Falls, veering to the east and west at various points as it traverses the town. About 3 miles (4.8 km) south of the city of Little Falls, the highway passes under the New York State Thruway (Interstate 90 or I-90) with no connection to the road. After the Thruway overpass, NY 167 heads into a residential area surrounding its junction with NY 5S. The two routes briefly overlap before NY 167 turns north into a less populated, mostly wooded area along the southern bank of the Mohawk River (here part of the Erie Canal). NY 167 follows the river into an industrial section of the city of Little Falls, where it becomes Overhead Street and soon crosses the Mohawk via the Overhead Street Bridge.
North of the river, the highway passes over NY 5 before intersecting Albany Street just west of downtown Little Falls. Albany Street is the eastbound half of a one-way couplet with nearby Main Street; as a result, the two directions of NY 167 split to follow different alignments through western Little Falls. From Overhead Street, northbound NY 167 turns east to follow Albany Street for two blocks to Little Falls' commercial center, where it intersects with southbound NY 169 at South Ann Street. NY 169 turns east here to follow Albany Street while NY 167 heads south along the two-way South Ann Street for one block to reach NY 5, a four-lane divided highway on the north bank of the Mohawk River. At this point, NY 167 northbound reconnects to the southbound route, which follows NY 5 west from South Ann Street to NY 5's junction with the west end of Albany Street.
East of South Ann Street, both directions of NY 167 overlap with NY 5, following the four-lane road along the southern edge of downtown to a junction with East Main Street on the city's east side. NY 167 reconnects with NY 169 here, which leaves East Main Street to briefly follow NY 5 and NY 167 along the riverside arterial. The resulting overlap between NY 167 and NY 169 is a wrong-way concurrency, with NY 169 southbound overlapping NY 167 northbound and vice versa. NY 169 splits from the highway after just one block to proceed south across the Mohawk River while NY 5 and NY 167 remain concurrent to the eastern edge of the city. Here, NY 167 forks from NY 5, running east as a two-lane street through the undeveloped eastern fringe of Little Falls. The highway rises in elevation as it heads out of the Mohawk River valley and passes into the adjacent town of Manheim.
Now known as Dolgeville Road, NY 167 heads northeastward through dense forests to the hamlet of Manheim Center, a small residential community 3 miles (4.8 km) from Little Falls. Here, the route connects to Dockey Road (CR 42). After leaving Manheim Center, the route becomes rural again, heading northward for several miles past farms, power lines, and the terminus of Snells Bush Road (CR 23). North of Snells Bush Road, NY 167 trends to the northeast, loosely paralleling East Canada Creek as it heads toward the village of Dolgeville as South Main Street. The rural areas along the route gradually give way to homes, which in turn lead to Dolgeville's central business district. In the center of Dolgeville, NY 167 runs alongside the creek for several blocks before ending at an intersection with NY 29 (State Street).
## History
Two sections of what is now NY 167 were included as part of legislative routes when the New York State Legislature created a statewide legislative route system in 1908. From Richfield Springs to Paines Hollow, it was designated as part of Route 5, which continued southeast to Kingston via Oneonta and northwest to Mohawk. The section of what is now NY 167 north of Little Falls became part of Route 26, which ran from Little Falls to Remsen via Dolgeville. In 1910, Route 26 was realigned to follow a more direct routing between Little Falls and Remsen via Middleville and Poland. The former alignment of Route 26 between Little Falls and Dolgeville went unnumbered until March 1, 1921, when it became part of Route 37, which was extended southwestward from Dolgeville to Little Falls.
The alignment of NY 167 follows the Paine's Hollow Road, constructed between Little Falls and Paines Hollow. This new road would shorten time between the two communities through Herkimer County. The Paine's Hollow Road opened on October 4, 1921, opening a new road through the dairy country of the Mohawk Valley. The new road had branch alignments toward Oneonta, Cooperstown and Richfield Springs. At 1 p.m. (1800 UTC) that day, a convoy of vehicles drove the route south from Little Falls, with a band on a large truck and a coach with six horses. When the group reached Paines Hollow, a ceremony was held, led by the president of the Little Falls Chamber of Commerce and H.P. Snyder, the local legislator for Herkimer County. The new section between Paines Hollow and Jordanville cost \$123,136.25 (equivalent to \$ in 2023) and was designated as State Highway 1363.
When the first set of posted routes in New York were assigned in 1924, most of legislative Route 5 north of Oneonta—including the section between Richfield Springs and Mohawk—became part of NY 28, which originally began in Oneonta and headed north through Richfield Springs and Mohawk before ending in Utica. In the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York, the section of NY 28 between Richfield Springs and Mohawk was moved onto a new highway to the west that went directly between the two locations. The portion of its former routing between Richfield Springs and Paines Hollow became part of the new NY 167, which continued north from Paines Hollow to Dolgeville via Little Falls and old legislative Route 37.
### Realignments
In June 2003, a project began to replace the bridge that carries NY 167 across the Erie Canal, Moss Island, Mohawk River, CSX Railroad, and NY 5 in Little Falls. On September 15, 2005, the new \$17.4 million (equivalent to \$ in 2023) bridge opened and replaced two deteriorated structures that were built in two phases from 1936 to 1962. The new bridge also eliminated a dangerous at-grade crossing at the CSX Railroad where low profile vehicles frequently got stuck. The bridge was dedicated to Dr. Bernard J. Burke, a local physician remembered for his total dedication to his patients and the community for over 35 years. The Lancaster Construction Company of Richmondville was the contractor of this project.
## Major intersections
## See also |
10,787,964 | Four Seasons Restaurant | 1,172,126,923 | Defunct restaurant in New York City | [
"1959 establishments in New York City",
"2019 disestablishments in New York (state)",
"Defunct New American restaurants in New York (state)",
"Defunct restaurants in Manhattan",
"James Beard Foundation Award winners",
"Midtown Manhattan",
"New American restaurants in New York City",
"New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan",
"New York City interior landmarks",
"Philip Johnson buildings",
"Restaurants disestablished in 2019",
"Restaurants established in 1959"
]
| The Four Seasons Restaurant (known colloquially as the Four Seasons) was a New American cuisine restaurant in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City from 1959 to 2019. The Four Seasons operated within the Seagram Building at 99 East 52nd Street for most of its existence, although it relocated to 42 East 49th Street in its final year of operation. The restaurant was themed around the seasons of the year, with menus, decorations, and vegetation that changed every three months. It attracted numerous high-profile personalities and often hosted "power lunches". Despite mixed commentary of the restaurant's food, the Four Seasons was highly popular, winning the James Beard Award many times.
The Four Seasons was created in order to fill a vacant space next to the Seagram Building's lobby. Originally operated by Restaurant Associates, the Four Seasons opened on July 20, 1959, and soon became a popular luxury restaurant. Following a downturn in patronage in 1973, Tom Margittai and Paul Kovi acquired the Four Seasons, which subsequently became known for its power lunches. In 1994, Margittai and Kovi passed operation of the restaurant to their junior partners, Alex von Bidder and Julian Niccolini, who operated the restaurant until the Seagram Building location closed in July 2016. After a two-year hiatus, von Bidder and Niccolini reopened the restaurant on 49th Street in August 2018, but the Four Seasons was unprofitable in its new location and closed permanently on June 11, 2019.
The interior of the original restaurant was primarily designed by Philip Johnson, who worked with several designers, including L. Garth and Ada Louise Huxtable. The interior consisted of two discrete spaces known as the Grill Room and the Pool Room, connected by a corridor, as well as a basement lobby on 52nd Street. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated these spaces as an interior landmark in 1989. The spaces had various plants and custom tableware and furniture. Art inside the restaurant included a permanent mural by James Rosenquist; a major Richard Lippold sculpture; a curtain designed by Pablo Picasso; and various temporary exhibitions. The restaurant attracted numerous celebrities, businessmen, and politicians including Anna Wintour, Henry Kissinger, Martha Stewart, Bill Clinton, George Lois, Bill Bernbach, and Jackie Kennedy.
## History
The Seagram Building in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, had been completed in 1958 to designs by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Philip Johnson, and Kahn & Jacobs. During the building's planning, the space behind the ground-story lobby had been intended as a major public area. A crafts museum, an automotive showroom, and an upscale restaurant, were variously proposed for that space. Philip Johnson described it as "leftover space", saying that "we could as well have put a Chrysler showroom there". The building's leasing agent Cushman & Wakefield selected Joseph Baum of Restaurant Associates in 1957 to operate the Four Seasons Restaurant in the space. Samuel Bronfman, the chairman of the building's developer Seagram, agreed to the restaurant plan after he learned that it would increase his building's value.
The restaurant's managers had free rein to create a restaurant, which ultimately cost \$4.5 million (). At the time, it was the most expensive restaurant ever built in New York City. Philip Johnson was hired to design the Four Seasons, as Mies was uninterested in designing the restaurant space inside the Seagram Building. William Pahlmann was also hired for general design; Richard Kelly for lighting design; Karl Linn for landscaping; Everett Lawson Conklin for horticultural detail; Marie Nichols for weavings; and Richard Lippold for the Grill Room's brass sculptures. Interiors magazine said that Restaurant Associates was "evidently convinced that in interiors, as well as food, you get what you pay for".
### Opening and early years
The restaurant opened on July 20, 1959. Time magazine described the Four Seasons as employing "25 chefs and bakers and a battalion of 125 cummerbunded captains, waiters, wine stewards, barmen and busboys". Conversely, The New York Times wrote that there were 15 busboys, 20 captains, and 50 waiters. The Four Seasons' staff had their own seamstress and a chef who cooked exclusively for them. The executive chef was Albert Stockli, who created several menu items specifically for the restaurant and worked with Restaurant Associates until 1965. Dishes on the Four Seasons' menu were sourced from around the world. At the time of the restaurant's opening, The New York Times reported that lunch typically cost \$6, while dinner cost \$10 to \$12, excluding alcoholic beverages. The opening of the Four Seasons prompted other New York restaurant owners to boycott Seagram liquor, as the company had helped finance a competitor within its own building.
Soon after its opening, the Four Seasons became a popular event venue. For example, it hosted a birthday party for then-U.S. president John F. Kennedy in May 1962, as well as a dinner for the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin wine-tasting organization in December 1962. Kennedy's birthday party was the first time that the restaurant was completely closed to the public, but a similar closure also occurred in 1965, when Sharman Douglas hosted a party there for Princess Margaret. The stature of the restaurant was such that, according to Peter Hellman of New York magazine, Stockli "could barely be bothered to greet" a visiting royal family who walked through the door. The Four Seasons was also a popular drinking spot in the mid-1960s.
By the early 1970s, the restaurant was past its prime. This was in part due to the New York City fiscal crisis, as well as the fact that younger audiences were not necessarily interested in the Four Seasons' unconventional menu items. The Wall Street Journal said that "power lunchers looked the place over, saw tourists, and were horrified". Though the restaurant still attracted a loyal following on weekends, it was no longer popular on weekdays. Philip Johnson recalled that, on one day in early 1973, he and his partner John Burgee were the only people eating lunch at the Four Seasons. Restaurant Associates initially decided to continue operating the Four Seasons, which was one of the company's flagship restaurants, even as it closed other restaurants to save money. The firm ultimately decided to give up its lease of the Four Seasons by 1973, though it took over a year for Restaurant Associates to relinquish its lease.
### Margittai and Kovi operation
Restaurant Associates vice president Tom Margittai and Four Seasons director Paul Kovi acquired the Four Seasons in 1973. Shortly afterward, Margittai and Kovi hired Joseph "Seppi" Renggli as the executive chef; under Renggli's leadership, the Four Seasons added new menus for each season. The new operators hired George Lois to design a full-page advertisement, which was published in The New York Times on May 15, 1974. Margittai and Kovi concentrated their efforts on attracting guests; for example, after Margittai called back a customer who wrote a two-page letter complaining about the quality of the service, that customer became a regular. The men also had their staff "study religiously their customers' desires" by remembering their orders. One of the two rooms, which had been a bar, was converted to the Grill Room, which served simpler meals than the more upscale Pool Room. By 1975, Joseph Baum said that Margittai and Kovi had "done a superb job" in restoring the Four Seasons to its former elegance.
In the 1970s and 1980s, many of the Four Seasons' most important guests worked in the publishing and journalism industries, and the restaurant became widely known for its power lunches. The book publisher Michael Korda said in 1977 that the Grill Room was "the most powerful place to eat lunch in town". Two years later, an Esquire article declared the Grill Room to be the setting for "America's Most Powerful Lunch". According to CNN, the term "power lunch" may have come from the Esquire article. Upon its 20th anniversary, the restaurant largely retained its original appearance, although the trees and some of the tableware had been replaced. A mural by James Rosenquist was installed in the Pool Room for the restaurant's 25th anniversary in 1984. The Four Seasons' operators further redecorated the restaurant in 1988 at a cost of \$500,000.
When the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) was considering designating the Seagram Building as a city landmark in 1989, Margittai and Kovi separately endorsed landmark designation for the restaurant. The Seagram Company, as well as the building's then-owner Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA), opposed designating the restaurant as a landmark, even as they endorsed similar protections for the Seagram Building and its lobby. On October 3, 1989, the Four Seasons became New York City's second landmarked restaurant, after Gage and Tollner in Brooklyn. The New York City Board of Estimate ratified the designation in January 1990. The TIAA sued the LPC in 1990 to overturn the landmark designation for the Four Season, arguing that the restaurant was personal property and that the designation would force the restaurant to continue operating even if the owners wished to close it. The Four Seasons' operators had supported landmark designation precisely for that reason, as it would give the operators more leverage when they renegotiated their lease. The lawsuit was escalated to the New York Court of Appeals, which upheld the designation in 1993.
Meanwhile, following the Black Monday stock market crash in 1987, patronage at the Four Seasons had started to decline. In the year following the crash, business decreased by as much as 15 percent, and Margittai and Kovi had to fire some of the staff. In part because of the declining business, Renggli resigned as the restaurant's executive chef in 1990, and Christian Albin was hired to replace him. Even in early 1992, the Grill Room still had only six to ten patrons on a typical night, but patronage had recovered by the end of that year, when the Grill Room was filled to capacity at night.
### Von Bidder and Niccolini operation
#### 1990s and 2000s
In 1994, Margittai and Kovi passed operation of the restaurant to their junior partners, Alex von Bidder and Julian Niccolini, who continued to run the restaurant in the Seagram Building for two decades. At the time, von Bidder had expressed optimism that the restaurant would again become a popular venue for business lunches. During this decade, financial executives came to frequent the Four Seasons. Seagram & Sons bought a majority stake in the restaurant from Margittai and Kovi in 1995, and they renewed the restaurant's lease for 17 years in 1998. Power lunches at the Four Seasons again declined following the September 11 attacks in 2001, though they had started to return within two years.
French media conglomerate Vivendi, which acquired the Seagram Company in 2000, started selling off the Seagram Building's art in 2003 to raise money. These included some of the artwork in the Four Seasons, which were generally not protected as a city landmark, with the exception of Richard Lippold's sculptures. Christian Albin, the Four Seasons' executive chef, died suddenly in June 2009. Fabio Trabocchi was hired as the Four Seasons' executive chef in October 2009, but he left that position after only three months. Pecko Zantilaveevan, a longtime sous chef, was then promoted to the executive-chef position in April 2010. The Four Seasons also hired a second executive chef, Larry Finn. Further controversy over the restaurant's artwork arose in 2014 when the Seagram Building's owner, Aby Rosen, proposed removing a tapestry by Pablo Picasso, which was not protected as a landmark. The artwork was ultimately removed following a lawsuit.
#### Demise
In mid-2015, Rosen announced that the restaurant's lease would not be extended upon its expiry the following year. His company RFR Realty proposed changes to the Four Seasons' interior, which the LPC largely rejected, except for a replacement of the carpet. Prior to this announcement, Niccolini and von Bidder had conflicted with Rosen for the preceding several years. The Four Seasons’ rent increased from \$20 to \$105 per square foot (\$220 to \$1,130/m<sup>2</sup>). The Seagram Building location closed after dinner service on July 16, 2016. Soon after, on July 26, auctioneer Wright sold the furnishings of the restaurant inside the old Pool Room. The sale was originally estimated to bring in \$1.33 million but, by the end of the auction, it had brought in \$4.1 million. The items were sold at unusually high prices: for example, four ashtrays were sold for \$12,500 and a banquette sold for \$52,500. Rosen opened two new restaurants in the old Seagram Building space, known as the Pool and the Grill, which merged into a single restaurant in early 2020.
At the end of 2017, Niccolini and von Bidder announced that they would reopen the restaurant at 280 Park Avenue the next year, following a two-year delay. Prior to the restaurant's reopening, Diego Garcia was hired as executive chef and Bill Yosses were hired as pastry chef. The Four Seasons reopened at 42 East 49th Street (inside 280 Park Avenue) on the week of August 14, 2018. The new space, designed by Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld, cost \$30 million to build. This cost was partially funded by donations from some of the Four Seasons' longtime patrons. Many of the design elements evoked the décor of the former location. The space included a long hallway connecting the new restaurant's bar and dining room. The bar room had 50 seats and contained a sunken reflecting pool measuring 16 by 16 feet (4.9 by 4.9 m). The rectangular dining room had stone floors with irregular patterns; windows with gold-mesh panels; and metal rods on the ceiling. The new location was smaller than the original Seagram Building location, with 33 tables and a total of 299 seats.
In December 2018, von Bidder requested that Niccolini resign from his position due to sexual harassment allegations against the latter. The relocated restaurant struggled to make a profit in its new location, in part because the two co-owners had borrowed nearly \$40 million to open its new location. Other issues included the declining popularity of the "power lunch", as well as the negative publicity surrounding Niccolini's resignation. The Four Seasons closed permanently on June 11, 2019. Indicative of the Four Seasons' troubles was the fact that the restaurant had several empty tables during its final Saturday. The Brazilian firm Fasano Group leased the 280 Park Avenue space in late 2019, and Fasano opened an Italian restaurant there in February 2022, retaining much of the décor of the second Four Seasons.
## Design
The interior of the original restaurant was primarily designed by Philip Johnson, who worked with several designers, including L. Garth Huxtable and Ada Louise Huxtable. At Restaurant Associates' request, Johnson also collaborated with William Pahlmann, who influenced the furniture arrangement and the kitchen's layout. Architectural critic Paul Goldberger wrote that the original spaces comprised "New York's first consciously modern restaurant".
The space could be accessed either from the Seagram Building's lobby or from its own entrance on 52nd Street. The restaurant had five dining rooms, preserved in the modern-day Pool and Grill restaurants. The former Pool Room is on the north side of the first floor and the former Grill Room is on the south side. There are two dining areas on a balcony above the Grill Room, as well as a balcony above the Pool Room. These spaces are within the first and second floors of the Seagram Building, east of the lobby. The restaurant could fit 485 diners simultaneously.
### Pool Room and Grill Room
The Pool and the Grill are discrete 60-by-90-foot (18 by 27 m) rooms, designed as column-free spaces measuring 20 feet (6.1 m) high. As a result, the Seagram Building's engineers had to modify the tower's superstructure to transfer structural loads from the building's upper floors. The spaces contain design features similar to those in the Seagram Building's lobby, with travertine walls and floors; cement ceilings with gray-glass mosaic tiles; and bronze engaged piers. Carpets were attached to the floors using Velcro strips. The ceilings consist of gridded off-white aluminum panels, laid in a pattern resembling a coffered ceiling; these panels contained recessed lighting. The Pool and the Grill have glass curtain walls with bronze mullions and a bronze railing. The windows had metal curtains designed by Marie Nichols. Air from hidden ventilating ducts caused the curtains to ripple; the direction and intensity of the ripples changed depending on the season. Johnson had suggested the installation of the curtains, but the rippling effects were an unintended consequence.
The Pool Room is centered around a 20-by-20-foot (6.1 by 6.1 m) white marble pool. Four large planters at the corners of the Pool's marble pool held fig trees. Both the pool and the planters were placed there upon Pahlmann's suggestion. The northern and western walls are glass curtain walls, while the southern wall is faced in walnut with rawhide panels, containing openings to the kitchen and restaurant corridor. On the eastern side of the Pool, a staircase connects to a mezzanine on a podium slightly above the main floor. Above the gray-rawhide base of the podium, a bronze railing and movable walnut partition separates the mezzanine and main Pool Room. The northern wall is a glass curtain wall while the eastern and southern walls had carpet panels. The floor in both spaces had a carpet designed like a grid.
The Grill Room, originally the Bar Room, has a lounge in its northwest corner and a bar at its southwest corner. It has a similar glass curtain wall on its western and southern walls, as well as French walnut walls on the north and east. The bar area had an ebonized walnut floor, separated from the dining area by a laminated-glass partition. Additionally, the lounge area was separated from the main Grill by a walnut desk. The two private dining rooms are on a balcony raised above the main Grill, accessed by separate staircases and separated from the main Grill via walnut paneled doors. The smaller private room on the south and the larger room on the north are separated by a doorway with walnut sliding doors. The ceiling is similar to the main restaurant ceiling, with a black finish and irregularly scattered "punched holes" for lighting fixtures.
### Other spaces
Running north–south between the Grill Room and Pool Room is a corridor, which is at the top of the stairs leading from the main lobby. The reservation desk was originally placed at the top of these stairs, but it was relocated to one side of the corridor in 1966. A glass wall and bronze double door separate the corridor from the main lobby. The corridor itself measures 70 feet (21 m) long and contains travertine floors and walls. The north and south walls of the corridor contain doors leading to vestibules outside either room. The vestibules contain luminous dropped ceilings, designed in an egg-crate pattern. The eastern wall of the Grill Room's vestibule has a coat-check area with French-walnut walls, while the eastern wall of the Pool Room's vestibule includes a wine cellar. East of this corridor, the two rooms are separated by a large kitchen with dishwashing facilities above.
The eastern section of the 52nd Street wing has an entrance that leads directly to the Grill and Pool restaurant, bypassing the main lobby. The site slopes down to the east, so the 52nd Street entrance is one story below the rest of the restaurant. At the time of the restaurant's opening, this was an unconventional layout; according to Johnson, "There was no precedent for bringing people in from down below and walking them up." The 52nd Street entrance leads to an entrance lobby and foyer with travertine floors, a gridded white ceiling, coat-check area, offices, and restrooms. The 52nd Street entrance is connected to the Grill Room via a staircase. The railings of the staircase are composed of two sets of staggered rods, which appear to shimmer whenever somebody walks up the stairs.
## Theming
### Logo and colors
Emil Antonucci designed the Four Seasons Restaurant's logo. Antonucci procrastinated in designing the logo, finally drawing it up during the weekend before it was to be presented. The logo was composed of four hand-drawn trees, which appeared to be printed in a woodcut technique. There was one tree each in brown, pink, green, and red, each representing the winter, spring, summer, and autumn respectively. In the years after the logo was created, it became "one of the best-known restaurant logos in the world", according to New York magazine.
Variations of the logo's colors were used in staff uniforms, menus, and matchbooks, which were changed each season. The staff uniforms used azalea-colored cloth that was custom-made for the purpose. William Doerfler printed the menus, which were made of rough vellum and Japanese rice paper. They were so expensive to print that Joseph Baum was reluctant to reprint the menus if an item needed to be modified. Other items, including banquettes, were also changed to complement the overall theme.
### Tableware and furniture
L. Garth Huxtable and Ada Louise Huxtable designed over a hundred items of tableware for the restaurant, ranging from champagne glasses to bread trays. The tableware took over nine months to design. According to the Huxtables, Restaurant Associates had requested that the Four Seasons have "a distinctive, identifiable line of accessories and equipment in keeping with the sophisticated elegance of the restaurant interiors". Different pieces of tableware were designed for each type of food or drink. For instance, there were separate wine and liquor glasses, as well as different tableware for cold and hot appetizers, fruit, vegetable, cheeses, caviar, and house specialties. The serving dishes and platters were made entirely of silver. Some pieces of tableware were quickly removed due to their impracticality, including wobbly fruit bowls and glassware with the restaurant's logo. Other pieces, including silverware for tableside cooking, were more durable and lasted for several decades.
The original furniture included upholstered-leather Brno chairs designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and tulip tables designed by Eero Saarinen. The bar contained upholstered stools designed by Saarinen. In addition, Johnson designed simple, large dining tables for both rooms. The furniture and furnishings were sold off in July 2016. Some of the Four Seasons Restaurant's tableware and furniture are part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). These included 18 pieces of tableware that were placed in MoMA's Design Collection prior to the restaurant's opening.
### Plants
The restaurant had a \$50,000 annual budget just for the maintenance of the plants, which included four fig trees, two podocarpus plants, a Swiss cheese plant, a fiddle leaf fig, and five philodendrons. Plants were changed four times a year. Each season's plantings were selected in part based on how well their color harmonized with the overall palette. Plantings in the spring included azaleas and birches; in the summer, palms and philodendrons; in the autumn, oak-leaf branches and mums; and in the winter, white birches. Some of the plantings stayed in the restaurant year-round, including grape ivy and nephthytis.
The fig trees around the Pool Room's pool measured 17 feet (5.2 m) tall and were swapped out four times a year. The trees in the Pool Room had to be small enough to squeeze through the doorways, yet hardy enough to thrive and grow once installed indoors. The restaurant's landscape architect, Karl Linn, wrote that he examined hundreds of nurseries to obtain the correct trees. Additional plants were placed along the walls and near the top of the restaurant. Next to the windows were several baskets, each of which contained seasonal plants.
To ensure the survival of the plants, the Four Seasons had its own microclimate, and humidity, light levels, and temperature were adjusted accordingly. Workers spent three hours a day watering, spraying, pruning, and cleaning the plants. The air-conditioning system in each room provided sufficient humidity for the plants. The ceiling lights provided sufficient illumination for the plants near the top of each room, but the dim ceiling lights did not provide enough illumination for the other plants. At night, plants were illuminated by mercury oxide lamps for eight hours. Every morning, between sunrise and the restaurant's opening time, all the lights were turned on at maximum brightness, and portable mercury vapor lamps were placed beneath the fig trees. To prevent the fig trees from growing too quickly, the room temperature was decreased by up to 8 °F (4.4 °C) after closing time, and the soil in the fig trees' planters was kept dry. Flowering plants were also replaced weekly.
### Art
When the restaurant opened, Craig Claiborne of The New York Times wrote that the walls had "a fortune in art and tapestry". Richard Lippold designed artwork for the restaurant's ceiling, consisting of clusters of gold-colored brass rods. Lippold created two such artworks for the restaurant: one above the bar of the Grill Room and the other above the mezzanine of the Pool Room. There were either 3,000 or 4,000 rods in each sculpture. It took several months for Lippold and his assistant Marilynn Gelfman to install the rods in the Grill Room, which were suspended from two wires. Another of Lippold's associates, Gianni Morselli, then cleaned each rod at a cost of \$20,000. The idea for the ceiling rods was devised because Johnson and Lambert wanted to make the 20-foot-tall (6.1 m) spaces seem more cozy without actually modifying the room's dimensions or the "elegance" of its design. According to The New Yorker, the artwork appeared to resemble "golden strokes of rain".
A 20-by-20-foot (6.1 by 6.1 m) curtain designed by Pablo Picasso for the Ballets Russes ballet Le Tricorne (1919) was hung in the foyer between the Grill Room and the Pool Room. The curtain is a portion of a Picasso tapestry used as a prop for the ballet that was purchased in 1957 by Phyllis Lambert, the daughter of the Seagram founder Samuel Bronfman, and installed prior to the restaurant's opening in 1959. The curtain was owned by the New York Landmarks Conservancy and was removed in 2014, being reinstalled at the New-York Historical Society.
In 1975, four Ronnie Landfield paintings from Philip Johnson's collection were installed on the wall that was initially supposed to host the Rothko commission. The artist James Rosenquist was commissioned to install a permanent mural in 1984, after which the Landfield paintings returned to Johnson's collection. Rosenquist's mural was known as Flowers, Fish and Females for the Four Seasons. The work measured 7.54 feet (2.30 m) high and 23 feet 11 inches (7.29 m) wide. It depicted two women's faces on either side of a group of fruits and flowers, with fish below them. The faces and the other motifs are overlaid in a manner resembling slits. The mural was hung on the eastern wall of the Pool Room's mezzanine, which was renamed the Rosenquist Room in honor of this work.
In addition to the works on permanent public display, there were other works and continuously revolving exhibitions in the dining rooms and the 52nd Street entrance walls. These included three rugs by Joan Miró, as well as paintings by Frank Stella and Jackson Pollock. The restaurant also hosted temporary exhibitions of sculptures, including those by Jean Dubuffet, Roy Lichtenstein, and Henry Moore. The Seagram Company had owned many of these works of art.
#### Uninstalled works
The artist Mark Rothko was engaged to paint a series of murals in 1958, the Seagram murals. He had wanted the dark paintings to sicken the restaurant's patrons. During the period in which Rothko worked on his murals, the Four Seasons rented Jackson Pollock's painting Blue Poles from its then-owner, art collector Ben Heller. Rothko canceled the commission after visiting the restaurant. The final series was dispersed and now hangs in three locations: London's Tate Gallery, Japan's Kawamura Memorial Museum and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Rothko's murals were the only pieces of artwork that were commissioned specifically for the Four Seasons.
## Cuisine
The Four Seasons pioneered what later came to be called "New American Cuisine". When the Four Seasons opened, Time magazine wrote that the restaurant had "the highest-priced—and most exotic—menus in high-priced Manhattan", akin to the 21 Club, Colony Club, and Le Pavillon. Patrons could enjoy a sausage from one of the restaurant's "sausage trees" as they were being seated. Patrons could choose from a number of entrées. These included herbed lobster parfait, which consisted of pieces of lobster covered in hollandaise sauce and whipped cream; small clams with truffles and green onions; and beef marrow with cream and bouillon. Main courses included "Violets in Summer Snow", "Sweet and Sour Pike in Tarragon Aspic", and "Piccata of Piglet in Pastry". By the 1990s, the restaurant offered such menu items as "Chinese egg rolls, French terrines, German spatzle, Italian penne, spa cuisine and good old scrambled eggs." Some dishes, such as Dover sole, were consistently offered throughout the restaurant's existence.
More elaborate dishes were typically served in the Pool Room, while the Grill Room had a simpler menu. Patrons could request fresh herbs on their dishes, contrary to most American restaurants, which at the time of the Four Seasons' opening did not provide fresh herbs. The Four Seasons was the first restaurant in the United States to cook using fresh, wild mushrooms; these were placed not only in salads but also in filet mignon, sauces, and toast. The restaurant maintained its own herb garden for this purpose. Cotton candy was a house specialty, making the Four Seasons the first fine-dining restaurant to offer the confection. In addition, six varieties of coffee were available.
The chef James Beard was a principal contributor to the development of its seasonal-food concept, pairing appropriate wines for each season. Frank Prial of The New York Times wrote that "wine is an integral part of the Four Seasons operation", in contrast with other restaurants, where the selection of wine was a secondary consideration. There were two air-conditioned wine cellars, one next to the Pool Room and the other in the basement; they collectively held 15,000 bottles. When the Four Seasons opened in 1959, Beard was hired to instruct the staff on the characteristics and history of each type of wine. By 1975, the restaurant had 260 types of wine on its regular menu, including 80 American wines. Additionally, the restaurant had a special menu of 200 wines, which were available only in limited quantities; these special varieties represented about 1,000 total bottles.
## Clientele
The restaurant was known as much for its clientele as its food, with its Midtown location making it convenient for power lunches. The Four Seasons' clientele largely consisted of what Joe Baum described as "the achievers"; for many regular customers, the clientele was more important than the menu. Jeff Gordinier of The New York Times wrote that, even though the restaurant had hired celebrity chefs such as David Chang and Daniel Humm, the food "can seem like a supporting player". Town and Country magazine described the restaurant as a gathering place for influential figures in New York City, and a 1988 Newsday account said one could "fill a gossip column for a week" just by looking at which customers sat with each other.
According to a 1986 New York magazine article, the management knew half of the Pool Room's guests by name, and 90 percent of Bar Room customers went there at least once a week. If the management did not know a customer's name, the guest would introduce themselves at the reservation desk, and their name would be written on a card. The card would be passed to the captain responsible for that guest's table, who would then address the customer by name. The Four Seasons' management gave frequent patrons special treatment; according to Alex von Bidder, the restaurant once delivered a dinner to a "prized customer" in his hospital room in Boston. The restaurant's dress code prohibited such clothing as jeans and windbreakers, even for regular customers.
Typically, the Pool Room was more highly coveted than the Grill (Bar) Room, and the seats around the Pool Room's pool were more popular than those near the windows. The Wall Street Journal wrote in 1984: "At lunch time, serious people opt for the Bar Room, and have been doing so long before Michael Korda told them they should in his book on power." Despite the Four Seasons' stature, the rich and famous often dined among the general public, leading GQ food critic Alan Richman to describe the restaurant as "one of the last high-level democratic institutions". In the restaurant's later years, Julian Niccolini oversaw the restaurant's seating assignments. Niccolini deliberately seated conflicting parties, such as ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends, next to each other, describing himself as a "good devil".
### Notable customers
In the earliest years of the Four Seasons' existence, frequent customers included lawyers Louis Nizer and Roy Cohn, U.S. senator Jacob Javits, and philanthropist Charles Revson. In addition, film producer Joseph E. Levine often hosted parties at the Pool Room, inviting movie stars such as Sophia Loren, Franchot Tone, Robert Wagner, and Natalie Wood. According to Julian Niccolini, later customers included Anna Wintour, Henry Kissinger, Martha Stewart, Bill Clinton, George Lois, Bill Bernbach, and Jackie Kennedy. Other frequent patrons included businessman Barry Diller, fashion designer Bill Blass, and businessman Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr.
Niccolini said in 1999 that only four regular patrons were always assigned the same table: Simon & Schuster editor-in-chief Michael Korda; the restaurant's own architect Philip Johnson; Seagram CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr.; and Seagram chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr. According to lawyer Robert H. Montgomery Jr., the junior Bronfman typically sat on the balcony, which was an unpopular place to sit until Edgar Jr. became CEO of Seagram. Architectural Record wrote in 2016: "In one corner, Table 32 still exudes the aura of having been 'owned' by Johnson for decades." According to Niccolini, there were about 10 to 12 daily customers, including Art Cooper, Sandy Weill, and Richard Gelb, who were not always assigned the same table. Niccolini and his partner Alex von Bidder typically called these regulars every day, setting aside several tables for emergencies; the owners canceled the regulars' reservations if there was no response by noon. Niccolini said regular customers usually did not care about where they were seated, and most complaints about seating came from "people who are here only once a year and expect the best spot".
## Impact
### Critical reception
Reviews of the Four Seasons Restaurant largely praised the atmosphere, although commentary of the food itself was more mixed. When the Four Seasons first opened, Craig Claiborne wrote for The New York Times: "There has never been a restaurant better keyed to the tempo of Manhattan than the Four Seasons." New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton gave the Four Seasons two out of four stars in 1979, writing that the restaurant had good acoustics and good service, but the quality of the food varied considerably. Bryan Miller, writing for the Times in 1985, gave the restaurant three stars for its design and service, although he objected to the quality of some dishes such as the peppery duck. Food critic Seymour Britchky described the gravlax as "almost inedible" and the snapper as "grilled until dry".
The interior design was also praised. Interiors magazine described the restaurant's design as combining "its exceptional sumptuousness with exquisite refinement". Paul Goldberger wrote: "The wood‐panel bar with its Lippold sculpture is at once warm and dignified; the main dining room with its central pool and vast spaces is luxurious." Conversely, Goldberger said the Four Seasons' decoration was relatively muted compared to that of other restaurants.
Commentary of the restaurant continued in later years. Peter Hellman wrote for New York magazine in 1986 that, although the food at the Four Seasons was "not the absolute best in town", the restaurant itself was a customer favorite. Zagat's New York City Restaurant Survey ranked the Four Seasons as the city's most popular restaurant from 1983 to 1988. Ruth Reichl of the Times gave the Four Seasons three of four stars in 1995, writing: "In its 35th year the restaurant that introduced the idea of changing seasonal menus to America is still a pioneer." Times critic Frank Bruni reduced the restaurant to two stars in 2007, saying that "the restaurant, like so much else, isn’t quite what it was". When the Seagram Building location closed in 2016, The New York Times described the restaurant as "probably the most important New York restaurant of the 20th century".
After the Four Seasons reopened at its new location in 2018, it was broadly criticized, especially when compared to the Grill and Pool restaurants that replaced it at the Seagram Building. New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells praised the food and the decoration, saying that Garcia "has turned the Four Seasons into a seafood restaurant, and a very good one". Even so, Wells gave the restaurant only one star, saying: "There is a good case to be made for not reviewing the newly relocated Four Seasons Restaurant at all but just leaving it on the slush pile, and that case can be found in court records involving Julian Niccolini." Adam Platt of Grub Street gave "two stars for the best of Garcia's cooking and the diligent service", but he subtracted one star "for the insane prices and the somewhat dated vibe".
### Awards and media
The restaurant has won the James Beard Award several times, including for Outstanding Wine Service in 1997 and for Outstanding Service in 1998. The James Beard Foundation called the Four Seasons an "Outstanding Restaurant" in 1999 and described it as a "Design Icon" in 2016. In addition, the Four Seasons received the American Association of Nurserymen's special national award for indoor landscaping in 1960.
Margittai and Kovi published a Four Seasons cookbook in 1981. The book included autographs from notable customers, as well as recipes from the executive chef at the time, Seppi Renggli. The New-York Historical Society also sponsored a documentary film about the restaurant, It Happened Over Lunch, released in 2018.
## See also
- List of New American restaurants
- List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets |
29,683,319 | Matt Moore (baseball) | 1,173,531,105 | American baseball player (born 1989) | [
"1989 births",
"American League All-Stars",
"American expatriate baseball players in Japan",
"Baseball players from Florida",
"Baseball players from New Mexico",
"Bowling Green Hot Rods players",
"Catholics from Florida",
"Catholics from New Mexico",
"Charlotte Stone Crabs players",
"Cleveland Guardians players",
"Detroit Tigers players",
"Durham Bulls players",
"Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks players",
"Lehigh Valley IronPigs players",
"Living people",
"Los Angeles Angels players",
"Major League Baseball pitchers",
"Montgomery Biscuits players",
"Nippon Professional Baseball pitchers",
"People from Edgewood, New Mexico",
"People from Fort Walton Beach, Florida",
"Philadelphia Phillies players",
"Princeton Devil Rays players",
"Round Rock Express players",
"San Francisco Giants players",
"Sportspeople from Okaloosa County, Florida",
"Tampa Bay Rays players",
"Texas Rangers players"
]
| Matthew Cody Moore (born June 18, 1989) is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Cleveland Guardians of Major League Baseball (MLB). He has previously played in MLB for the Tampa Bay Rays, San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers, Detroit Tigers, Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Angels and in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.
Born in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, Moore's family moved to Okinawa when he was seven and Edgewood, New Mexico in 2000. Although he had committed to play college baseball with the University of New Mexico, Moore chose to sign a professional contract with the Rays after they selected him in the 2007 MLB draft. He set multiple strikeout records for the Rays' farm system before making his major league debut in 2011. Moore spent two full seasons with the Rays before Tommy John surgery caused him to miss the 2014 season. He returned in 2015, and was traded to the Giants the following year.
Moore struggled with run control in his second season with the Giants, leading the National League in earned runs allowed, and was traded to the Rangers in the 2018 offseason. His earned run average (ERA) stayed high with the Rangers, and he was sent to the bullpen to focus on his technique. In 2019, the Tigers signed Moore to a one-year contract, hoping for a rebound season, but he played only two games before suffering a season-ending knee injury. Moore spent one year with the Japan Series-winning Hawks before returning to the US in 2021 to play with the Phillies.
## Early life
Moore was born on June 18, 1989, in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. When he was seven years old, his family moved to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, where his father was working on helicopters for the Air Force Special Operations Command. In 2000, Moore and his family moved to Edgewood, New Mexico, where his older brother Bobby was set to begin high school. Both brothers attended Moriarty High School and would practice pitching at home, on a mound in their backyard.
Moore experienced a growth spurt between his sophomore and junior year of high school, which caught the attention of college recruiters and professional scouts. During his senior season, he helped take the Moriarty Pintos to a state runner-up title and was named Gatorade Player of the Year. Moore had committed to play college baseball at the University of New Mexico, his brother's alma mater, before he was taken by the Tampa Bay Rays of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the eighth round of the 2007 MLB Draft.
## Professional career
### Minor leagues
After being drafted 245th overall, Moore signed a \$115,000 contract with the Rays in 2007. He debuted that year with the Rookie Princeton Rays at the age of 18. In his first minor league season, he had a 0–0 win–loss record, a 2.66 earned run average (ERA), and 29 strikeouts in 8 games and 20+1⁄3 innings with the Rays. In 2008, he posted a 2–2 record, 1.66 ERA, and 77 strikeouts in 54+1⁄3 innings. At the end of his first full season in 2008, Moore was named a Baseball America Rookie All-Star.
In 2009, Moore was assigned to the Class A Bowling Green Hot Rods for their inaugural season. He was selected to start the first game in Hot Rods history. On June 8, 2009, Moore was named the South Atlantic League Pitcher of the Week after throwing seven shutout innings in a 10–2 win over the Asheville Tourists. He went 8–5 for the season with a 3.15 ERA in 26 starts, and led the league with 176 strikeouts in 123 innings. The following year, Moore had a standout season with the Class A-Advanced Charlotte Stone Crabs. His 208 strikeouts in 144+2⁄3 innings were the most in the Florida State League since Michael Cosgrove in 1971. Issues with pitch control, however, led to a 3.36 ERA and a 1.18 walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP). Mitch Lukevics, the Rays' director of minor-league operations, told FoxSports.com that, in both 2009 and 2010, Moore was "off to a bad start, and the technique [was] not where it need[ed] to be", but he found his stride over the course of the season.
Moore started the 2011 season with the Double-A Montgomery Biscuits. On June 16, he pitched his first career no-hitter, and the first franchise no-hitter for the Biscuits, in an 8–0 victory against the Mobile BayBears. That July, he pitched an inning at the XM Futures Game, retiring all three batters he faced in 11 pitches that reached up to 100 mph (160 km/h). Shortly afterwards, on July 22, he was promoted to the Triple-A Durham Bulls. He went 12–3 for the season, with a 1.92 ERA in 155 innings across 27 starts. Moore's 210 strikeouts were the most of any minor league player in Rays history, breaking his own record from the previous season, and made him the first minor league pitcher to record 200 or more strikeouts in back-to-back seasons.
### Tampa Bay Rays
Moore was called up to the Rays on September 11, 2011, and made his MLB debut three days later, giving up a two-run home run to Matt Wieters in the eighth inning of a 6–2 loss against the Baltimore Orioles. His performance recovered in time for his first major league start on September 22, becoming the first pitcher in MLB history to pitch 11 strikeouts in five innings or fewer against the New York Yankees. The Rays went on to win 15–8. Moore was given the start in Game 1 of the 2011 American League Division Series (ALDS) against the Texas Rangers, pitching seven shutout innings in a 9–0 victory for the Rays. Moore finished his first major league season with a 1–0 record and a 2.89 ERA in 9+1⁄3 innings.
On December 9, 2011, the Rays signed Moore to a guaranteed five-year, \$14 million contract. His signing was part of a trend within the Rays organization of offering long-term contracts to young pitchers, but his contract was the largest ever in both guaranteed dollars and potential earnings for any pitcher with less than two years of service time.
Moore began with the Rays in 2012 as part of a five-player starting rotation that also included James Shields, David Price, Jeremy Hellickson, and Jeff Niemann. On June 15, Moore combined with relievers Burke Badenhop and Brandon Gomes to pitch a one-hit shutout against the Miami Marlins, winning 11–0 and breaking a three-game losing streak. The Rays gave away a bobblehead figure of Moore on their July 22 game against the Seattle Mariners after the pitcher went 5–1 with a 3.94 ERA in eight starts in June and July. Moore finished the season with an 11–11 record, a 3.81 ERA, and 175 strikeouts in 31 appearances and 177+1⁄3 innings.
Returning to the Rays in 2013, Moore became the first left-handed American League (AL) pitcher to begin a season with an 8–0 record at age 23 or younger since Babe Ruth in 1917. After a strong beginning to the season, Moore began to falter, going 0–3 with a 13.86 ERA in his next three starts. He recovered in time to be named to his first ever MLB All-Star Game as a replacement for Yu Darvish, who suffered a strained trapezius. At the time, Moore was tied with Max Scherzer for the most wins in the AL with 13. He pitched for the AL in the fifth inning of the All-Star Game, retiring Carlos González, Yadier Molina, and Troy Tulowitzki in only nine pitches. Moore left a July 28 game against the New York Yankees in the fifth inning with a sore left elbow, and was placed on the 15-day disabled list on July 31. He posted a 17–4 record and a 3.29 ERA that season in 27 appearances and 150+1⁄3 innings.
Elbow troubles followed Moore into 2014. He exited the mound in the middle of an April 7 game against the Kansas City Royals, and realized after an afternoon throwing session that he could no longer pitch. Moore underwent Tommy John surgery on April 22, 2014 to replace a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament, and was sidelined for the remainder of the season. In the 10 innings that he did pitch that season, Moore was 0–2 and allowed three runs.
Moore began the 2015 season on the 60-day disabled list while recovering from surgery. He began pitching in June, making a series of minor-league rehab assignments for Durham. On June 28, 2015, rookie Matt Andriese was optioned to Durham, presumably to make room in the rotation for Moore. He returned to the Rays on July 2, 2015, giving up six hits and four runs in 4+2⁄3 innings against the Cleveland Indians. He struggled in his first six starts, posting an 8.78 ERA and never pitching past the fifth inning, and was optioned to Durham to focus on improvement. There, Moore recorded a 3.57 ERA in 40+1⁄3 innings. On August 23, he struck out 16 Columbus Clippers batters, setting a franchise single-game record. He was called back up to the Rays on September 2, and finished the season with a 3–4 record and a 5.43 ERA in 12 starts and 63 innings.
Going into the 2016 MLB season, Moore was given the start for the Rays' exhibition game against the Cuban national team. The Rays won 4–1 in the first visit by an MLB team to Cuba since 1999, and Barack Obama, who was in attendance, was given one of Moore's gloves. He seemed to return to pre-surgery form in the early part of the season, striking out 27.1 percent of the batters he faced in April. His curveball, in particular, resulted in only five hits in 105 pitches. In 21 starts and 130 innings with the Rays in 2016, Moore was 7–7 with a 4.08 ERA.
### San Francisco Giants
On August 1, 2016, the Rays traded Moore to the San Francisco Giants in exchange for third baseman Matt Duffy and prospects Lucius Fox and Michael Santos. After reports emerged that Moore would be wearing No. 55 with the Giants, the number he had worn with the Rays & a number that had previously belonged to pitcher Tim Lincecum, Moore and the team had to quiet upset fans by saying that he would be No. 45 instead.
Moore debuted with the club on August 4, giving up two runs and six walks in six innings. The Giants won 3–2 against the Philadelphia Phillies in the 10th inning. That same month, on August 26, Moore came within one out of a no-hitter against the Los Angeles Dodgers, throwing seven strikeouts in 8+2⁄3 innings. Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager hit a single in the bottom of the ninth inning, and reliever Santiago Casilla came in to pitch the final out of the Giants' 4–0 win. It would have been the fifth season in a row that a member of the Giants' pitching rotation threw a no-hitter. In the postseason, Moore pitched eight innings in Game 4 of the 2016 National League Division Series (NLDS). Giants manager Bruce Bochy pulled Moore before the final inning, and the Chicago Cubs overcame a 5–2 deficit to win the game and the series. Moore finished 2016 with a cumulative 13–12 record, 4.08 ERA, and 178 strikeouts in 198+1⁄3 innings.
The 2017 season proved to be the worst of Moore's career. He went 6–15 with a career high 5.52 ERA in 174+1⁄3 innings and 31 starts, gave up 27 home runs, and led the National League in earned runs allowed with 107. In addition to having the worst ERA among MLB pitchers with at least 162 innings, left-handed batters hit a .373 batting average against him, the highest in the league, and his allowance of 80 extra-base hits was the second-highest in the NL. Moore attributed some of his troubles to an over-reliance on his cut fastball, which he threw more that season than his other pitches.
### Texas Rangers
On December 15, 2017, the Giants traded Moore to the Texas Rangers in exchange for pitching prospects Sam Wolff and Israel Cruz. After feeling discomfort in his knee during spring training, Moore was placed on the 10-day disabled list on May 19, 2018. At the time, he was 1–5 with a 7.99 ERA in 10 games with the Rangers. He continued to struggle upon his return, carrying a 7.88 ERA by mid-June, and was moved to the bullpen to focus on improving his pitching technique. Prospect Yohander Mendez took Moore's place in the Rangers' starting rotation. He finished the season with a 3–8 record, a 6.79 ERA, and 86 strikeouts in 39 games and 102 innings with the Rangers. Moore's contract lapsed at the end of the 2018 season, leaving him a free agent.
### Detroit Tigers
On December 4, 2018, the Detroit Tigers signed Moore to a one-year, \$2.5 million contract in anticipation that he would follow Mike Fiers as a low-risk pitcher heading into a rebound season. On April 6, 2019, however, in only his second start of the season, Moore exited the mound three innings into a game against the Kansas City Royals, having sprained his right knee while attempting to field a bunt from Royals batter Billy Hamilton. He underwent meniscus surgery on April 14, and three days later, Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire announced that Moore would miss the rest of the MLB season. Prior to his injury, Moore pitched ten shutout innings for the Tigers.
### Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks
On December 26, 2019, Moore signed a one-year, () contract with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), who were looking to rebuild their pitching rotation after losing Ariel Miranda and Robert Suárez. He was part of a six-man rotation for the Hawks, who won the Pacific League by 14 games. Moore pitched seven shutout innings, including five strikeouts, in Game 3 of the 2020 Japan Series, and the Hawks came within one out of a combined no-hitter in their 4–0 victory over the Yomiuri Giants. He finished the season with a 2.65 ERA in 15 starts with the Hawks. Because professional baseball returned to play in Japan earlier than in the US, Moore was able to pitch 85 innings in 2020, one more than MLB season leader Lance Lynn.
### Philadelphia Phillies
On February 3, 2021, Moore signed a one-year, \$3 million contract with the Phillies. He was the first left-handed starting pitcher to begin a season with the Phillies since Cole Hamels in 2015. In his first three starts with the Phillies, Moore pitched to a 9.82 ERA, with nine walks in only 11 innings. His poor performance, coupled with time spent on the COVID-19 protocol list, led to his removal from the starting rotation and replacement with veteran Phillies pitcher Vince Velasquez. Back spasms caused Moore to miss over a month of pitching, from May 20 to June 25, at which point he was reactivated to start the second game of a doubleheader against the Mets. On July 16, in the first game of a doubleheader against the Miami Marlins, Moore struck out nine batters in 4+1⁄3 innings; it was the first time that he had fanned that many since 2017, in a game against the Washington Nationals. Despite struggles in recent starts, Phillies manager Joe Girardi gave Moore a start against the Cincinnati Reds on August 11. Moore no-hit the Reds through 6 innings, throwing only 76 pitches while walking 2, but was removed in the 7th. The combined no-hit bid ended in the 8th when Archie Bradley gave up a solo homerun to Tyler Stephenson. Moore would however earn the win as the Phillies won the game 6–1. Moore finished the 2021 season with a 2–4 record and a 6.29 ERA.
### Texas Rangers (second stint)
On March 14, 2022, Moore signed a minor league contract with the Texas Rangers. He opened the 2022 season with the Round Rock Express, and Texas selected his contract to the active roster on April 16. Moore spent the 2022 season as a reliever and excelled in the new role, posting a 5–2 record with a 1.95 ERA and 83 strikeouts over 74 innings in 63 appearances.
### Los Angeles Angels
On February 16, 2023, Moore signed a 1-year deal with the Los Angeles Angels worth \$7.55 million. In 41 appearances for the Angels, he logged a 2.66 ERA with 49 strikeouts in 44.0 innings of work. He was placed on waivers by the team on August 29.
### Cleveland Guardians
On August 31, 2023, the Cleveland Guardians claimed Moore off waivers.
## Pitcher profile
Early in his career, sports journalists predicted that Moore would become the Rays' ace because of his strong pitch repertoire and velocity. Baseball America and Keith Law of ESPN both ranked Moore second among all 2012 prospects, behind Bryce Harper, while MLB.com placed him in the third slot, behind Harper and Mike Trout. After returning from Tommy John surgery, however, Moore struggled with his pitch velocity and control, giving up large numbers of earned runs as he threw balls at hittable speeds and strike zone locations. His time in the NPB showed an improved performance, and Phillies manager Joe Girardi was keen to sign Moore in the hopes that he would add depth to the back end of the Phillies' starting rotation, serving as a player who has "pitched in tough situations" and could contend with aces Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler.
Moore utilizes a four-pitch repertoire consisting of a 92 mph (148 km/h) four-seam fastball, an 83 mph (134 km/h) changeup, an 80 mph (130 km/h) curveball, and an 89 mph (143 km/h) cut fastball. He and reliever Dellin Betances are known for having a unique grip on their four-seam fastball, in which they tuck their thumb under the ball, which some sports journalists and fellow pitchers believe negatively impacts their pitch control. Moore's most consistent flaw has been his walk total; in 2013, his best season statistically, he walked 76 batters in 150 innings.
## Personal life
In the offseason, Moore lives with his wife Anna, a labor and delivery nurse, and their son in Scottsdale, Arizona. Their son was born in February 2019 in Tampa.
Moore is Catholic. He has a tattoo on his left shoulder of Saint Michael, his sponsor saint at his Confirmation. |
28,791,135 | Will Munro | 1,144,493,690 | Canadian artist | [
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| William Grant Munro (February 11, 1975 – May 21, 2010) was a Toronto artist, club promoter, and restaurateur known for his work as a community builder among disparate Toronto groups. As a visual artist, he was known for fashioning artistic works out of underwear; as a club promoter, he was best known for his long-running Toronto queer club night, Vazaleen.
Born in Australia, Munro grew up mostly in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, and moved to nearby Toronto to study at OCAD University, graduating in 2000. Influenced by such artists as General Idea and the queercore movement, he received critical attention for his work with men's underwear, a medium he used eventually to create collages of colourful performers he admired such as Klaus Nomi and Leigh Bowery. He created silkscreen posters to advertise Vazaleen—his monthly nightclub party that was unusual for being a queer event where punk and other rock music was prominently played, and for being one of the first to exist beyond the confines of the gay ghetto. The party was known for attracting a diverse crowd, and at its peak brought in such performers as Nina Hagen; international "best-of" nightclub lists took notice.
Munro died of a spinal cord infection caused by brain cancer in May 2010. Posthumous exhibits of his art work included a 2010 show at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and in 2011 he was the first male artist to be featured in the feminist Montreal art gallery La Centrale.
## Personal life
Will Munro was born in Sydney, Australia in 1975. Later that year his family moved to Canada, just outside Montreal, and then lived in Mississauga, Ontario from 1980 onwards.
Despite his involvement in nightclub events, Munro did not consume alcohol or recreational drugs. He was a vegan from a young age. For many years, he volunteered as a peer counsellor at the Toronto Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line, where an annual award was established in his honour after his death.
Munro was diagnosed with brain cancer and underwent surgery to remove a tumour in 2008. A second surgery was performed in October 2009. He entered into palliative care in April 2010, and died on May 21, 2010.
## Art career
Munro moved from Mississauga to Toronto after high school, to attend OCAD University. From early on in his career, his signature medium was pastiche work with men's underwear. The origins of this work date back to his Intro to Sculpture class at OCAD, where his professor asked the students to "bring a special object to class that isn't really functional, but is special to you." Munro had long had an affinity for special underwear, ever since his mother had refused to buy him Underoos superhero underwear when he was a child; regarding white briefs, he said, "They were clinical and sterile. They weren't very sexy. It just felt very repressed. I wanted Underoos so bad." For the sculpture class, Munro decided to bring in a pair of underwear that he had stolen from a high school friend on whom he had a crush. He put the grey underwear on display in a Plexiglass cage, complete with air holes. In his subsequent work he decided to use white briefs as a medium "because they were so accessible." The summer after his sculpture class, to keep himself busy on a road trip, he made a quilt out of white underwear. In 1997, his first show involving underwear was held in a gallery supported by his college. The show received publicity after conservative columnist Michael Coren, in the Toronto Sun and on the radio, criticized Munro and his show, in particular for having said that it involved "boys' underwear" (although Munro had simply meant guys' underwear). Coren asked the public to bring dirty diapers to the exhibit, but no one did. Munro went on to have many showings of his underwear art, mostly "rescued" from second-hand Goodwill clothing outlets, including at Who's Emma, HEADspace, and Paul Petro Contemporary Art. Actor Selma Blair bought one of Munro's underwear works when she was in town for the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival.
Munro's influences included the work of General Idea, and the queercore movement. Speaking about the confluence of his music events and his art, Munro said in 2004, "This is where the music scene and gay underground come together. We're at a time when all kinds of shifts are happening. The structure of artists' galleries are changing. Magazines are changing. There's more different kinds of artist activity that's happening. All this is having an impact on my visual work. And my visual work is more and more going into performance." Galleries exhibiting his work have included Art in General, in New York City, Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown, and Toronto galleries Zsa Zsa, Mercer Union, YYZ Artists' Outlet, Paul Petro Contemporary Art, and the Art Gallery of York University. Munro was named on the longlist of finalists for the Sobey Art Award in 2010.
A posthumous exhibit of his work, "Total Eclipse", was presented at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2010. Works included collages, made from underwear, that depict Klaus Nomi and Leigh Bowery, both of whom Munro admired. Reviewing the show in Canadian Art, critic Sholem Krishtalka wrote that Munro's work is "insistent on the necessity of self-made culture and buttressed by an encyclopedic knowledge of queer underground cultural history."
Other posthumous exhibitions of his work include a 2011 show at the feminist La Centrale gallery in Montreal—a first for a male artist in that space—and in 2012 a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of York University.
## Club promoter and community builder
Munro started the monthly party Vaseline (later renamed Vazaleen) in Toronto at a time when most gay clubs featured house music or other types of dance music. His hope was to draw a more diverse crowd: he said at the time, "I'd like to do something that'll encompass all the freaks out there, myself included." In addition to its stereotype-countering incorporation of punk and other rock music, his club night was also noted to be unusual for being located outside of the Church and Wellesley gay neighbourhood. It was atypical as well for having about 50 percent women attending the event. Munro said, "I was determined to get women to attend and I did it in a really simple way. I put lots of images of women and dyke icons on the posters and flyers—groups like The Runaways or singers like Nina Hagen and Carole Pope. I wanted women to know instantly that this was their space as much as anybody else's." It began in the downstairs space at El Mocambo in late 1999, moved to the upstairs space in January 2000, and in late 2001, when El Mocambo was threatening to close, to Lee's Palace, where it continued as a monthly event until 2006; it continues to this day as an annual event as part the city's Pride Week festivities, to raise money for the Will Munro Fund for Queer and Trans People Living with Cancer.
In a lengthy article about Vazaleen in Toronto Life, critic R. M. Vaughan wrote, "In its lewd, spontaneous, hysterical and glamorous way, Vazaleen defined a new Toronto aesthetic, a playful and endlessly inventive mode of presentation that encompassed everything from lesbian prog- rock to tranny camp to vintage punk revival to good old-fashioned loud-mouthed drag." In an editorial in C magazine, Amish Morrell wrote, "At [Vazaleen] it was not only okay to be gay, but it was okay to be other than gay. One could be just about anything. The effect was that it completely destabilized all preconceptions of gender and sexual identity, in a hyperlibidinous environment where everyone became a performer." Benjamin Boles of Now wrote, "These days it's normal in Toronto for hip gay scenes to flourish outside of the queer ghetto and to attract a wide spectrum of genders and orientations, but that didn't really happen until Vazaleen took off and became a veritable community for everyone who didn't fit into the mainstream homo world. For too long, it was too rare to see dykes, fags, trans people, and breeders hanging out together, and Munro changed that." Vazaleen became a launching pad for such musical acts as Peaches and Lesbians on Ecstasy. Other bands performing at Vazaleen early in their careers were The Hidden Cameras, Crystal Castles, and The Gossip. At the height of the event's popularity, Munro appeared on the cover of Now magazine (made up to look similar to David Bowie's Aladdin Sane album cover), musical guests included Carole Pope, Tracy + the Plastics, Vaginal Davis, Glen Meadmore and Nina Hagen, and Vazaleen appeared on "best-of" nightclub lists internationally.
Munro produced other Toronto club nights such as Peroxide, which featured electro music, No T. O., which showcased No Wave, Seventh Heaven Dream Disco, and the amateur stripper party Moustache. In 2006, Munro and his friend Lynn MacNeil bought The Beaver Café, in the West Queen West neighbourhood. Arts columnist Murray Whyte of the Toronto Star wrote, "Will's virtual status as hub took bricks-and-mortar form: The Beaver quickly became that cozy, everyone-in-the-pool house party, a sort of community hall/mini dance club, and an alt-culture oasis". "Love Saves the Day" became Munro's dance music night at The Beaver, which he continued to organize even as his illness began to prevent him from leaving home. His final night of DJing in person was at a special Halloween Vazaleen party at Lee's Palace in 2009.
Bruce LaBruce wrote of Munro's impact on Toronto, just prior to his death: "As we all know, Toronto can be a cruel and unforgiving city. What makes Will Munro so extraordinary as an artist and as a person is that he has not only remained true to such a harsh mistress, but that he has also contributed so substantially to the fabric and heft of this often maleficent metropolis. His dedication to community work (including volunteering for a decade at an LGBT youth crisis hotline) and to creating social and sexual stimulation for the queer community outside the decaying gay ghetto (namely, his wonderfully raunchy club night, Vazaleen, and his participation as a founding partner in revitalizing the Beaver Café) is unmatched."
In 2013, Toronto-based writer Sarah Liss published Army of Lovers: A Community History of Will Munro, a book which collected reminiscences about Munro from his family, friends and colleagues. The book's launch party, dubbed Vaza-Launch, featured performances by both Peaches and Light Fires. The book is divided into three parts (Mississauga Goddam, Rock Show, and Heaven), which all work to highlight what an extraordinary talent Munro had for community cultivation. It begins with Munro's childhood spent in Mississauga, which both of his parents state that Munro and his brother, Dave, "hated Mississauga." (pg. 16) Dave Munro recalls that Will experienced a sudden shift in personality in or slightly before grade seven, where he became a different person: "Will was like, 'Fuck doing after-school-programs,' and started down his own path" (pg. 23). |
20,300,396 | Hurricane Bonnie (1986) | 1,165,418,941 | Category 1 Atlantic hurricane in 1986 | [
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| Hurricane Bonnie caused moderate damage along the Gulf Coast of the United States in late June 1986. The second named storm and first hurricane of the 1986 Atlantic hurricane season, Bonnie developed out of an area of low pressure over the central Gulf of Mexico on June 23. The system gradually intensified and was declared Tropical Storm Bonnie the next day as it moved generally towards the west-northwest. On June 25, Bonnie was upgraded to a hurricane. Bonnie strengthened further and on the following day, the storm attained its peak intensity with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (137 km/h). Shortly thereafter, Bonnie made landfall near High Island, Texas. Following landfall, Bonnie quickly weakened below tropical storm status and dissipated over Missouri on June 28.
Prior to Bonnie moving ashore, 22,000 people were evacuated in Texas and Louisiana. Upon making landfall, Bonnie produced a storm surge peaking at 5.2 feet (1.6 m) at Sabine Pass. Rainfall from the storm peaked at 13 inches (330 mm) in Ace, Texas, which caused some street flooding and destroyed a small dam in Liberty County, Texas. Three fatalities were reported in the Port Arthur, Texas area; two deaths were from separate car accidents and another occurred after a partially paralyzed woman died in a house fire. Flooding also impacted northwestern Louisiana. In the Shreveport area alone, 381 homes, 20 businesses, and 80 major highway intersections were flooded. The hurricane also spawned 11 tornadoes, destroying about 25 houses in southwestern Louisiana. Overall, Hurricane Bonnie caused \$42 million (1986 USD) in damage and five fatalities.
## Meteorological history
In mid-June, a mid-level center of circulation formed in association with a quasi-stationary cold front that stretched across northern Florida and the extreme northeast Gulf of Mexico. On June 20, a weak and disorganized area of low pressure developed in conjunction with the front and it passed by Tampa Bay, Florida the following day. Upon moving into the eastern Gulf of Mexico, there was little convection observed on satellite imagery, although a distinguishable wind-shift was noted by an offshore buoy. However, by June 23, the presence of deep convection atop a circulation had become well-defined enough for the National Hurricane Center to classify the disturbance as a tropical depression, while centered 330 mi (530 km) southwest of Cape Coral, Florida. Moving generally west to west-northwestward across the central Gulf of Mexico, the National Hurricane Center sent a reconnaissance plane into the tropical depression at 1500 UTC on June 24, at which time winds of 60 mph (97 km/h) were found. About three hours later, the depression strengthened into Tropical Storm Bonnie.
In the 24 hours after becoming a tropical storm, satellite imagery showed a substantial increase in upper-level outflow as Tropical Storm Bonnie gradually intensified. A reconnaissance plane into the system shortly before 1200 UTC on June 25 revealed hurricane-force winds 1,500 ft (460 m) above the surface. This evidence was the basis of Bonnie's upgrade to a Category 1 on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale at 1800 UTC on June 25. During the afternoon hours of June 26, Bonnie reached its peak intensity with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (137 km/h) and a minimum barometric pressure of 990 mbar (990 hPa; 29 inHg). While accelerating towards the northwest, the hurricane retained this intensity until landfall near High Island, Texas at 1000 UTC on June 26. Eight hours later, Bonnie weakened to a tropical storm and was downgraded to tropical depression status at 0000 UTC on June 27. The depression persisted until 1200 UTC on June 28, at which time it was absorbed by a frontal zone while located over the U.S. state of Missouri.
## Preparations
Upon the system being classified as a tropical depression, a high risk of landfall near Port Arthur, Texas was noted, giving federal officials sufficient lead time to warn local residents about a possible approaching hurricane. As the system neared landfall, tropical cyclone watches and warnings were issued for the Gulf Coast of the United States. At 1200 UTC on June 25, the National Hurricane Center issued a gale warning and a hurricane watch, stretching from Port O'Connor, Texas to the mouth of the Mississippi River. A few hours later, a hurricane warning was issued for area west of Morgan City, Louisiana to Freeport, Texas. In advance of the approaching storm, roughly 22,000 residents were evacuated, with 10,000 from Galveston County, Texas alone.
## Impact
Due to the small size of Hurricane Bonnie, damage was relatively light, totaling to \$42 million. The storm was also attributed to five deaths, four in Texas and one in Louisiana.
### Texas
In some areas of eastern Texas, the storm dropped 10 to 13 in (250 to 330 mm) of rain, with a peak total of 13 inches (330 mm) in Ace. Heavy rains caused by Bonnie also lead a small dam collapse in northeastern Liberty County, Texas, resulting in severe flooding. In Hardin County, the Pine Island Bayou overflowed, causing water to enter hundreds of homes and businesses. Several major roadways were flooded due to flooding, including Highway 59 between Livingston and Shepherd, U.S. Route 79 in Panola County, and Interstate 20 and several farm-to-market roads in Harrison County. The Bear Foot Lake dam overflowed, damaging some homes and forcing 200 families to evacuate. Overall, approximately 1,300 people in southeastern Texas fled their homes due to flooding. Severe flooding left behind by the heavy rains caused \$5 million in damage.
In addition to rain and flooding, winds damaged more homes and businesses, and a tornado was spawned a few miles southwest of Port Arthur. More than 19,000 power outages were reported in the area near where Bonnie made landfall. Texas State Highway 87 was closed in Jefferson County due to debris and electrical poles fallen on the roadway. The storm left broken windows, scattered tree limbs, and debris filled streets in Port Arthur and Beaumont. At the latter, strong winds toppled a radio tower at the Texas Department of Public Safety building, while several schools suffered damage to the roof and windows. Marinas and boats at Lake Sam Rayburn were damaged. Hank Creek Marina, located across the lake, broke free from its moorings and floated away, while portions of were submerged. Four indirect fatalities were confirmed in Texas, two from traffic accidents, one from a house fire ignited by a candle, and another from drowning. Several injuries were also reported, including four after a truck flipped over due to strong winds.
### Louisiana
Most of the damage in Louisiana occurred in Cameron Parish. Twenty-five homes, trailers, and cabins in southwestern Louisiana were destroyed, resulting in about \$400,000 in damages. Two tornadoes were spawned in Webster Parish. The first caused about \$15,000 in damage to the roofs of three homes. The other tornado destroyed three mobile homes and severely damaged an additional two as well as three permanent homes. Damage from this tornado totaled \$200,000. Just south of Blanchard, 10.2 in (260 mm) of rain fell within a 12-hour period. Interstate 20 was closed from Shreveport to the Louisiana-Texas state line due to flooding, with as much as 5 ft (1.5 m) of standing water near Greenwood.
Torrential rains caused water inundation up to 10 ft (3.0 m) in some areas of Shreveport. Firefighters used boats to rescue some stranded Shreveport residents in their homes by sudden high water. Rescuers also had to bind themselves together to rescue some people stranded in a flooded trailer park. Flooding in the city forced police to barricade 50 major highway intersections. Along the shore of Cross Lake, about 80 homes were damaged by water intrusion. About 381 homes and 20 businesses in Shreveport were damaged by flooding. A tornado spawned in the city overturned an airplane at Shreveport Downtown Airport, damaged a roof from a house, and shattered a number of windows. No injuries were reported from the tornado. Damage in Louisiana from flooding alone totaled \$11–13 million, with \$4 million to highways and bridges, \$1–2 million to vehicles, \$5 million to property, and \$1–2 million to boats. Three fishermen were tossed into a lake after a boat was capsized due to high winds. Two were rescued, but one perished.
### Elsewhere
Heavy rains from the remnant low-pressure area of Bonnie led to heavy rains in several states in the Southeastern United States. Rainfall was generally minor in most areas, however in Arkansas, rains totaled up to 11.75 in (298 mm) at the South Arkansas Regional Airport. Several roads were washed out in Ouachita County near Elliott. A number of roads and bridges were also washed out in Union County, with damage totaling \$200,000. U.S. Route 79 was closed between Magnolia and Stephens because of standing water. Three or four families evacuated near the Ouachita-Union County line after the Smackover Creek overflowed its banks and flooded 20 homes. There was also a small area of heavy rains totaling up to 5 in (130 mm) along the border of Tennessee and Georgia.
## See also
- Other storms named Bonnie
- 1986 Atlantic hurricane season
- List of wettest tropical cyclones in the United States
- Hurricane Barry (2019) - a storm that took a nearly identical track. |
50,641,695 | Shumen Plateau Nature Park | 1,036,502,876 | Nature park in Shumen Heights, Bulgaria | [
"1980 establishments in Bulgaria",
"Nature parks in Bulgaria",
"Protected areas established in 1980",
"Tourist attractions in Shumen Province"
]
| The Shumen Plateau Nature Park (Bulgarian: Природен парк Шуменско плато) is located in the Shumen Plateau of the northern province of Shumen of Bulgaria, the highest plateau of the Danubian Plain. The Park encloses the Bukaka Reserve Forest, which is known for indigenous Fagus sylvatica Fagus sylvatica (common beech) moesiaca (the Balkan beech) forest. This Park was declared a National Park in 1980 and a Nature Park in 2003 to conserve its ecosystems and floral and faunal biodiversity, and to preserve its tableland landscape together with many tourist sites such as the Shumen fortress, the Monument to 1300 Years of Bulgaria, cave monasteries, and surface and underground karst caves. The park has the first thematic educational trail in the Karst Nature Park, constructed as part of a project titled "Natural Park of Shumen Plateau" with funds provided by the EU Cohesion Fund and the Republic of Bulgaria; the trail is integral to the Operational Program "Environment 2007–2013".
## Geography
Located in Northeast Bulgaria, the park is part of the Shumen Plateau, which in turn is integral to the "Shumen Heights" to its east. The plateau is one of three zones of the Shumen Heights, the other two being the Balkan area in its central part and the Fiseka on its west. Together, the three zones are in the shape of an irregular rectangle oriented in northwest–southeast direction. The river valleys in this area form the shape of segmented bays.
The entire plateau is delimited on the northern border by the Pakosha, Strazhka, and Chairdere river valleys; by Pakosha and Vranato valleys on its west; by the Vrana, Ticha, and Kamchiya river valleys on the south; and the lowlands of the Shumen-Smyadovo border on the east, while the Fiseka mountain rises to a height of 500.5 metres (1,642 ft) in a north-west direction. The plateau is 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) long from west to east; and 7–8 kilometres (4.3–5.0 mi) wide south to north, 7–8 kilometres (4.3–5.0 mi) wide in the far south; 9–10 kilometres (5.6–6.2 mi) wide in the central part; 11–12 kilometres (6.8–7.5 mi) wide towards the north and about 20 kilometres (12 mi) wide in the northern extremity. Width wise, the plateau is oriented in north–south direction and extends 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) and 17 kilometres (11 mi) respectively. The plateau covers a total area of 73.13 square kilometres (28.24 sq mi).
The Shumen Plateau Nature Park encloses the Bukaka Reserve Forest, which covers a total forest area of 63.04 hectares (155.8 acres). This forest is protected on account of its indigenous Fagus sylvatica (common beech) moesiaca (the Balkan beech) forest" that is several hundred years old. The only human activity allowed within this reserve is use of trails which pass through it. The Shumen Plateau occupies the highest plateau in the Danubian Plain, with an elevation of 502 metres (1,647 ft), and features "bizarre and fantastic rock phenomena and underground Karst forms".
## History
The Shumen Plateau is part of the Natura 2000 network and was designated per the Council Directive 92/43/EEC for the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora. Within this plateau, the park is demarcated over an area of 3,929.9 hectares (9,711 acres). It lies in the eastern part of the Danubian Plain, near the town of Shumen, and was declared a National Park in 1980 and a Nature Park in 2003. The responsibility of park's management is with the government of Bulgaria and is dictated under the Management Plan for Nature Parks and the Protected Areas Act (1998).
## Biology
The park and the plateau have distinctive topographic features and plateau's water resources, climate and soil conditions dictate the biodiversity of its plant species.
### Flora
The park has a dense forest area, with about 90% area covered by forests mostly of the mixed deciduous forests. The plants and tree species reported from this forest, are: ash (Fraxinus), beech (Fagus), European hornbeam (Carpinus betulus), lime (Tilia), maple (Acer campestre), Turkey oak (Quercus cerris), and many more. The forest's conifer vegetation consists of: European black pine (Pinus nigra), Norway spruce (Picea abies), Oregon pine (Pseudotsuga menziesii), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), and spruce (Picea). The shrub species reported are: dog rose (Rosa canina), the European Cornel (Cornus mas), the hawthorn (Crataegus), and the hazel (Corylus). The open area of the park is covered with several species of bush and grass. Other plant species reported are 14 types of orchid (Orchidaceae) and more than 250 species of herbal plants. The Management Plan for the park lists 550 species of vascular plants (excluding mosses).
### Fauna
The faunal species reported consist of 350 invertebrates and more than 240 vertebrates. The mammals recorded are: badger (Meles meles), beech marten (Martes foina), fox (Vulpes vulpes), red deer (Cervus elaphus), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), wild boar (Sus scrofa) and soforth. There are also several species of avifauna. The reptile species reported include Aesculapian snake (Elaphe longissima), European green lizard (Lacerta viridis), Hermann's tortoise (Testudo hermanni), horned viper (Vipera ammodytes), spur-thighed tortoise (Testudo graeca), and wall lizard (Podarcis muralis). Animals, which are under different protection categories, reported in the park are: black woodpecker (Dryocopus martius), Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo), lesser spotted eagle (Aquila pomarina), marbled polecat (Vormela peregusna), Northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis), and Romanian hamster (Mesocricetus newtoni).
## Cultural heritage
There are many cultural landmarks in the park. These are:
The Shumen fortress, also known locally as the Old Town of Shumen, is an archaeological site. It was built on a hill with a commanding view of the city. The fortress is located within the park. The fortress was the location of the town of Shumen during the First and Second Bulgarian Empire (12th – 14th centuries). Thracians ruled over the territory from the 5th to 2nd century BC, followed by Romans who ruled from first century BC to 3rd century AD, and then by the early Byzantine from 4th to 6th century AD. The site consisted of refined residences, religious buildings, and defense fortifications. After the Ottoman conquest of Bulgaria, the fortress was besieged and occupied in 1444 by the forces of King Władysław III of Poland during the Crusade of Varna. Following this battle the fortress was looted and gutted, and the Ottoman rulers eventually abandoned the fortress completely. It has since been partially restored.
The Founders of the Bulgarian State Monument or Creators of the Bulgarian State monument, is another notable monument within the park, built to commemorate the 1300th anniversary of the establishment of Bulgaria, starting from the First Bulgarian Empire (7th century – 11th century). This monument, which is about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) distance from the entrance of the Shumen fortress, was built in 1981 during the communist regime. An information center is situated 300 metres (980 ft) away from this monument and a 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) track from here leads to the Shumen fortress.
There are cave monasteries which functioned during the Second Bulgarian Empire as religious and cultural centres. They are located in karstic rock formations in the plateau and are difficult to access. Some of the notable caves are the Biserna Cave (Pearl Cave) and the Taynite Ponori Cave (the Secret Ponors Cave).
Karstic limestone formations, which comprise the main geological formations of the park and the plateau, are found in the park in the form of ponors (sinkholes) in small canyons and rock rims.
### Trails
The park has the first thematic educational trail in the Karst Nature Park, constructed as part of a project titled "Natural Park of Shumen Plateau" with funds provided by the EU Cohesion Fund and the Republic of Bulgaria, which is integral to the Operational Program "Environment 2007–2013". |
728,802 | Bristol Old Vic | 1,158,821,081 | Theatre in Bristol, England | [
"Bristol Old Vic",
"Culture in Bristol",
"Grade I listed buildings in Bristol",
"Grade I listed theatres",
"Grade II* listed buildings in Bristol",
"History of Bristol",
"Music venues in Bristol",
"Producing theatres in England",
"Theatre companies in the United Kingdom",
"Theatres completed in 1766",
"Theatres in Bristol",
"Theatrical organisations in the United Kingdom",
"Tourist attractions in Bristol"
]
| Bristol Old Vic is a British theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, Bristol. The present company was established in 1946 as an offshoot of the Old Vic in London. It is associated with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which became a financially independent organisation in the 1990s. Bristol Old Vic runs a Young Company for those aged 7–25.
The Theatre Royal, the oldest continually-operating theatre in the English-speaking world, was built between 1764 and 1766 on King Street in Bristol. The Coopers' Hall, built 1743–44, was incorporated as the theatre's foyer during 1970–72. Together, they are designated a Grade I listed building by Historic England. Daniel Day-Lewis called it "the most beautiful theatre in England."
In 2012, the theatre complex completed the first phase of a £19 million refurbishment, increasing the seating capacity and providing up to ten flexible performance spaces. Besides the main Theatre Royal auditorium, the complex includes the Studio theatre and the Side Stage, Paint Shop and Basement performance areas. Whilst the theatre was closed, the company continued to present work in the Studio and Basement spaces, as well as at other sites around Bristol. The Theatre Royal re-opened in 2012 with Wild Oats.
## History of the theatre
The theatre is situated on King Street, a few yards from the Floating Harbour. From 1972 until 2016, the public entrance was through the Coopers' Hall, the earliest surviving building on the site. The Coopers' Hall was built in 1744 for the Coopers' Company, the guild of coopers in Bristol, by architect William Halfpenny. It has a "debased Palladian" façade with four Corinthian columns. It only remained in the hands of the Coopers until 1785, subsequently becoming a public assembly room, a wine warehouse, a Baptist chapel and eventually a fruit and vegetable warehouse.
The theatre was built between 1764 and 1766. The design of the auditorium has traditionally been taken to have been based, with some variations, on that of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. Although Bristol architect Thomas Paty supervised construction, the theatre was built to designs by James Saunders, David Garrick's carpenter at Drury Lane. Saunders had provided drawings for the theatre in Richmond, Surrey, built in 1765. A long section (1790, at Harvard University Theatre Collection) and a survey plan (1842, at the Local Studies Library) of the Richmond theatre show close similarities with the Bristol theatre in the proportions and in the relationship between the actors on stage and the spectators surrounding them on three sides. The site chosen was Rackhay Yard, a roughly rectangular empty site behind a row of medieval houses and to one side of the Coopers' Hall. Two (and possibly three) new passageways built through the ground floor of the houses fronting King Street gave access to Rackhay Yard and the "New Theatre" inside it.
The theatre opened on 30 May 1766 with a performance which including a prologue and epilogue given by David Garrick. As the proprietors were not able to obtain a Royal Licence, productions were announced as "a concert with a specimen of rhetorick" to evade the restrictions imposed on theatres by the Licensing Act 1737. This ruse was soon abandoned, but a production in the neighbouring Coopers' Hall in 1773 did fall foul of this law.
Legal concerns were alleviated when the Royal Letters Patent were eventually granted in 1778, and the theatre became a patent theatre and took up the name "Theatre Royal". At this time the theatre also started opening for the winter season, and a joint company was established to perform at both the Bath Theatre Royal and in Bristol, featuring performers such as Sarah Siddons, whose ghost, according to legend, haunts the Bristol theatre. The auditorium was rebuilt with a new sloping ceiling and gallery in 1800. After the break with Bath in 1819 the theatre was managed by William M'Cready the elder, with little success, but slowly rose again under his widow Sarah M'Cready in the 1850s. Following her death in 1853 the M'Creadys' son-in-law James Chute took over, but he lost interest in the Theatre Royal, which fell into decline when he opened the Prince's Theatre, originally known as the New Theatre Royal, in 1867. A new, narrow entrance was constructed through an adjacent building in 1903.
Historic documents from the history of the Theatre Royal and Bristol Old Vic can be found at Bristol Archives and University of Bristol Theatre Collection.
## Formation of the Bristol Old Vic
Chute relinquished his lease on the Theatre Royal in 1861, concentrating his business at the Prince's Theatre, which was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War. In 1942, the lease owners put the building up for sale. The sale was perceived as a possible loss of the building as a theatre and a public appeal was mounted to preserve its use, and as a result a new Trust was established to buy the building. The Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) leased the building from the Trust and in 1946 CEMA's successor, the Arts Council, arranged for a company from the London Old Vic to staff it, thus forming the Bristol Old Vic.
Early members of the company included Peter O'Toole (making his first appearance in Major Barbara in 1956), John Neville, Timothy West, Barbara Leigh-Hunt and Dorothy Tutin. The first artistic director was Hugh Hunt.
An early triumph for the Bristol Old Vic occurred when the 1954 première production of Salad Days transferred to the West End and became the longest-running musical on the London stage at that time. The Arts Council remained involved until 1963 when their role was taken over by the City Council. In the same year, the London Old Vic was disbanded and the Bristol company became fully independent. The Bristol Old Vic also put plays on in the council-owned Little Theatre from then until 1980.
A new theatre complex, designed by Peter Moro, was completed in 1972. The 1903 entrance building was demolished, as were a number of surrounding buildings and, more controversially, the stage area of the 1766 theatre. A new stage and fly tower were built along with technical facilities and offices. The 150-seat New Vic studio theatre (later known as the Studio) was built in place of the old entrance, and the Coopers' Hall provided the theatre with the grand façade and foyer area it had previously lacked.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Bristol Old Vic productions were well received both locally and on tour, but by the late 1980s faced significant underfunding. A revival under the leadership of Andrew (Andy) Hay brought an increase in audience numbers; there followed a new Arts Council funding package, and in 2003 the appointment of joint artistic directors David Farr and Simon Reade. They briefly branded the organisation the "new bristol old vic".
In 2005, Reade became the sole artistic director. Artistic highlights during these times included the production of A. C. H. Smith's Up The Feeder, Down the Mouth and Back Again during Andy Hay's tenure, and some well-received Shakespeare productions under David Farr and Simon Reade.
## Refurbishment
In July 2007, the board of trustees took the controversial decision to close the theatre for refurbishment. Many members of the theatre profession feared for the future of the Old Vic. Following several public meetings in the winter of 2007/2008, a newly formed board of trustees appointed Dick Penny, the director of the Watershed Media Centre as executive chairman.
In February 2009, the company announced that Tom Morris, at that time an associate director at the Royal National Theatre and formerly artistic director at Battersea Arts Centre, had been appointed as artistic director. Emma Stenning, who had previously worked with Tom Morris at BAC, became executive director.
In October 2010, there was a merger of the Old Vic and the Theatre Royal Bristol Trust, into a combined charity to be chaired by Laura Marshall, the managing director of Icon Films.
A fundraising campaign for the £19 million planned refurbishment was assisted by appearances from, among others, Richard Briers, Stephanie Cole, Judi Dench, Prunella Scales, Timothy West and Patrick Stewart. £5.3 million was provided by the Arts Council. During the closure the company staged productions in the Studio theatre, the Basement and in other locations around Bristol, including Sally Cookson's adaptation of Treasure Island on King Street in summer 2011 and Melly Still's revival of Coram Boy at the Colston Hall at Christmas 2011.
The plan was for a flexible theatre complex, where up to ten areas are available for performance. Tom Morris has cited as inspiration the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris. The main auditorium gained an optional thrust stage, and an increase in seating to 540. The Side Stage area was redeveloped, with additional capacity of 250, creating the option of a separate second auditorium. Other spaces redeveloped as performance areas included the Paint Shop and the rehearsal room. The Theatre Royal re-opened in September 2012, with Wild Oats.
A further round of redevelopment was undertaken between June 2016 and September 2018. The street side of the 1970s Peter Moro building, containing the Studio theatre (originally the New Vic), was demolished and replaced by a new foyer with bar and box office, which makes a feature of the previously hidden theatre walls. The Coopers' Hall was adapted to house new performance and event spaces, including a studio theatre in the barrel vaults in its basement.
## Touring
The Bristol Old Vic has a long history of taking productions on tour both within the United Kingdom and overseas. Production which have toured include Hamlet, Arms and the Man and A Man for All Seasons to Ceylon and Pakistan in 1962–63; Hamlet and Measure for Measure to America, Holland and Belgium in 1966–67 and Man and Superman to the June Schauspielhaus Festival in Zurich, 1958. The company has also made frequent visits to the Edinburgh Festival and productions have toured to the Theatre Royal Bath, Oxford Playhouse, Royal Court Theatre, London and the Young Vic, London amongst others. Co-productions have taken Bristol Old Vic plays to most of Britain's major theatres. Bristol Old Vic has co-produced with companies such as Kneehigh Theatre, the Royal National Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse and other regional theatres and companies across the UK.
Tom Morris’ production of Swallows and Amazons transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre in London's West End followed by a major UK tour. Simon Godwin's production of Brian Friel's Faith Healer is playing in the 2012 Hong Kong Arts Festival. Other recent touring productions include the Bristol Old Vic/Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory co-production of Uncle Vanya.
Bristol Old Vic's Ferment artist development strand also sees work developed at the theatre touring across the UK and internationally.
## Engagement and Young Company
The Bristol Old Vic Engagement's Department (Formerly Outreach) focuses on creating participatory theatre opportunities for young people and the disenfranchised in Bristol and across the South West. The work they do involves numerous workshops and partnerships within schools, the local community and charities.
By far the biggest part of their work is the Young Company. Bristol Old Vic Young Company is one of the largest regional youth theatres in the UK, home to over 350 young people aged 5–25 from across the South West who take part in an on-going programme of weekly sessions, theatre master classes, community projects and full-scale performances. As of 2018, this project involved young people from every region and postcode of Bristol. The Young Company create and perform at least 3 shows a year.
The theatre also run a training scheme called Made in Bristol. The scheme is a year-long course, usually consisting of twelve young people aged 18–25 who become resident at Bristol Old Vic for two days a week for one year. The course is designed to give young theatre-makers an opportunity to train together, to become workshop leaders, facilitators and theatre makers, creating work that can reach out across Bristol and the South West, engaging with other local arts organisations and working with visiting practitioners and industry professionals. The scheme culminates in the formation of a theatre company and the performance of a devised piece of work. The scheme, nearly in its 10th year, has created theatre companies which have continued outside of the year-long course. These include The Wardrobe Ensemble, Propolis Theatre and INKBLOC ensemble.
Some of their other projects include Firebird, Cardboard Citizens and Borderlands. Firebird Theatre is a Company of twelve disabled artists based in Bristol; they are experienced, disabled performers/actors with a consistent track record and history of making plays and performances for over twenty-five years. Cardboard Citizens is bringing the Cardboard Camp programme to Bristol Old Vic, working with homeless and marginalised groups. Borderlands is a partnership with a local charity of the same name, that welcomes refugees into Bristol Old Vic to enjoy productions there.
## Artistic directors of the Bristol Old Vic
## Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, opened by Laurence Olivier in 1946, is an affiliate of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, an organisation securing the highest standards of training in the performing arts, and is an associate school of the University of the West of England. The School began life in October 1946, only eight months after the founding of its parent Bristol Old Vic Theatre Company, in a room above a fruit merchant's warehouse in the Rackhay near the stage door of the Theatre Royal. (The yard of the derelict St Nicholas School adjacent to the warehouse was still used by the company for rehearsals of crowd scenes and stage fights as late as the early 1960s, notably for John Hale's productions of Romeo and Juliet starring the Canadian actor Paul Massie and Annette Crosbie, a former student of the School, and Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac with Peter Wyngarde. Students from the Theatre School frequently played in these crowd scenes and fights.)
The School continued in these premises until 1954 when royalties from the musical, Salad Days by Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds were given to the School towards the purchase and conversion of two large adjoining Victorian villas in Clifton, which remain their base today.
In 1995, that donation was formally recognised when a new custom-built dance and movement studio in the School's back garden was named the Slade/Reynolds Studio. The School provides comprehensive training courses for theatre, radio, film, and television professionals and its graduates are to be found in key positions as actors, directors, set designers, costumer designers, lighting designers and stage and company managers throughout the world.
Among the most notable of the many distinguished actors on the School's list of alumni are the Academy Award winners Daniel Day-Lewis and Jeremy Irons.
See Alumni of Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
### Peter O'Toole Prize
To coincide with their re-opening in 2012, the theatre launched an award called the Patron's Prize, which was later renamed the Peter O’Toole prize following the actors death. The award is a six-month contract at the Bristol Old Vic offered to two graduating actors from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. The inaugural winners were Emily May Smith and Isaac Stanmore.
## See also
- Culture in Bristol |
63,584,362 | French cruiser Galilée | 1,145,903,537 | Protected cruiser of the French Navy | [
"1896 ships",
"Linois-class cruisers",
"Ships built in France"
]
| Galilée was a protected cruiser of the French Navy built in the 1890s; she was the second member of the Linois class, which was ordered as part of a construction program directed at strengthening the fleet's cruiser force. At the time, France was concerned with the growing naval threat of the Italian and German fleets, and the new cruisers were intended to serve with the main fleet, and overseas in the French colonial empire. Galilée was armed with a main battery of four 138.6 mm (5.5 in) guns, was protected by an armor deck that was 40 mm (1.6 in) thick and she had a top speed of 20.5 knots (38.0 km/h; 23.6 mph).
Galilée served in the Mediterranean Squadron for the duration of her career, beginning in 1898. During this period, her time was spent conducting training exercises, shooting practice, and naval reviews. In 1907, she was transferred to the Reserve Division of the Mediterranean Squadron, where she continued to take part in the peacetime training schedule. In August 1907, she participated in the Bombardment of Casablanca, opening a western front to the French conquest of Morocco. She hosted President Armand Fallières and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia for a naval review during the latter's visit to France in 1909. Galilée was struck from the naval register in 1911 and subsequently broken up.
## Design
In response to a war scare with Italy in the late 1880s, the French Navy embarked on a major construction program in 1890 to counter the threat of the Italian fleet and that of Italy's ally Germany. The plan called for a total of seventy cruisers for use in home waters and overseas in the French colonial empire. The Linois class of protected cruisers was ordered as part of the program, and the design was based on the earlier Forbin class.
Galilée was 100.63 m (330 ft 2 in) long overall, with a beam of 10.97 m (36 ft) and a draft of 5.44 m (17 ft 10 in). She displaced 2,285 to 2,318 long tons (2,322 to 2,355 t). Her crew varied over the course of her career, amounting to 250–269 officers and enlisted men. The ship's propulsion system consisted of a pair of triple-expansion steam engines driving two screw propellers. Steam was provided by sixteen coal-burning Belleville type water-tube boilers that were ducted into two funnels. Her machinery was rated to produce 6,800 indicated horsepower (5,100 kW) for a top speed of 20.5 knots (38.0 km/h; 23.6 mph). She had a cruising radius of 3,000 nautical miles (5,600 km; 3,500 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) and 600 nmi (1,100 km; 690 mi) at 20.5 knots.
The ship was armed with a main battery of four 138.6 mm (5.5 in) 45-caliber guns in individual pivot mounts, all in sponsons located amidships with two guns per broadside. These were supported by a secondary battery that consisted of a pair of 100 mm (3.9 in) guns, one at the bow and the other at the stern. For close-range defense against torpedo boats, she carried eight 47 mm (1.9 in) 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns, two 37 mm (1.5 in) guns, and four 37 mm Hotchkiss revolver cannon. She was also armed with four 450 mm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes in her hull above the waterline, and she had provisions to carry up to 120 naval mines. Armor protection consisted of a curved armor deck that was 40 mm (1.6 in) thick, along with 138 mm (5 in) plating on the conning tower.
## Service history
### Construction – 1900
The keel for Galilée was laid down at the Arsenal de Rochefort shipyard in Rochefort in 1893. She was launched on 28 April 1896 and she was completed in September 1897. She completed her sea trials off Rochefort that year, reaching a maximum speed of 19.8 knots (36.7 km/h; 22.8 mph) in poor weather.
The next year, she was assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron, which at that time consisted of four pre-dreadnought battleships, four ironclads, two armored cruisers, and three other protected cruisers, among other smaller vessels. On 20 September 1898, the ship took part in shooting practice with the battleships Jauréguiberry, Brennus, and Charles Martel, the ironclad Magenta, and the armored cruiser Chanzy; the ships used the old ironclad floating battery Arrogante as a target; they fired some 350 shells at Arrogante, which caught fire, rolled over, and sank. By 1899, the unit had been strengthened with new ships, allowing older, less effective vessels to be sent elsewhere. By that time, the unit consisted of six pre-dreadnought battleships, three armored cruisers, seven other protected cruisers, and several smaller vessels in addition to Galilée.
Galilée operated with the Mediterranean Squadron in 1900, which was stationed in Toulon. On 6 March, Galilée joined several pre-dreadnought battleships and the protected cruisers Du Chayla, Lavoisier, and Cassard for maneuvers off Golfe-Juan on the Côte d'Azur, including night firing training. Over the course of April, the ships visited numerous French ports along the Mediterranean coast, and on 31 May the fleet steamed to Corsica for a visit that lasted until 8 June. She then took part in the fleet maneuvers that began later that month as part of Group II, along with Cassard and Du Chayla. The maneuvers included a blockade conducted by Group II in late June, and after completing its own exercises , the Mediterranean Squadron rendezvoused with the Northern Squadron off Lisbon, Portugal in late June before proceeding to Quiberon Bay for joint maneuvers in July. The maneuvers concluded with a naval review in Cherbourg on 19 July for President Émile Loubet. On 1 August, the Mediterranean Fleet departed for Toulon, arriving on 14 August. Eleven days later, the naval minister, the army minister, and several representatives from the French Parliament embarked on three of the squadron's battleships, and Galilée and the armored cruiser Chanzy escorted them to Corsica and French Tunisia before returning to Toulon on 22 October.
### 1901–1907
She remained with the Mediterranean Squadron the following year. That year, the annual fleet maneuvers were conducted from 3 to 28 July. The ship was present for the exercises, but instead of taking an active role, she escorted the battleship Bouvet, which hosted the admiral in charge of supervising the maneuvers. The ship continued to serve in the squadron through 1902. During the 1902 fleet maneuvers, which began on 7 July, the Northern Squadron attempted to force a passage through the Strait of Gibraltar. The cruisers of the Mediterranean Squadron, including Galilée, conducted patrols from their base at Mers El Kébir to observe their entrance and signal the rest of the fleet. After successfully detecting the simulated enemy squadron, they shadowed the vessels until the rest of the Mediterranean Squadron assembled, but the Northern Squadron commander was able to shake his pursuers long enough to prevent them from intercepting his force before the end of the exercises on 15 July. Further maneuvers with the combined fleet took place, concluding on 5 August.
The ship remained in service with the squadron in 1903. Galilée got underway on 29 January with other members of the squadron for gunnery practice in Golf-Juan. The exercises were interrupted two days later by a collision between two of the battleships. In the summer of 1904, she arrived in Tangier along with the Kléber during the Perdicaris affair.
She continued to operate with the Mediterranean Squadron in 1904. She remained in service with the unit in 1905, and the following year. The ship took part in the fleet maneuvers that year, which began on 6 July with the concentration of the Northern and Mediterranean Squadrons in Algiers. The maneuvers were conducted in the western Mediterranean, alternating between ports in French North Africa and Toulon and Marseilles, France, and concluding on 4 August.
She was transferred to the Reserve Division of the Mediterranean Squadron in 1907. The ship was in a nearby dry dock in Toulon when the battleship Iéna exploded on 12 March that year. Galilée was present for the 1907 fleet maneuvers, which again saw the Northern and Mediterranean Squadrons unite for large-scale operations held off the coast of Morocco and in the western Mediterranean. The exercises consisted of two phases and began on 2 July and concluded on 20 July.
### Bombardment of Casablanca
The following month, she was involved in the Bombardment of Casablanca, which marked the beginning of the French conquest of Morocco from the west. On July 30, 1907, tribesmen of the Shawiya opposing the terms of the Treaty of Algeciras and the vacillations of the representative of the Makhzen, the Qaid Abu Bakr Ibn Abi Zaid as-Slawi, killed nine European employees of la Compagnie Marocaine operating a Decauville train from a quarry in Roches Noires to the Port of Casablanca.
Galilée was dispatched the same day by order of Charles de Beaupoil, comte de Saint-Aulaire on behalf of Eugène Regnault [fr]. He instructed Commandant Ollivier of Galilée to protect the lives and possessions of the Europeans, and to bombard if necessary to protect the European settlements. Galilée arrived in the waters of Casablanca on August 1 at 8:30 am. The situation was stable until August 5, when Galilée put a landing party of 75 men ashore, into the city, causing an insurrection.
While the French colonial forces were fighting their way to the French consulate, Galilée was joined by Du Chayla, and the two cruisers then bombarded the port and the fortress in the city. Additional French forces arrived by 9 August and sent a larger force of 3,000 sailors ashore. The Moroccan resistance made a major assault on the French forces the next day, but intense fire support from the French warships drove them off with heavy losses, an estimated 6,000–15,000 Moroccan deaths.
She remained in the Reserve Division in 1908. In July 1909, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia visited France, and on the 27th, he boarded Galilée along with President Armand Fallières to observe a naval review in Cherbourg. Galilée was struck from the naval register in 1911 and was then broken up. |
7,832,219 | Effects of Hurricane Isabel in New Jersey | 1,171,661,337 | null | [
"2003 in New Jersey",
"Effects of hurricanes in the United States",
"Hurricane Isabel",
"Hurricanes in New Jersey"
]
| The effects of Hurricane Isabel in New Jersey in 2003 were overall moderate, limited to fallen trees, two deaths, and \$50 million in damage (2003 USD, \$59 million 2008 USD). Hurricane Isabel formed from a tropical wave on September 6 in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. It moved northwestward, and within an environment of light wind shear and warm waters it steadily strengthened to reach peak winds of 165 mph (266 km/h) on September 11. After fluctuating in intensity for four days, Isabel gradually weakened and made landfall on the Outer Banks of North Carolina with winds of 105 mph (169 km/h) on September 18. It quickly weakened over land and became extratropical over western Pennsylvania the next day. Several days before Isabel made landfall, there existed uncertainty in where the hurricane would strike. At least one computer model predicted a landfall on New Jersey, and as a result services across the state thoroughly prepared for the hurricane.
Isabel passed 215 miles (346 km) southwest of the state, though its large wind core produced tropical storm force winds across much of the state. The winds downed hundreds of trees and power lines, leaving hundreds of thousands without power. A falling tree killed one person. Hurricane Isabel produced rough waves and a moderate storm surge along the coastline. One person was killed from the rough waves, and at least 50 locations along the Jersey Shore reported beach erosion from the hurricane.
## Preparations
44 hours before Hurricane Isabel made landfall on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the National Hurricane Center issued tropical storm watch for the coastline from Little Egg Inlet southward into the Mid-Atlantic. A day later, the watch was extended northward to Sandy Hook. When Isabel was 26 hours from making landfall, the watches were changed to tropical storm warnings, and 10 hours before it struck land the National Hurricane Center issued a tropical storm warning for the remainder of the New Jersey coastline. The National Hurricane Center also briefly issued a hurricane watch for the New Jersey coastline. While over the western Atlantic Ocean as a Category 5 hurricane, forecasters predicted Isabel would move northwestward and within five days be at a position 170 miles (270 km) south of Cape May as a 115-mph (185-km/h) major hurricane. By four days before the hurricane struck land, at least one computer model predicted Isabel would strike New Jersey.
News stations were stationed with crews along the Jersey shore several days in advance of Isabel to provide breaking news and live conditions. Many residents prepared their houses by boarding windows and purchasing emergency supplies. The Sussex County chapter of the American Red Cross advised local high schools to be on stand-by as potential shelters in the event evacuation occurred. Emergency coordinators in several counties were on alert, though none issued evacuations. In preparation for anticipated power outages, the Jersey Central Power and Light company arranged to receive more electrical crews from its parent company, FirstEnergy. Other utility workers from various locations as far as Canada left for the state in the event of power outages.
Several flights in and out of the state were delayed or canceled, and the Cape May-Lewes Ferry canceled travel across the Delaware Bay during the duration of Isabel. In Atlantic City, casino workers prepared for coastal flooding by placing sandbags at boardwalk entrances. New Jersey Transit workers secured its buses, railways, and light rail equipment. To ensure service would remain accessible during and after the hurricane, NJ Transit prepared backup generators, pumps, and chainsaws, with workers inspecting trains and the paths of the lines. FEMA mobilized and dispatched an Urban Search and Rescue Task Force of 28 people to the state for possible rescue duty. Days before the storm made landfall, the Salvation Army prepared food and aid for potentially affected citizens. In anticipation for the effects of Isabel, Governor Jim McGreevey declared a state of emergency, which allowed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to deal with the situation.
## Impact
Isabel produced a storm surge along the New Jersey coastline of up to 6.5 feet (2.0 m) in Cape May. Higher amounts occurred along the Delaware River, peaking in the state at 10.6 feet (3.2 m) in Burlington. At its closest approach, Isabel passed within about 215 miles (346 km) of the state, and as a result the outer rainbands produced light rainfall. Wildwood along the southeast coast reported 1.3 inches (33 mm) of rain, while Lincoln Park in the northern portion of the state recorded 2.07 inches (53 mm) of precipitation. The large wind field of the hurricane produced moderate winds across the state. A shoal in the Delaware Bay experienced sustained winds of 54 mph (87 km/h) with gusts to 71 mph (114 km/h). Cape May reported tropical storm force winds with gusts to 61 mph (98 km/h), while Newark in the northern portion of the state experienced gusts to 44 mph (71 km/h).
Hurricane Isabel produced slightly above normal tides and rough surf along the Jersey shore, killing one surfer off of Wildwood Crest. The combination of gusty winds and the heavy surf produced moderate beach erosion along much of the coastline, primarily to beaches facing southeastward. In the Delaware Bay and River area, no significant erosion was reported, though coastal flooding from the hurricane washed out a road and destroyed the deck of a house in Baypoint. In Cape May County waves eroded the beaches by up to 4 feet (1.2 m) in Ocean City and Avalon, with several cities experiencing a loss of dunes and geotubes in Whale Beach being exposed. Waves from Isabel in Atlantic County resulted in light damage, minor coastal flooding, and slight beach erosion. The beaches of southern Ocean County experienced a loss of 3 to 4 feet (0.91 to 1.22 m) of sand, while locations further to the north experienced only minor erosion. Most coastal areas of Monmouth County reported eroded beaches by up to 4 feet (1.2 m), with Union Beach losing about 5,000 sq. feet (465 sq. m) of sand.
Moderate wind gusts throughout the state downed hundreds of trees, tree limbs, and power lines. Over 382,000 people were without power, one of the worst power outages on record for area utilities. Downed trees and power lines closed major streets and schools in Union County. One downed tree greatly damaged a house in Middletown, and in Hudson County several trees fell onto and damaged cars. A downed tree in Englewood injured a woman when she was struck, and a woman in Independence Township was killed when a fallen tree landed on the vehicle she was driving. Strong winds from Isabel blew out the windows in an office building in East Rutherford, causing injuries to two women when they were struck. Throughout the state, damage totaled to about \$50 million (2003 USD, \$59 million 2008 USD).
## See also
- List of New Jersey hurricanes
- List of retired Atlantic hurricane names |
400,425 | The Shooting Star | 1,152,433,639 | Comic album by Belgian cartoonist Hergé | [
"1942 graphic novels",
"Anti-Americanism",
"Comics set in Iceland",
"Comics set in the Arctic",
"Comics set on islands",
"Impact events in fiction",
"Literature first published in serial form",
"Meteorites in culture",
"Methuen Publishing books",
"Nautical comics",
"Race-related controversies in comics",
"Tintin books",
"Works originally published in Le Soir"
]
| The Shooting Star (French: L'Étoile mystérieuse) is the tenth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was serialised daily in Le Soir, Belgium's leading francophone newspaper, from October 1941 to May 1942 amidst the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin, who travels with his dog Snowy and friend Captain Haddock aboard a scientific expedition to the Arctic Ocean on an international race to find a meteorite that has fallen to the Earth.
The Shooting Star was a commercial success and was published in book form by Casterman shortly after its conclusion; the first Tintin volume to be originally published in the 62-page full-colour format. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with The Secret of the Unicorn, while the series itself became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. The Shooting Star has received a mixed critical reception and has been one of the more controversial instalments in the series due to the perceived antisemitic portrayal of its villain. The story was adapted for both the 1957 Belvision animated series, Hergé's Adventures of Tintin, and for the 1991 animated series The Adventures of Tintin by Ellipse and Nelvana.
## Synopsis
A giant meteoroid approaches the Earth, spotted from an observatory by Professor Decimus Phostle; he and a self-proclaimed prophet, Philippulus, predict that the meteoroid will hit Earth and cause the end of the world. The meteoroid misses Earth, but a fragment of it plunges into the Arctic Ocean. Phostle determines that the object is made of a new material which he names Phostlite, and arranges an expedition to find it with a crew of European scientists. Accompanied by Tintin and Snowy, their polar expedition ship, the Aurora, is helmed by Tintin's friend Captain Haddock. Meanwhile, another expedition is funded by the financier Mr. Bohlwinkel, with a team setting out aboard the polar expedition ship Peary; thus, Phostle's expedition becomes part of a race to land on the meteorite.
On the day of the Aurora'''s departure, Bohlwinkel has a henchman plant a stick of dynamite on the ship, but the dynamite is found and eventually thrown overboard. In one of the shipping lanes of the North Sea, the Aurora is almost rammed by another of Bohlwinkel's ships, but Haddock steers out of the way. Further setbacks occur when Aurora has to refuel at Iceland, going to the port of Akureyri, where Haddock is informed that the Golden Oil Company (which is owned by Bohlwinkel's bank and has a fuel monopoly) has no fuel available. He and Tintin then come across an old friend of his, Captain Chester, and Tintin comes up with a plan to trick Golden Oil into providing the fuel they need by secretly running a hose to Aurora from Chester's ship, Sirius. As they are getting closer to the Peary the Aurora receives an indistinct distress call from another ship and the crew agrees to alter their course to help; however, Tintin exposes that the distress signal is a decoy to delay them, and they resume the journey. The Aurora intercepts a cable announcing that the Peary expedition has reached the meteorite but not yet claimed it. While the Peary crew rows to the meteorite, Tintin uses the Aurora's seaplane to get to and parachute onto the meteorite and plant the expedition's flag, thus winning the race.
Tintin and Snowy (who followed on the plane) make camp on the meteorite while the Aurora's engines are repaired after developing trouble. The next day he finds immense explosive mushrooms, and discovers that Phostlite accelerates growth: his apple core grows into a large tree while a maggot turns into a huge butterfly, and he and Snowy are menaced by a giant spider that escaped from his lunch box, before the seaplane arrives again. A sudden seaquake shakes the meteorite to its core and it starts sinking into the sea. Tintin gets himself, Snowy and a piece of Phostlite to the pilot of the seaplane in the plane's life raft, as the meteorite itself finally disappears into the sea. Thereafter Bohlwinkel learns that he is expected to be tried for his crimes. As the Aurora returns home, Captain Haddock steers the ship toward land to refuel not with oil, but with whisky.
## History
### Background
Amidst the German occupation of Belgium during World War II, Hergé became the founding editor of Le Soir Jeunesse, a children's supplement in Belgium's leading newspaper, Le Soir. Hergé's previous employer, the Catholic newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle (which had originated The Adventures of Tintin through its own children's supplement, Le Petit Vingtième) was no longer allowed by the German authorities to continue publishing; Le Soir, in contrast, was allowed to stay open under the administrative control of the occupying military government. Le Soir Jeunesse serialized most of The Shooting Star's immediate predecessor, The Crab with the Golden Claws, but ceased publication due to paper shortages in 1941. The Adventures of Tintin was then moved to Le Soir itself, where The Crab with the Golden Claws was concluded and the subsequent four Adventures (including The Shooting Star) were serialized.
During its initial serialization, The Shooting Star featured the United States as the primary antagonists; explaining this, Hergé asserted that the story revolved around the theme of "the rivalry for progress between Europe and the United States". Although not disliking Americans themselves, he had a strong disdain for American big business, and had exhibited anti-American themes in earlier works, in particular in Tintin in America. During serialisation of The Shooting Star, in December 1941, the U.S. entered the war on the side of the Allies, thus coming into direct conflict with Germany. All of the scientists featured were from Axis, neutral, or occupied countries which might be a reflection of the strip's anti-Allies political slant. Hergé biographer Harry Thompson stated this should not be interpreted as a strong anti-Ally bias, for the only two nation-states in Europe that were part of the Allies at that point were the Soviet Union and United Kingdom, and that the characters of Haddock and Chester were British.
As he had done for other Adventures of Tintin which featured sea travel, Hergé was careful to obtain as much data about ships as possible in order to make his portrayals more realistic. The design of the Aurora was based on the RRS William Scoresby, while that of the Peary was most likely based upon another Antarctic ship, the RRS Discovery. The seaplane on which the expedition travels was based on the German Arado 196-A. Hergé nevertheless later criticised his own efforts in this area, saying that if Aurora had been a real ship, it would probably be unseaworthy.
The Shooting Star shared plot similarities with The Chase of the Golden Meteor, a 1908 novel by pioneering French science-fiction writer Jules Verne. As in Hergé's story, Verne's novel features an expedition to the North Atlantic to find a meteorite fragment containing a new element. In both stories, the competing expedition teams were led by an eccentric professor and a Jewish banker, and Verne's novel had a Doktor Schultze to Hergé's Professor Schulze—both from the University of Jena. Hergé denied deliberately copying Verne's story, saying that he had only read one of the French novelist's works; it is possible that the influence from Verne came via Jacques Van Melkebeke, Hergé's friend and assistant, who was a fan of the genre. The Swedish expedition member Eric Björgenskjöld physically resembles a real person: Auguste Piccard, who later became Hergé's inspiration for Professor Calculus.
### Antisemitism
Under Nazi control, Le Soir was publishing a variety of antisemitic articles, calling for the Jews to be further excluded from public life and describing them as racial enemies of the Belgian people. Hergé biographer Pierre Assouline noted that there was a "remarkable correlation" between the antisemitic nature of Le Soir's editorials and The Shooting Star's depiction of Jews. Within months of the story's publication, legislation was passed to collect and deport Jews from Belgium to Nazi concentration camps. Thus, The Shooting Star reflected trends in the Belgian political situation at the time. However, the story was not the first time that Hergé had adopted such a perspective in his work; he had recently provided illustrations for Robert de Vroyland's Fables, a number of which contained antisemitic stereotypes, reflecting the racism in much of de Vroyland's book. Similarly, his depiction of the character of Rastapopoulos, who was introduced in Tintin in America, has been cited as being based upon antisemitic stereotypes.
When The Shooting Star appeared in Le Soir, Hergé featured a gag in which two Jews hear the prophetic news that the end of the world is near. They rub their hands together in eagerness, and one comments: "Did you hear, Isaac? The end of the world! What if it's true?" The other responds: "Hey, hey, it vould be a gut ding, Solomon! I owe my suppliers 50,000 francs, and zis way I von't haf to pay vem!" Hergé omitted this scene from the collected edition.
The character of Blumenstein displays antisemitic stereotypes, such as having a bulbous nose and being an avaricious, manipulative businessman. Hergé later dismissed concerns over this Jewish caricature, saying "That was the style then". In his assessment of Franco-Belgian comics, Matthew Screech expressed the opinion that Blumenstein was an anti-American stereotype rather than an anti-Jewish one. Similarly, reporter and Tintin expert Michael Farr asserted that Blumenstein was "more parodied as a financier than Jew". Conversely, Lofficier and Lofficier asserted that both anti-Americanism and antisemitism were present, and that it is the United States and International Jewry who were the "ruthless opponents" of Tintin. Nazi apologists and revisionists such as French Holocaust denier Olivier Mathieu used The Shooting Star as evidence that Hergé was an antisemite with Nazi sympathies.
To graphic novel specialist Hugo Frey, the competing expeditions are presented as a simplistic race between good and evil, wherein Blumestein displays the stereotypes of Jews held by advocates of the Jewish World Conspiracy presented in works such as the antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Frey writes that Blumenstein's "large and bulbous nose ... rounded forehead, receding black hair, and small beady eyes" were stock antisemitic imagery in the 1930s and 1940s, as promoted by those such as journalist Édouard Drumont, whose antisemitic Paris-based newspaper La Libre Parole was influential in Brussels. According to Frey, Blumenstein's depiction as an overweight cigar-smoker reflected the antisemitic stereotype of Jews as being financially powerful, while he suggested that the scene in which Blumenstein learned that he was to be tracked down for his crimes recalled the contemporary roundup of Jews in Nazi Europe. Frey contrasts Hergé's complicity with the antisemites to the actions of others Belgians, such as those who struck against the Nazis at the Université libre de Bruxelles and those who risked their lives to hide Jews.
### Publication
The Shooting Star was serialised daily in Le Soir from 20 October 1941 to 21 May 1942 in French under the title L'Étoile mystérieuse (The Mysterious Star). Tintin's previous adventure, The Crab with the Golden Claws, had been serialised weekly until the demise of Le Soir's children's supplement, Le Soir Jeunesse, before continuing daily in the main newspaper itself; the earlier serial had ended the day before The Shooting Star began. The Shooting Star was the first Tintin adventure to be serialised daily in its entirety. As with earlier Adventures of Tintin, the story was later serialised in France in the Catholic newspaper Cœurs Vaillants, where it first appeared on 6 June 1943.
On page 20 of the published book, Hergé included a cameo of the characters Thomson and Thompson and Quick & Flupke. The story also introduced Captain Chester, who is mentioned in later adventures, and Professor Cantonneau, who returns in The Seven Crystal Balls.
On 21 May 1942, The Shooting Star concluded serialisation. Less than a week later, the occupied government proclaimed that all Jews in Belgium would have to wear a yellow badge on their clothing, and in July the Gestapo began raids on Jewish premises, followed by deportations of Jews to Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, resulting in around 32,000 Belgian Jews being killed. Hergé later recalled: "I saw very few Jews wearing the yellow star, but finally I did see some. They told me that some Jews were gone; that people had come for them and sent them away. I didn't want to believe it".
The earlier Tintin albums reproduced the newspaper strips, which had come to appear weekly in Thursday supplements, two-page allotments of three tiers to a page. War shortages reduced the space for the strip by a third, and later the supplements disappeared completely; the comic appeared daily in the main newspaper as a four-panel strip. For publication in book form, Casterman insisted that Hergé must adhere to a new album format of four sixteen-page signatures, which gave sixty-two pages of story plus a cover page. Though the format reduced the page count, it maintained the same amount of story by reducing the size of the panels reproduced. As The Shooting Star progressed, Hergé cut up and laid out clippings of the strip in an exercise book in preparation for the new layouts. It was the first volume of The Adventures of Tintin to be originally published in the 62-page full-colour format that thereafter was the series standard (as opposed to first being published in a black and white newspaper strip reproduction format that all prior books had done). Casterman published the album in September 1942. Unlike the previous books in the series, because it was printed immediately in colour, it did not need to be totally redrawn. The 177 daily strips from the original serialisation were not enough to fill the 62 pages Casterman had allotted, so Hergé added large panels, such as a half-page panel of a giant telescope on page three. Hergé wanted to include a small gold star inside the "o" of "Étoile" on the cover page, but Casterman refused, deeming it too expensive.
In 1954, Hergé began making various changes to the story for its re-publication. Aware of the controversy surrounding the depiction of Blumenstein, he renamed the character "Bohlwinkel", adopting this name from bollewinkel, a Brussels dialect term for a confectionery store. He later discovered that, by coincidence, Bohlwinkel was also a Jewish name. Trying to tone down the book's anti-American sentiment, he also changed the United States to a fictional South American nation called São Rico, replacing the U.S. flag flown by the Peary's crew with that of the fictional state. In 1959, Hergé made a new list of changes to be made to the artwork in The Shooting Star, which included altering Bohlwinkel's nose, but the changes were postponed and never made.
## Adaptations
In 1957, the animation company Belvision Studios produced a string of colour adaptations based on Hergé's original comics, adapting eight of the Adventures into a series of daily five-minute episodes. The Shooting Star was the sixth to be adapted in the second animated series; it was directed by Ray Goossens and written by Greg, a well-known cartoonist who was to become editor-in-chief of Tintin magazine.
In 1991, a second animated series based upon The Adventures of Tintin was produced, this time as a collaboration between the French studio Ellipse and the Canadian animation company Nelvana. The Shooting Star was the eighth story to be adapted and was a single twenty-minute episode. Directed by Stéphane Bernasconi, the series has been praised for being "generally faithful" to the original comics, to the extent that the animation was directly adopted from Hergé's original panels. Bohlwinkel was tactfully kept nameless in the adaptation and his arrest is shown.
In 2010, American cartoonist Charles Burns authored X'ed Out, a graphic novel with a variety of allusions to The Adventures of Tintin. In one scene, the protagonist Nitnit discovers a warehouse containing white eggs with red spots, akin to the mushrooms in The Shooting Star, with the cover of Burns' book paying homage to Hergé. In 2015, the original front cover sketch of the book was sold for €2.5 million to a European investor, Marina David of Petits Papiers-Huberty-Breyne, at the Brussels Antiques and Fine Art Fair.
## Critical analysis
Pierre Assouline remarked that Hergé's attention to accuracy lapsed in The Shooting Star. For instance, the meteorite's approach toward Earth caused a heat wave, while the meteorite itself proceeded to float on the surface of the ocean. In reality, no such heat wave would have been caused, while the meteorite would have plunged to the sea floor, causing a tsunami. He noted that the concept of madness was a recurring theme throughout the story, and that there was "an unreality in the whole adventure". Fellow biographer Benoît Peeters asserted that The Shooting Star was "of great power and brilliant construction". Elsewhere, Peeters wrote that the book was "notable for the entry of the fantastic into Hergé's work".
Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier deemed the antisemitism a "sad moment" in the series, awarding the story one out of five stars. Nevertheless, they felt that the "pre-apocalyptic ambiance is stark and believable", and that the giant mushrooms on the meteorite were a "strange anticipation" of the mushroom-clouds produced by the atomic bombings in 1945. Focusing on the characters of Professor Phostle and Philippulus, they asserted that both resembled Sophocles Sarcophagus from Cigars of the Pharaoh and that the former was "in the Jules Verne tradition" of eccentric professors. According to philosopher Pascal Bruckner, Tintin experts find Philippulus a caricature of Marshal of France Philippe Pétain, who demanded the French repent imaginary sins when he took power. Philippe Goddin stated that the strips for this story "kept the reader daily on tenterhooks in a story replete with new twists and humour".
Harry Thompson described The Shooting Star as "the most important of all Hergé's wartime stories", having "an air of bizarre fantasy" that was unlike his prior work. He observed that the character of Professor Phostle was a prototype for Professor Calculus, introduced later in the series. Michael Farr asserted that the apocalyptic setting of the story reflected the wartime mood in Europe. He characterises the opening pages of the story as being "unique in work for the feeling of foreboding they convey", adding that "Hergé daringly eschews the strip cartoonist's recognised means of denoting a dream, deliberately confusing the reader". He felt that the "flow of the narrative is less accomplished" than in other stories, with "spurts and rushes followed by slower passages, upsetting the rhythm and pace".
Literary critic Jean-Marie Apostolidès psychoanalysed The Shooting Star, describing it as "the final attempt of the foundling [i.e. Tintin] to rid himself of the bastard [i.e. Haddock] and to preserve the integrity of his former values", pointing out that the first thirteen pages are devoted purely to the boy reporter. He also argued that Phostle and Philippus represent two-halves of "an ambivalent father figure" within the story, with the former prefiguring Calculus "more than any other previous character". He suggests that when hiding on the Aurora, Philippus can be compared to The Phantom of the Opera, as he steals a stick of dynamite and climbs up the ship's mast before threatening to detonate the weapon. Apostolidès believed that the shooting star itself is "more a religious mystery than a scientific one" and that Tintin is therefore "the perfect one to figure it out in some religious way—that is, unrealistically". Apostolidès analysed the political component of the story in terms of "the incarnation of unregulated capitalism against the spirit of European values", arguing that Hergé was adhering to "a utopian vision that, in 1942, smacks of pro-German propaganda".
Literary critic Tom McCarthy believed that The Shooting Star represents the apex of the "right-wing strain" in Hergé's work. He highlighted the instance in which Tintin impersonates God in order to give commands to Philippus as representing one of various occasions in The Adventures of Tintin where "sacred authority manifests itself largely as a voice, and commanding—or commandeering—that voice is what guarantees power". McCarthy further observes that the image of a giant spider in a ball of fire, which appears near the start of the story, reflects the theme of madness that is again present throughout the series. Discussing the political elements of Hergé's series, McCarthy also noted that in the original publication of the story, the spider which climbed in front of the observatory telescope and was thus magnified greatly was initially termed Aranea Fasciata''; he saw this as an intentional satire of the threat to Europe posed by fascism. |
26,725,588 | First Battle of Naktong Bulge | 1,154,953,724 | Battle of the Korean War during the Battle of Pusan Perimeter | [
"August 1950 events in Asia",
"Battle of Pusan Perimeter",
"Battles and operations of the Korean War in 1950",
"Battles of the Korean War",
"Battles of the Korean War involving North Korea",
"Battles of the Korean War involving the United States",
"History of South Gyeongsang Province"
]
| The First Battle of Naktong Bulge was an engagement between United Nations Command (UN) and North Korean forces early in the Korean War from August 5–19, 1950 in the vicinity of Yongsan (Yeongsan, Changnyeong county) and the Naktong River in South Korea. It was a part of the Battle of Pusan Perimeter, and was one of several large engagements fought simultaneously. The battle ended in a victory for the UN after large numbers of US reinforcements destroyed an attacking North Korean division.
On August 5, the Korean People's Army (KPA), 4th Infantry Division crossed the Naktong River in the vicinity of Yongsan, attempting to cut UN supply lines to the north as well as gaining a bridgehead into the Pusan Perimeter. Opposing it was the 24th Infantry Division of the Eighth United States Army. Over the next two weeks, US and KPA forces fought a bloody series of engagements inflicting heavy casualties on one another in a confusing series of attacks and counterattacks, but neither side was able to gain the upper hand. In the end, the US forces, aided by reinforcements, air support and heavy weapons, destroyed the KPA force which was hampered by lack of supply and high desertion rates.
The battle was a turning point in the war for the KPA, which had seen previous victories owing to superior numbers and equipment. UN forces now had a numerical superiority and more equipment, including M4 Sherman tanks and heavy weapons capable of defeating the KPA T-34 tanks.
## Background
### Outbreak of war
Following the 25 June 1950 outbreak of the Korean War after the invasion of South Korea by North Korea, the United Nations decided to commit troops to the conflict on behalf of South Korea. The United States subsequently committed ground forces to the Korean Peninsula with the goal of fighting back the North Korean invasion and to prevent South Korea from collapsing. However, US forces in the Far East had been steadily decreasing since the end of World War II, five years earlier, and at the time the closest forces were the 24th Infantry Division, headquartered in Japan. The division was understrength, and most of its equipment was antiquated due to reductions in military spending. Regardless, the 24th was ordered to South Korea.
The 24th Infantry Division was the first US unit sent into Korea with the mission to take the initial "shock" of KPA advances, delaying much larger KPA units to buy time to allow reinforcements to arrive. The division was consequently alone for several weeks as it attempted to delay the KPA, making time for the 1st Cavalry and the 7th and 25th Infantry Divisions, along with other Eighth Army supporting units, to move into position. Advance elements of the 24th Division were badly defeated in the Battle of Osan on July 5, the first encounter between US and KPA forces. For the first month after the defeat of Task Force Smith, 24th Division was repeatedly defeated and forced south by superior KPA numbers and equipment. The regiments of the 24th Division were systematically pushed south in engagements around Chochiwon, Chonan, and Pyongtaek. The 24th made a final stand in the Battle of Taejon, where it was almost completely destroyed but delaying KPA forces until July 20. By that time, the Eighth Army's force of combat troops were roughly equal to KPA forces attacking the region, with new UN units arriving every day.
### North Korean advance
With Taejon captured, KPA forces began surrounding the Pusan Perimeter from all sides in an attempt to envelop it. The KPA 4th and 6th Divisions advanced south in a wide flanking maneuver. The two divisions attempted to envelop the UN's left flank, but became extremely spread out in the process. They advanced on UN positions with armor and superior numbers, repeatedly pushing back UN forces.
UN forces were pushed back repeatedly before finally halting the KPA advance in a series of engagements in the southern section of the country. Forces of the 3rd Battalion, 29th Infantry Regiment, newly arrived in the country, were wiped out at Hadong in a coordinated ambush by KPA forces on July 27, opening a pass to the Pusan area. Soon after, KPA forces took Chinju to the west, pushing back the US 19th Infantry Regiment and leaving routes to the Pusan open for more KPA attacks. US formations were subsequently able to defeat and push back the KPA on the flank in the Battle of the Notch on August 2. Suffering mounting losses, the KPA force in the west withdrew for several days to re-equip and receive reinforcements. This granted both sides a reprieve to prepare for the attack on the Pusan Perimeter.
### Naktong Bulge
About 7 miles (11 km) north of the point where it turns east and is joined by the Nam River, the Naktong River curves westward opposite Yongsan in a wide semicircular loop. For most of this span, the Naktong is around 400 metres (1,300 ft) wide and 6 feet (1.8 m) deep, allowing infantry to wade across with some difficulty but preventing vehicles from crossing without assistance. This perimeter was defended by a network of observation posts on the high ground, manned by 24th Infantry. Forces in reserve would counterattack any attempted crossings by KPA. Artillery and mortar fire units were also deployed so large amounts of fire could be delivered on any one spot. The division was extremely dispersed, already understrength, it presented a very thin line.
## Battle
The 24th US Infantry Division, under the command of Major General John H. Church, occupied a region some 16 miles (26 km) long along the Naktong River. The 34th Infantry Regiment occupied the southern half, west of Yongsan while the 21st Infantry Regiment occupied the northern half, west of Changyong. The 19th Infantry Regiment, meanwhile, was re-equipping in the rear of the lines. In all, the 24th and its supporting units had a strength of 14,540 on August 5.
Opposing the 24th Infantry was the KPA 4th Division, under the command of Major General Lee Kwon Mu. Both Mu and his division were highly decorated for their exploits so far in the war, particularly during the First Battle of Seoul. By August 4 the 4th Division had concentrated all of its regiments in the vicinity of Hyopch'on. It stood at a strength of about 7,000 with 1,500 in each infantry regiment.
### North Korean attack
At midnight on the night of August 5–6, 800 KPA soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 16th Regiment waded across the river at the Ohang ferry site, 3.5 miles (5.6 km) south of Pugong-ni and west of Yongsan, carrying light weapons and supplies over their heads or on rafts. A second force attempted to cross further north but was hit with machine gun and artillery fire, falling back in confusion. At 02:00 on August 6, the KPA began engaging the forces of 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry and moved forward after a small fight, attempting to penetrate the lines to Yongsan. KPA infantry forced 3rd Battalion back, and they abandoned their command post to consolidate their position. The attack caught the Americans by surprise as US commanders expected the KPA to attempt a crossing further north. The landing threatened to split the US lines and disrupt supply lines to positions further north. Subsequently, the KPA were able to capture a large amount of US equipment.
### US counterattack
The 34th Infantry's regimental headquarters ordered the 1st Battalion to counterattack the KPA. When 1st Battalion arrived at 3rd Battalion's former command post, it was ambushed by KPA troops on the high ground. C Company, the first to arrive, suffered over fifty percent casualties. A and B Companies counterattacked with tanks and armor, eventually rescuing the beleaguered C Company. At around 20:00, A Company made contact with L Company, 3rd Battalion, still in its positions on the river, radioing that the KPA had penetrated eastward north of the Yongsan-Naktong River road to Cloverleaf Hill, but had not yet crossed south of the road to Obong-ni Ridge. The KPA had penetrated 3 miles (4.8 km) east of the Naktong and halfway to Yongsan.
Several units of the 34th Regiment began to retreat north and into the 21st Infantry's lines, but Church ordered them turned around. He also ordered the 19th Infantry to counterattack west along the northern flank of the 34th Infantry to help oppose the KPA. Although the 24th Infantry was repulsed closer to the river, 1 mile (1.6 km) inland the 19th Infantry trapped about 300 KPA in a village and killed most of them.
The 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry, had managed to block the KPA advance to Yongsan while the 19th Infantry was able to push it back and inflict substantial casualties. However, by the evening of August 6, the KPA held firmly on to their bridgehead. Attempted crossings that night were repulsed to the south by Republic of Korea Army (ROK) forces, but an unknown number of reinforcements were moved across the river the night of August 6–7. On August 7–8, the KPA tried to move two more battalions across the river to the north, but were repulsed by 21st Infantry, which was still in place. The KPA battalions were shifted south to cross at the bridgehead, instead. By August 8, an estimated KPA regiment were across the Naktong.
### Counterattacks
American counterattacks continued into the morning of August 7, but the gains were slow, hampered by the hot weather and a lack of food and water. The KPA were able to press forward and regain the Cloverleaf Hill and Oblong-ni Ridge, critical terrain astride the main road in the bulge area. By 16:00 that day, the 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, a unit newly arrived in Korea, was sent to the region. Church immediately ordered it to attack the KPA salient at the bulge. 9th Infantry was fresh and well-equipped. They were also inexperienced, many of their number being reservists. Despite a tenacious attack, the 9th Infantry was only able to regain part of Cloverleaf Hill before intense fighting stalled its movement.
KPA forces began making gains in the hills along the river adjacent to their bridgehead, against positions of the 34th Infantry. Coordinated attacks pushed A Company to the north back from their hills with heavy casualties on August 7. K Company to the south was also attacked but held its line, reinforced by L Company on August 10. Fighting continued for several days, resulting in heavy casualties as both sides captured and recaptured the hills along the Naktong, neither side able to gain a decisive advantage against the other.
### Task Force Hill
In an attempt to destroy the KPA bridgehead, Church assembled a large force under the 9th Infantry Regiment. Dubbed Task Force Hill, this force comprised the 9th, 19th and 34th Infantry Regiments as well as 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry, plus supporting artillery and other attached units. It was assigned to drive the KPA from the east bank of the river on August 11. Commanding the task force was Colonel John G. Hill, the Commanding Officer of the 9th Infantry Regiment.
The KPA 4th Division, meanwhile, had constructed underwater bridges of sandbags, logs, and rocks, finishing the first on August 10. 4th Division used it to move trucks and heavy artillery as well as additional infantry and a few tanks across the river. By the morning of August 10, an estimated two KPA regiments were across the river and occupying fortified positions. Supplies continued to stream in through rafts. Task Force Hill mounted its attack, but was once again unable to make progress due to the newly established artillery. Its directive to attack quickly became one to dig in and hold its ground, and by nightfall the entire KPA 4th Division was across the river. On August 10, elements of the KPA 4th Division began to move south, outflanking Task Force Hill. The next day, scattered KPA elements attacked Yongsan. The KPA repeatedly attacked at night, when American soldiers were resting and had greater difficulty resisting.
### Reinforcements
On August 12, General Walton Walker, in command of the Eighth Army, dispatched part of the 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, to attack north from the 25th Division's zone to drive off KPA 4th Division troops moving into Yongsan. Simultaneously, Church assembled all the combat service support soldiers he could and formed them into a combat unit to block further penetration of KPA forces, which were setting up roadblocks on the roads from Yongsan.
Additional reinforcements poured in. The rest of the 27th Infantry moved in, as well as a battalion from the 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. These were able to push KPA infiltrators out of Yongsan and back to their firmly held positions at Cloverleaf Hill. On August 14, following an artillery barrage, Task Force Hill launched a direct assault on these positions. Fighting continued the entire day in a fierce series of attacks and counterattacks in which both sides, already at far reduced strength, inflicted large numbers of casualties. However, Task Force Hill'''s second attack was just as unsuccessful as its first. Casualties among officers was high in the fight, and the disorganization that followed meant most of the units in the fight could not communicate to coordinate any large actions. It became a battle of attrition by August 15 as neither the KPA 4th Division nor Task Force Hill were able to get the upper hand in the fight, which in several cases erupted in desperate hand-to-hand combat. Casualties mounted and a frustrated Walker ordered the 5,000-man 1st Provisional Marine Brigade to the area to turn the tide. The brigade moved from the Masan region in the middle of a counteroffensive being conducted by the 25th US Infantry.
The KPA 4th Division in the meantime was suffering serious logistical setbacks from lack of food, equipment, ammunition and, weapons. Conscripts from local South Korean villages were brought in to replace mounting losses. There was also virtually no provision for the wounded in the division, and the KPA forces began to come apart under these stresses. Still, the division's morale remained relatively high and General Lee refused to withdraw.
### Destruction of the bridgehead
The 1st Marine Provisional Brigade, in conjunction with Task Force Hill, mounted a massive attack on Cloverleaf Hill and Obong-ni on August 17. The offensive began at 08:00 on August 17, with US forces unleashing all heavy weapons available to them against the KPA positions; artillery, mortars, M26 Pershing tanks and airstrikes.
At first, tenacious KPA defense halted the Marines who responded with artillery, raking Cloverleaf Hill. Heavy indirect fire forced the KPA out of their positions before the Marines and Task Force Hill'' eventually overwhelmed them, one hill at a time. The Marines approached Obong-ni first, destroying resistance on the slope with an airstrike and a barrage from US tanks, but strong resistance caused heavy casualties, and they had to withdraw. The KPA 18th Regiment, in control of the hill, mounted a disastrous counterattack in hopes of pushing the Marines back. The division's tactics of cutting off supplies and relying on surprise, which had provided them so much success up to this point, failed in the face of massive US numerical superiority.
By nightfall on August 18, KPA 4th Division had been annihilated; huge numbers of deserters had weakened its numbers during the fight, but by that time, Obong-ni and Cloverleaf Hill had been retaken by the US forces. Scattered groups of KPA soldiers fled back across the Naktong, pursued by American planes and artillery fire. The next day, the remains of 4th Division had withdrawn across the river. In their hasty retreat, they left a large number of artillery pieces and equipment behind which the Americans later pressed into service.
## Aftermath
The battle caused massive casualties for both sides. By the end of the fight, KPA 4th Division had been completely destroyed, with only 300 or 400 men in each of its regiments. Of its original 7,000 men, the division now had a strength of only 3,500, having suffered over 1,200 killed. Several thousand of the members of the division deserted during the fight. Most of these men were South Korean civilians forcibly conscripted into the KPA. 4th Division would not recover until much later in the war. The battle represented a new phase in the war for the KPA. Their numerical superiority was gone, and their strategy of attacking supply lines and rear formations of US units was no longer effective without overwhelming numbers. Additionally, the advantage the T-34 tank had once provided was also gone; American units were now well equipped with effective anti-tank weapons, as well as larger numbers of tanks of their own. Subsequently, all 4th Division's T-34s were quickly knocked out before they could inflict much damage.
The 9th Infantry and supporting units sustained 57 killed, 106 wounded, two captured, and 13 missing, a total of 180 casualties. The 21st Infantry suffered around 30 killed and 70 wounded, the 19th Infantry around 450 casualties, and the 34th Infantry around 400. The 27th Infantry reported around 150. The 1st Provisional Brigade reported 66 Marines dead, 278 wounded, and one missing. In total, American forces suffered around 1,800 casualties during the conflict, including about a third them killed.
In memory of the battle at Naktong Bulge, as well as other conflicts along the Pusan Perimeter and the Battle of Taegu, the South Korean government set up the Nakdong River Battle Museum along the river in the vicinity of the conflict in 1979, which includes a number of artifacts from the Korean War as well as a memorial to those killed during the war.
## See also
- Hill 303 massacre |
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| The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. A third-generation human rights instrument, the Convention commits its members to the elimination of racial discrimination and the promotion of understanding among all races. The Convention also requires its parties to criminalize hate speech and criminalize membership in racist organizations.
The Convention also includes an individual complaints mechanism, effectively making it enforceable against its parties. This has led to the development of a limited jurisprudence on the interpretation and implementation of the Convention.
The convention was adopted and opened for signature by the United Nations General Assembly on 21 December 1965, and entered into force on 4 January 1969. As of July 2020, it has 88 signatories and 182 parties.
The Convention is monitored by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
## Genesis
In December 1960, following incidents of antisemitism in several parts of the world, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning "all manifestations and practices of racial, religious and national hatred" as violations of the United Nations Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights and calling on the governments of all states to "take all necessary measures to prevent all manifestations of racial, religious and national hatred". The Economic and Social Council followed this up by drafting a resolution on "manifestations of racial prejudice and national and religious intolerance", calling on governments to educate the public against intolerance and rescind discriminatory laws. Lack of time prevented this from being considered by the General Assembly in 1961, but it was passed the next year.
During the early debate on this resolution, African nations led by the Central African Republic, Chad, Dahomey, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Mauritania, and Upper Volta pushed for more concrete action on the issue, in the form of an international convention against racial discrimination. Some nations preferred a declaration rather than a binding convention, while others wanted to deal with racial and religious intolerance in a single instrument. The eventual compromise, forced by the Arab nations' political opposition to treating religious intolerance at the same time as racial intolerance plus other nations' opinion that religious intolerance was less urgent, was for two resolutions, one calling for a declaration and draft convention aimed at eliminating racial discrimination, the other doing the same for religious intolerance.
Article 4, criminalizing incitement to racial discrimination, was also controversial in the drafting stage. In the first debate of the article, there were two drafts, one presented by the United States and one by the Soviet Union and Poland. The United States, supported by the United Kingdom, proposed that only incitement "resulting in or likely to result in violence" should be prohibited, whereas the Soviet Union wanted to "prohibit and disband racist, fascist and any other organization practicing or inciting racial discrimination". The Nordic countries proposed a compromise in which a clause of "due regard" to the rights Universal Declaration of Human Rights was added to be taken into account when crimininalizing hate speech.
The draft Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination was adopted by the General Assembly on 20 November 1963. The same day the General Assembly called for the Economic and Social Council and the Commission on Human Rights to make the drafting of a Convention on the subject an absolute priority. The draft was completed by mid-1964, but delays in the General Assembly meant that it could not be adopted that year. It was finally adopted on 21 December 1965.
## Core provisions
### Definition of "racial discrimination"
Preamble of the Convention reaffirms dignity and equality before the law citing Charter of United Nations and Universal Declaration of Human Rights and condemns colonialism citing Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and also cites ILO Convention on Employment and Occupation (C111) and Convention against Discrimination in Education against discrimination.
Article 1 of the Convention defines "racial discrimination" as:
> ... any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.
Distinctions made on the basis of citizenship (that is, between citizens and non-citizens) are specifically excluded from the definition, as are positive discrimination policies and other measures taken to redress imbalances and promote equality.
This definition does not distinguish between discrimination based on ethnicity and discrimination based on race, despite the following statement by anthropologists in the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
> 6\. National, religious, geographic, linguistic and cultural groups do not necessarily coincide with racial groups; and the cultural traits of such groups have no demonstrated genetic connection with racial traits.
The clear conclusion in the report is that Race and Ethnicity can be correlated, but must not get mixed up. The inclusion of descent specifically covers discrimination on the basis of caste and other forms of inherited status. Discrimination need not be strictly based on race or ethnicity for the Convention to apply. Rather, whether a particular action or policy discriminates is judged by its effects.
> In seeking to determine whether an action has an effect contrary to the Convention, it will look to see whether that action has an unjustifiable disparate impact upon a group distinguished by race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.
The question of whether an individual belongs to a particular racial group is to be decided, in the absence of justification to the contrary, by self-identification.
### Prevention of discrimination
Article 2 of the Convention condemns racial discrimination and obliges parties to "undertake to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating racial discrimination in all its forms". It also obliges parties to promote understanding among all races. To achieve this, the Convention requires that signatories:
- Not practice racial discrimination in public institutions
- Not "sponsor, defend, or support" racial discrimination
- Review existing policies, and amend or revoke those that cause or perpetuate racial discrimination
- Prohibit "by all appropriate means, including legislation," racial discrimination by individuals and organisations within their jurisdictions
- Encourage groups, movements, and other means that eliminate barriers between races, and discourage racial division
Parties are obliged "when the circumstances so warrant" to use positive discrimination policies for specific racial groups to guarantee "the full and equal enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms". However, these measures must be finite, and "shall in no case entail as a consequence the maintenance of unequal or separate rights for different racial groups after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved".
Article 5 expands upon the general obligation of Article 2 and creates a specific obligation to guarantee the right of everyone to equality before the law regardless of "race, colour, or national or ethnic origin". It further lists specific rights this equality must apply to: equal treatment by courts and tribunals, security of the person and freedom from violence, the civil and political rights affirmed in the ICCPR, the economic, social and cultural rights affirmed in the ICESCR, and the right of access to any place or service used by the general public, "such as transport hotels, restaurants, cafes, theatres and parks." This list is not exhaustive, and the obligation extends to all human rights.
Article 6 obliges parties to provide "effective protection and remedies" through the courts or other institutions for any act of racial discrimination. This includes a right to a legal remedy and damages for injury suffered due to discrimination.
### Condemnation of apartheid
Article 3 condemns apartheid and racial segregation and obliges parties to "prevent, prohibit and eradicate" these practices in territories under their jurisdiction. This article has since been strengthened by the recognition of apartheid as a crime against humanity in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination regards this article as also entailing an obligation to eradicate the consequences of past policies of segregation, and to prevent racial segregation arising from the actions of private individuals.
### Prohibition of incitement
Article 4 of the Convention condemns propaganda and organizations that attempt to justify discrimination or are based on the idea of racial supremacism. It obliges parties, "with due regard to the principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights", to adopt "immediate and positive measures" to eradicate these forms of incitement and discrimination. Specifically, it obliges parties to criminalize hate speech, hate crimes and the financing of racist activities, and to prohibit and criminalize membership in organizations that "promote and incite" racial discrimination. A number of parties have reservations on this article, and interpret it as not permitting or requiring measures that infringe on the freedoms of speech, association or assembly.
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination regards this article as a mandatory obligation of parties to the Convention, and has repeatedly criticized parties for failing to abide by it. It regards the obligation as consistent with the freedoms of opinion and expression affirmed in the UNDHR and ICCPR and notes that the latter specifically outlaws inciting racial discrimination, hatred and violence. It views the provisions as necessary to prevent organised racial violence and the "political exploitation of ethnic difference."
### Promotion of tolerance
Article 7 obliges parties to adopt "immediate and effective measures", particularly in education, to combat racial prejudice and encourage understanding and tolerance between different racial, ethnic and national groups.
### Dispute resolution mechanism
Articles 11 through 13 of the Convention establish a dispute resolution mechanism between parties. A party that believes another party is not implementing the Convention may complain to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The Committee will pass on the complaint, and if it is not resolved between the two parties, may establish an ad hoc Conciliation Commission to investigate and make recommendations on the matter. This procedure has been first invoked in 2018, by Qatar against Saudi Arabia and UAE and by Palestine against Israel.
Article 22 further allows any dispute over the interpretation or application of the Convention to be referred to the International Court of Justice. This clause has been invoked three times, by Georgia against Russia, by Ukraine against Russia, by Qatar against UAE.
### Individual complaints mechanism
Article 14 of the Convention establishes an individual complaints mechanism similar to that of the First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Parties may at any time recognise the competence of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to consider complaints from individuals or groups who claim their rights under the Convention have been violated. Such parties may establish local bodies to hear complaints before they are passed on. Complainants must have exhausted all domestic remedies, and anonymous complaints and complaints that refer to events that occurred before the country concerned joined Convention are not permitted. The Committee can request information from and make recommendations to a party.
The individual complaints mechanism came into operation in 1982, after it had been accepted by ten states-parties. As of 2010, 58 states had recognised the competence of the Committee, and 54 cases have been dealt with by the Committee.
## Reservations
A number of parties have made reservations and interpretative declarations to their application of the Convention. The Convention text forbids reservations "incompatible with the object and purpose of this Convention" or that would inhibit the operation of any body established by it. A reservation is considered incompatible or inhibitive if two-thirds of parties object to it.
Article 22
Afghanistan, Bahrain, China, Cuba, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Madagascar, Morocco, Mozambique, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam, and Yemen do not consider themselves bound by Article 22. Some interpret this article as allowing disputes to be referred to the International Court of Justice only with the consent of all involved parties.
Obligations beyond existing constitution
Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and United States interpret the Convention as not implying any obligations beyond the limits of their existing constitutions.
Hate speech
Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malta, Monaco, Switzerland and Tonga all interpret Article 4 as not permitting or requiring measures that threaten the freedoms of speech, opinion, association, and assembly. Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Fiji, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and United Kingdom interpret the Convention as creating an obligation to enact measures against hate speech and hate crimes only when a need arises.
The United States of America "does not accept any obligation under this Convention, in particular under articles 4 and 7, to restrict those [extensive protections of individual freedom of speech, expression and association contained in the Constitution and laws of the United States], through the adoption of legislation or any other measures, to the extent that they are protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States."
Immigration
Monaco and Switzerland reserve the right to apply their own legal principles on the entry of foreigners into their labour markets. The United Kingdom does not regard the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 and Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 as constituting any form of racial discrimination.
Indigenous people
Tonga reserves the right not to apply the Convention to any restriction on the alienation of land held by indigenous Tongans. Fiji has significant reservations around Article 5, and reserves the right not to implement those provisions if they are incompatible with existing law on voting rights, the alienation of land by indigenous Fijians.
## Jurisprudence
### At the CERD
The individual complaints mechanism has led to a limited jurisprudence on the interpretation and implementation of the Convention. As at September 2011, 48 complaints have been registered with the Committee; 17 of these have been deemed inadmissible, 16 have led to a finding of no violation, and in 11 cases a party has been found to have violated the Convention. Three cases were still pending.
Several cases have dealt with the treatment of Romani people in Eastern Europe. In Koptova v. Slovakia the Committee found that resolutions by several villages in Slovakia forbidding the residence of Roma were discriminatory and restricted freedom of movement and residence, and recommended the Slovak government take steps to end such practices. In L.R. v. Slovakia the Committee found that the Slovak government had failed to provide an effective remedy for discrimination suffered by Roma after the cancellation of a housing project on ethnic grounds. In Durmic v. Serbia and Montenegro the Committee found a systemic failure by the Serbian government to investigate and prosecute discrimination against Roma in access to public places.
In several cases, notably L.K. v. Netherlands and Gelle v. Denmark, the Committee has criticized parties for their failure to adequately prosecute acts of racial discrimination or incitement. In both cases, the Committee refused to accept "any claim that the enactment of law making racial discrimination a criminal act in itself represents full compliance with the obligations of States parties under the Convention". Such laws "must also be effectively implemented by the competent national tribunals and other State institutions". While the Committee accepts the discretion of prosecutors on whether or not to lay charges, this discretion "should be applied in each case of alleged racial discrimination in the light of the guarantees laid down in the Convention"
In The Jewish community of Oslo et al. v. Norway, the Committee found that the prohibition of hate speech was compatible with freedom of speech, and that the acquittal of a neo-Nazi leader by the Supreme Court of Norway on freedom of speech grounds was a violation of the Convention.
In Hagan v. Australia, the Committee ruled that, while not originally intended to demean anyone, the name of the "E. S. 'Nigger' Brown Stand" (named in honour of 1920s rugby league player Edward Stanley Brown) at a Toowoomba sports field was racially offensive and should be removed.
### At the ICJ
Georgia won a judgment for a provisional measure of protection at the ICJ over the Russian Federation in the case of Russo-Georgian War.
## Impact
The impact of an international treaty can be measured in two ways: by its acceptance, and by its implementation. On the first measure, the Convention has gained near-universal acceptance by the international community, with fewer than twenty (mostly small) states yet to become parties. Most major states have also accepted the Convention's individual complaints mechanism, signaling a strong desire to be bound by the Convention's provisions.
The Convention has faced persistent problems with reporting since its inception, with parties frequently failing to report fully, or even at all. As of 2008, twenty parties had failed to report for more than ten years, and thirty parties had failed to report for more than five. One party, Sierra Leone, had failed to report since 1976, while two more – Liberia and Saint Lucia had never met their reporting requirements under the Convention. The Committee has responded to this persistent failure to report by reviewing the late parties anyway – a strategy that has produced some success in gaining compliance with reporting requirements. This lack of reporting is seen by some as a significant failure of the Convention. However the reporting system has also been praised as providing "a permanent stimulus inducing individual States to enact anti-racist legislation or amend the existing one when necessary."
## Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is a body of human rights experts tasked with monitoring the implementation of the Convention. It consists of 18 independent human rights experts, elected for four-year terms, with half the members elected every two years. Members are elected by secret ballot of the parties, with each party allowed to nominate one of its nationals to the Committee.
All parties are required to submit regular reports to the Committee outlining the legislative, judicial, policy and other measures they have taken to give effect to the Convention. The first report is due within a year of the Convention entering into effect for that state; thereafter reports are due every two years or whenever the Committee requests. The Committee examines each report and addresses its concerns and recommendations to the state party in the form of "concluding observations".
On 10 August 2018, United Nations human rights experts expressed alarm over many credible reports that China had detained a million or more ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Gay McDougall, a member of the Committee, said that "In the name of combating religious extremism, China had turned Xinjiang into something resembling a massive internment camp, shrouded in secrecy, a sort of no-rights zone."
On 13 August 2019, the Committee considered the first report submitted by the Palestinian Authority. A number of experts questioned the delegation regarding antisemitism, particularly in textbooks. Silvio José Albuquerque e Silva (Brazil) also raised evidence of discrimination against Roma and other minorities, the status of women, and oppression of the LGBT community. The Committee's report of 30 August 2019 reflected these concerns. On 23 April 2018 Palestine filed an inter-state complaint against Israel for breaches of its obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).
On 4 and 5 December 2019, the Committee considered the report submitted by Israel and in its conclusions of 12 December noted that it is worried about "existing discriminatory legislation, the segregation of Israeli society into Jewish and non-Jewish sectors" and other complaints." The Committee also decided that it has jurisdiction regarding the inter-State communication submitted by the State of Palestine on 23 April 2018 against the State of Israel. Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded by alleging bias by the committee members, noting that their "blatant anti-Israel posture, and reckless disregard for the welfare of Israelis, is a shocking neglect of the duties of the CERD Committee to act with impartiality and objectivity."
The Committee typically meets every March and August in Geneva. The current (as of July 2023) membership of the Committee is:
## Opposition
### In Malaysia
On 8 December 2018, two of Malaysia's major right wing political parties – the Islamist Malaysian Islamic Party and the ethnonationalist United Malays National Organisation – organized a "Anti-ICERD Peaceful Rally" with the support of several non-government organizations on fears of the convention allegedly compromising bumiputera privileges and special positions of the Malay people and Islam in the country, a major tenet held by both these parties. This rally was held in the capital of the country, Kuala Lumpur.
## See also
- Anti-ICERD Rally in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia
- Anti-racism
- Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
- Discrimination based on nationality
- Environmental racism
- Environmental racism in Europe
- Racial Equality Proposal, 1919
- World Conference against Racism |
27,673,501 | Congregation Beth Israel (Meridian, Mississippi) | 1,171,764,141 | Reform Jewish congregation in Mississippi, US | [
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"Jewish cemeteries in Mississippi",
"Ku Klux Klan crimes in Mississippi",
"Mississippi Landmarks",
"National Register of Historic Places in Lauderdale County, Mississippi",
"Reform synagogues in Mississippi",
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| Congregation Beth Israel in Meridian, Mississippi, is a Reform Jewish congregation founded in 1868 and a member of the Union for Reform Judaism. The congregation's first permanent house of worship was a Middle Eastern-style building constructed in 1879. The congregation moved to another building built in the Greek Revival style in 1906, and in 1964 moved to a more modern building, out of which they still operate.
The congregation was initially made up of only ten families but grew to include 50 members by 1878. By the time their second building was built in 1906, the congregation included 82 members, and Meridian as a whole had grown to include 525 Jewish residents by 1927. By the 2000s there were fewer than forty, mostly elderly Jews remaining in the city, however, and the congregation no longer has a full-time rabbi. Former rabbis include Judah Wechsler, after whom the Wechsler school was named, and William Ackerman, whose wife Paula Ackerman became the first woman to perform rabbinical duties in the country after her husband's unexpected death.
In 1968, the education building of the new complex was bombed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Pieces of glass were salvaged from the destruction and are now incorporated into the front windows of the current synagogue building. The congregation owns and maintains a historic cemetery at 19th Street and 15th Avenue which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
## History
In the early days of Lauderdale County before Meridian was established, the nearby town of Marion was the largest settlement in the area. The families of Abraham Threefoot, Isaac Rosenbaum, Leopold Rosenbaum, E. Lowenstein, and Jacob Cohen lived in Marion during these early years. These families, along with other Jews in Marion, worked with Jews from the up-and-coming Meridian to build a temple halfway between the two towns. After the American Civil War, Meridian began to grow rapidly and Marion began to decline. As a result, many of Marion's Jews elected to move to Meridian. In 1868, the Jewish community established the first Jewish congregation in Lauderdale County, Beth Israel, and bought the lot which is now the Beth Israel Cemetery for \$100 (today \$).
The congregation initially consisted of only ten families and met in several temporary locations before moving to a permanent building. These locations included a house on 24th Avenue and 9th Street, a room above Carney's Grocery Store, and Sheehan Hall. In this interim period, the congregation grew to include 50 members by 1878, with David Burgheim serving as rabbi. The Middle Eastern style building at the corner of 8th Street and 22nd Avenue, constructed by the growing congregation in 1879, was the first building in the city with gas-powered lighting. Rabbi Burgheim was succeeded by Rabbi W. Weinstein, then Rabbi Jacobs, and then Rabbi Judah Wechsler. Wechsler, who became rabbi in 1887, led a movement to provide public schools for blacks, which culminated in a bond issue to construct the first brick public school building for African Americans in the state. The Wechsler School was named after him and has since been listed on the National Register of Historic Places and as a Mississippi Landmark. The congregation stayed in this building for several years, before eventually being forced to move due to complaints of flies attracted by horse droppings outside of a nearby retail store.
In 1906, a new Greek Revival octagonal synagogue designed by architect P.J. Krouse and modelled after the Temple of Athena Nike was built at the corner of 11th Street and 24th Avenue. The marble steps leading to the entrance of the building were flanked by large Ionic columns. The new synagogue could seat 500 and featured stained glass windows displaying the Ten Commandments, a menorah, the Star of David, and Noah's Ark. A fire damaged the building during its first year of operation, and while it was being repaired, services were held at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. By 1907, the congregation had grown to include 82 members and was led by Rabbi Max Raisin. By 1927, the Jewish community in Meridian had grown to 525 people, partly due to an influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe. The members of Beth Israel sponsored these newcomers, helping them to find jobs and homes and holding night classes to teach them English.
Some of the congregation's members had preferred a more strict form of worship and a smaller Orthodox congregation, Ohel Jacob, had been formed in 1895. The two congregations had good relations, however, and a number of Meridian Jews belonged to both.
In 1951, the congregation included 100 members and was the second largest Jewish community in the state. When Rabbi William Ackerman, who had served the congregation from 1924 to 1950, suddenly died while still in service, Beth Israel asked his wife Paula Ackerman to take his place until they could find a replacement. No women had been ordained at this time, and it would be a full 20 more years before the first woman would be officially ordained in the United States. Nonetheless, without ordination Paula Ackerman served as "spiritual leader" (the congregation elected not to call her "rabbi") for three years until Beth Israel could find another. Despite the unwillingness to call Ackerman "rabbi," she performed all the duties of a normal rabbi, including conducting weekly Shabbat services, giving sermons, and performing marriages and funerals. In spite of much media attention and criticism from other Jews in the country, the congregation remained united under her leadership. (Ackerman would later move to her original home of Pensacola, Florida, where she would serve as an interim rabbi at Temple Beth-El for nine months in 1962 until a replacement was found.)
By 1964, the temple was in need of repairs, and some older members found it difficult to get up the steep marble steps at the entrance. Instead of repairing their 60-year-old building in downtown, they purchased a 5-acre (2.0 ha) plot in the Broadmoor residential subdivision of Meridian and built a new synagogue. The new facility, located at 57th Court and 14th Avenue, was dedicated in December 1964 and was composed of a 200-seat sanctuary, a social hall with a kitchen and a library, and an education building.
### 1968 Ku Klux Klan bombing
During the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, the leadership of Beth Israel spoke out against the Ku Klux Klan's attacks on black churches. In response, Thomas Albert Tarrants III (born December 20, 1946) of Mobile, Alabama, who had helped bomb the synagogue building of Beth Israel Congregation and its rabbi's house there bombed Beth Israel's education building on May 28, 1968. The blast was caused by about 15 sticks of dynamite planted by Tarrants and his accomplice, Danny Joe Hawkins, a top hitman in the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The force of the blast knocked down several walls of the education building and caved in part of the roof while also destroying a door at the opposite end of the synagogue building. A hole approximately 24 inches (61 cm) in diameter was left in the concrete floor, and damages were estimated to be around \$50,000 (equivalent to \$ today). A reward of \$10,000 was offered by the Meridian City Council, and \$15,000 extra was promised by the Jewish community of the city. According to Sammy Feltenstein, past president of Congregation Beth Israel, pieces of stained glass that survived the bombing were salvaged and adorn the front window of the synagogue today.
On June 30, Tarrants returned to Meridian to bomb the home of Meyer Davidson, an outspoken leader of the Jewish community, on 29th Avenue. FBI chief special agent Roy K. Moore and Meridian police chief C. L. “Roy” Gunn (1904–1976) convinced Raymond and Alton Wayne Roberts, local Klan members, to gather information about the Klan's operations. Alton was free on bond after being convicted in connection with the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in 1964. Leaders of the Jewish communities in Jackson and in Meridian had raised money to pay the two informants, who tipped off the FBI about the attack before it happened. Fifteen police officers, led by Meridian police officer Thomas E. Tucker, were hidden around Davidson's house shortly after midnight when a car stopped about 50 feet (15 m) away from the house. Tarrants exited the vehicle with a box, later found to include 29 sticks of dynamite, and approached Davidson's carport. When police ordered him to stop, he dropped the box and fled to his vehicle. Officers then chased him for about 15 blocks before ramming the back of his vehicle, ending the chase. Tarrants opened fire on the policemen with a German-made 9mm submachine gun, striking Meridian police officer Joseph Michael Hatcher four times in the chest (though critically injured, the officer survived). Tarrants fled through the neighborhood continuing to fire at the policemen. U.S. Navy Machinist's Mate Second Class Robert E. Burton, a resident of the neighborhood, opened his door to see what was going on and was struck by stray bullets. Police eventually found Tarrants in a pool of his own blood in a local resident's backyard. Kathy Ainsworth, a 26-year-old fifth grade school teacher from Jackson who had helped with the bombing of Jackson's synagogue a few months earlier, was found dead in the car with a loaded pistol in her purse. The car's owner was identified to be Danny Joe Hawkins, who had helped bomb Beth Israel; he was arrested on robbery charges a few weeks later. Tarrants survived his wounds and was sentenced to a thirty-year term in Parchman prison. He was paroled eight years into his term to enter the University of Mississippi after a religious conversion, and in 1992 he was training missionaries in North Carolina.
## Cemetery
Besides their main campus in Broadmoor, the congregation also operates Beth Israel Cemetery, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. Located at 19th Street and 5th Avenue, it was originally outside of Meridian's city limits and was intended to be a rural cemetery, but the city has since expanded and annexed the area containing the cemetery. The cemetery contains generations of German and Alsatian immigrants, as well as many big names of the largely mercantile Jewish community of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Beth Israel Cemetery is the only remaining built memorial for many of Meridian's early Jews since the era of the 1879 and 1906 temple buildings, neither of which still stands.
A stuccoed brick fence with cast iron gates and an iron Star of David enclose the cemetery. Within the walls, there are two main pathways which meet in the center of the cemetery at a circular decorative piece including a fountain. The oldest graves are in the northern half of the cemetery while newer graves were added progressively south. Many grave sites are adorned with well-maintained Victorian era funerary art, which gives the cemetery its historic significance. Among the monuments include the grave enclosure of the Winner family, which includes a bronze bust of Mark Winner, and two marble angels at the entrance of the plot. Other examples include the grave of David L. Rosenbaum, topped with marble shoes and stockings, the grave of Julius Elson, marked by a carved marble fainting couch, and a memorial to Mattimore Meyer, featuring a marble angel.
Because the cemetery is so small – only 2.9 acres (1.2 ha) – it cannot be fully compared to such prolific rural cemeteries as Mount Auburn Cemetery in Massachusetts, but it was clearly laid out in the rural cemetery fashion. Many of the first people buried here were European immigrants, so that could explain why there are no trees on the property. Jewish cemeteries in Europe are generally not planted with trees because of the possibility that roots could disturb the bodies.
## Decline of the Jewish community
Congregation Beth Israel experienced decline along with the rest of the city and state's Jewish community. The Jewish population in Mississippi peaked in 1927 at 6,420 and has since decreased steadily. By 2001, only 1,500 Jews remained in the state. Children of the original Jewish immigrants – mostly merchants – were more interested in going to college to become professionals than taking over family businesses. The rise of national retail chains pressured many Jews to move to larger cities, leaving empty storefronts to line streets of smaller cities that were once economic centers. As of 2006, there were thirteen Jewish congregations left in the state, and only two still had a full-time rabbi. Meridian as a whole has also seen a decline in population. Between the censuses in 1980 and 2000, the city's population declined over 16% from 46,577 to 39,968.
By the early 21st century, there were fewer than 40 Jews remaining in the city of Meridian, most of whom were elderly. Ohel Jacob, the local Orthodox congregation, first shared services with Beth Israel on all but High Holy Days and then disbanded completely in 1990, with its handful of members joining Beth Israel. By the 2000s, there were no longer enough children in the Beth Israel congregation to support a Sunday school class or youth group. Beth Israel no longer has a full-time rabbi; instead, from 2005 to 2016 retired Rabbi David Goldstein from Touro Synagogue in New Orleans, leads services once a month. Starting September 2016, Rabbi Barry Altman, of Ormond Beach, Florida, took over as part-time rabbi. The synagogue serves about 20 member families and houses a Family Growth Services Group, which "seeks to sustain and advance the reach and contributions of the Jewish community within Meridian." In January 2010, Beth Israel launched a Family Relocation Program, which provided grants of up to \$25,000 to families looking to relocate to the Meridian area. |
20,045,177 | Battle of al-Harra | 1,173,493,966 | Battle between Umayyad and Medinan forces in 683 | [
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| The Battle of al-Harra (Arabic: يوم الحرة, romanized: Yawm al-Ḥarra, lit. 'Day of al-Harra') was fought between the Syrian army of the Umayyad caliph Yazid I (r. 680–683) led by Muslim ibn Uqba and the defenders of Medina from the Ansar and Muhajirun factions, who had rebelled against the caliph. The battle took place at the lava field of Harrat Waqim in the northeastern outskirts of Medina on 26 August 683 and lasted less than a day.
The elite factions of Medina disapproved of the hereditary succession of Yazid (unprecedented in Islamic history until that point), resented the caliph's impious lifestyle, and chafed under Umayyad economic acts and policies. After declaring their rebellion, they besieged the Umayyad clan resident in Medina and dug a defensive trench around the city. The expeditionary force sent by Yazid and local Umayyads, who had since been released from the siege, encamped at Harrat Waqim, where the rebels confronted them. Despite an initial advantage, the Medinans were routed due to the defection of one of their factions, the Banu Haritha, which enabled Umayyad horse riders led by Marwan ibn al-Hakam to attack them from the rear.
Afterward, the army pillaged Medina for three days, though accounts of the plunder vary considerably. The Syrian army proceeded to besiege the rebel leader Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca, though Ibn Uqba died en route. In contrast to Ibn al-Zubayr's call for a shura to decide the caliphate and his success in resisting the Umayyads, the rebels in Medina lacked a political program and military experience. The traditional Islamic sources list the Battle of al-Harra and its aftermath as one of the Umayyads' 'major crimes' and malign Ibn Uqba for his role in the plunder of Medina.
## Location
The location of the battle was the lava field of Harrat Waqim, which straddles the eastern outskirts of Medina in the Hejaz (western Arabia). It was named after the Waqim fortress of the Banu Qurayza tribe that had been resident in the area during the pre-Islamic period and was alternatively known as Harrat Bani Qurayza or Harrat Zuhra. It formed part of the vast geological system of ḥarras (basaltic deserts) which spanned the region east of the Hauran in Syria southward to Medina's environs. As a result of the fame of the battle, Harrat Waqim was thenceforth referred to in Muslim sources as 'the Harra'.
## Background
Under the Islamic prophet Muhammad, beginning in 622, and the first three caliphs, Abu Bakr (r. 632–634), Umar (r. 634–644) and Uthman (r. 644–656), Medina served as the capital of the early Muslim state, which by Uthman's time came to rule over an empire spanning Arabia, most of the Persian Sasanian Empire and the Byzantine territories of Syria and Egypt. The capital was moved to Kufa in Iraq by the fourth caliph, Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law Ali (r. 656–661), during the First Muslim Civil War. Ali's rival for the caliphate, the governor of Syria Mu'awiya, won the war and made Damascus capital of the Umayyad Caliphate, which he founded in 661.
### Political and pious opposition to Yazid
The hereditary succession of Mu'awiya's son, Yazid, in 680 was an unprecedented act in Islamic politics. It was a point of contention among the people of Medina, especially the eminent Muslim leaders of the Hejaz. One of them, Husayn, a son of Ali and grandson of Muhammad, left Medina to lead a revolt against Yazid in Iraq. He was slain alongside his band of about seventy followers at the Battle of Karbala by the forces of the Umayyad governor Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad; Yazid is alleged to have put the head of Husayn on display in Damascus.
In 680, Yazid dismissed his cousin al-Walid ibn Utba ibn Abi Sufyan from the governorship of Medina for having failed to prevent Husayn and the other major opponent to his rule, Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, a grandson of Abu Bakr, from leaving Medina. Al-Walid's replacement, the Umayyad Amr ibn Sa'id al-Ashdaq, failed to capture Ibn al-Zubayr, who took refuge in the Kaaba in Mecca, or extract from him the oath of allegiance to Yazid. Al-Ashdaq mobilized a troop of Medinans enrolled in the army, as well as mawali (sing. mawla; non-Arab, Muslim freedmen or clients) of the Umayyad clan, to assault Ibn al-Zubayr, but many of the recruited Medinans were reticent to participate and paid others to fight in their place. Ibn al-Zubayr defeated this force, and partly as a consequence, Yazid dismissed al-Ashdaq and reappointed al-Walid ibn Utba in August 681. Feigning an attempted reconciliation with the caliph, Ibn al-Zubayr requested that Yazid replace al-Walid ibn Utba with a milder governor. Yazid acceded, installing his young and politically inexperienced cousin Uthman ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Sufyan in December 682.
Most of the Medinans, and many in the wider Muslim community, sympathized with Ibn al-Zubayr amid general uncertainty about the stability of Umayyad rule and the prospect of Ibn al-Zubayr coming to power. Reports of impious behavior by Yazid, including entertainment by singing girls and a pet monkey, contributed to prevailing attitudes in Medina of his unsuitability as caliph. The Medinans mainly consisted of the Ansar (native Medinans who had hosted and allied with Muhammad after his emigration from Mecca in 622) and the Muhajirun (Muhammad's early supporters who had emigrated with him). The Muhajirun were predominantly from the Quraysh, the tribe to which Muhammad, Ali, and the Umayyads all belonged. At the time of the opposition to Yazid, the Medinans were mostly the children of these two factions, which collectively represented Islam's first military generation, and felt threatened at the potential loss of the inherited military pensions brought about by Umayyad fiscal reforms. The reforms called for pensions to be given only in exchange for active military service.
To reconcile with the Medinans, Yazid requested they send a delegation to his court in Damascus. Uthman ibn Muhammad organized the Medinan embassy. Yazid attempted to win over the delegates by lavishing them with gifts and money. This proved fruitless when the delegates returned and incited the people of Medina with accounts detailing Yazid's scandalous lifestyle. The most vociferous critic among the delegates was Abd Allah ibn Hanzala. He declared that he and his sons would fight against Yazid should others not join him, and though Yazid respected him, he would use the gifts the latter gave him against the caliph. Ibn al-Zubayr took control of Mecca in September 683 and allied with Ibn Hanzala in opposition to Yazid. The leaders of the Medinan opposition dismissed counsel from Yazid's messengers and friends in Damascus to avoid rebellion as attempts to undermine the unity of the Medinans. Prominent exceptions to this united bloc included the Alids (family of Ali), Abd Allah ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab, son of the second caliph, and the companion of Muhammad Abu Barza. They all considered the anti-Umayyad opposition in the Hejaz to be fighting for power and wealth rather than for a just and pious cause.
### Economic and social grievances
Mu'awiya had acquired extensive properties and agricultural estates in Medina from its inhabitants. These lands were referred to as sawafi in the sources, a term usually reserved for conquered lands that became state property, but in the case of Medina meant acquired lands that became the personal domains of the caliph. According to reports cited by the 9th-century historian Ibn Qutayba, the people of Medina alleged that Mu'awiya purchased the lands at a hundredth of their value during hunger and desperation. The 9th-century historian al-Ya'qubi held that the properties were confiscated. The people of Medina considered the acquisitions illegitimate and damaging to their economic interests.
Mu'awiya launched cultivation and irrigation projects on the lands and derived considerable returns from dates and wheat. To meet the workforce needs for cultivation and maintenance, Mu'awiya employed numerous mawali, consisting of war captives from the conquered provinces, including many skilled laborers. The mawali were loyal to their patron, in this case, Mu'awiya and later Yazid. The mawali of the Umayyads in Medina were numerous, and the sources record several instances of tensions involving them and the people of Medina. Yazid inherited the estates and mawali of his father. The dispossessed landowners of Medina demanded the restitution of their ownership rights from Yazid. The historian Meir Jacob Kister asserts the Medinan rebellion emanated from "the conflict between the owners of estates and property in Medina and the unjust Umayyad rulers who robbed them of their property".
## Prelude
Uthman ibn Muhammad was unable to control the growing opposition to Umayyad rule. According to the historian al-Mada'ini (d. 843), the inaugurating act of rebellion by the Medinans occurred during a gathering in the mosque where the attendees each tossed an article of clothing, such as a turban or a shoe, an Arab custom symbolizing a severing of ties, to renounce their allegiance to Yazid. According to the historian Abu Mikhnaf (d. 774), the first act of rebellion by the Medinans was giving allegiance to Ibn Hanzala. Afterward, they assaulted the Umayyads and their supporters in the city, together about 1,000-strong, who fled to the quarter of their leading elder, Marwan ibn al-Hakam. The latter sent urgent requests for assistance from Yazid, who dispatched an army to suppress the opposition from both the Medinans and Ibn al-Zubayr.
According to alternative accounts by al-Ya'qubi and al-Waqidi (d. 823), for up to a month leading to the battle, several attempts by the chief of Yazid's estates in Medina, Ibn Mina, to collect the crops for the caliph were disrupted by the estates' former owners, in particular from the Ansarite Balharith clan. Uthman ibn Muhammad responded by assigning a guard force to help Ibn Mina and his men gather the crops. They were met by a group of Ansar and Quraysh, who refused to allow the Umayyads' men to proceed with their work. Uthman ibn Muhammad then requested intervention by Yazid, who dispatched an expedition against the townspeople of Medina. In these accounts, the Medinans expelled and pelted the Umayyads with stones in response to Uthman ibn Muhammad's rebukes to their leaders for barring the caliph's men from the estates.
The caliph's expeditionary force consisted of 4,000 to 12,000 well-equipped Syrian Arab tribesmen, dominated by the Banu Kalb. As an incentive to the troops, who anticipated an arduous campaign ahead, each soldier was paid 100 silver dirhams over their regular stipend. Yazid's initial choice for the commander of this force, al-Ashdaq, refused the position out of a principle not to shed the blood of his fellow Quraysh, while Ibn Ziyad, still reeling from the fallout from his role in the death of Husayn, also refused. Instead, the loyal, elderly, non-Qurayshite veteran Muslim ibn Uqba was given the command. According to al-Ya'qubi, Ibn Uqba's forces were composed of equal numbers of troops from the five junds ('armies') of Syria: Rawh ibn Zinba al-Judhami led the men of Palestine, Hubaysh ibn Dulja al-Qayni led the men of Jordan, Abd Allah ibn Mas'ada al-Fazari led the men of Damascus, Husayn ibn Numayr al-Sakuni led the men of Homs and Zufar ibn al-Harith al-Kilabi led the men of Qinnasrin.
Upon hearing of the Syrian advance, the Medinans reinforced the siege against the Umayyads of Medina before allowing them to leave after they gave oaths not to assist the incoming army. On their way to Syria, the exiled Umayyads encountered Ibn Uqba's army in the Wadi al-Qura region between Syria and Medina. Ibn Uqba's inquiries about Medina's defenses were rebuffed by most of the Umayyads, some of whom continued on their way north, but Marwan's son Abd al-Malik cooperated and offered valuable intelligence. Under Marwan's leadership, most of the exiles joined the expedition. In Medina, the defenders, numbering about 2,000 men, dug a trench to protect a vulnerable northern corner of the city and divided themselves into four units, two of which were commanded by members of the Quraysh, including Abd Allah ibn Muti, one by Ibn Hanzala of the Ansar and the last by a non-Qurayshite and non-Ansarite, Ma'qil ibn Sinan al-Ashja'i.
For three days, starting on 23 August, Ibn Uqba attempted negotiations with the Medinan leaders. He appealed for unity and promised two annual payments to the Medinans from Yazid and a significant price reduction on corn. Yazid may have offered these or similar terms before the expedition to a representative of the Medinans, Ali's nephew Abd Allah ibn Ja'far. According to the historian Laura Veccia Vaglieri, this indicates that economic concerns contributed to the Medinan opposition of the Umayyads.
## Battle
The negotiations between Ibn Uqba and the Medinans faltered, and clashes ensued. The Medinan horsemen marched against Ibn Uqba in the Harra, and may have advanced as far as Ibn Uqba's litter, from which he commanded his troops. Upon their approach, Ibn Uqba confronted them on horseback and actively participated in the fighting. The Medinans gained an early advantage, but were ultimately overtaken by the Syrians and several Ansarite and Qurayshite notables were slain, including Ibn Hanzala, eight of his sons and a handful of other men from the Medinan elite.
Squadrons of Medinan mawali, fighting under the command of the mawla Yazid ibn Hurmuz, defended a large section of the ditch, and held off an assault by the Syrians, refusing demands to surrender. The historians Wahb ibn Jarir (d. 822) and al-Samhudi (d. 1533) held that Medinan lines were compromised by the defection of the Banu Haritha, whose members gave Marwan and his horse riders access through their quarter in Medina, enabling them to assault the Medinans at the Harra from the rear. The Quraysh under Ibn Muti fled the battlefield and headed for safety to Ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca. According to al-Waqidi, the battle concluded on 26 August 683. The fighting lasted less than a day.
## Aftermath
Conflicting accounts abound regarding the aftermath of the Syrian victory. According to Abu Mikhnaf and al-Samhudi, Ibn Uqba gave his troops free rein to pillage Medina for three days. The number of Medinan casualties incurred during the battle and immediate aftermath range from 180 to 700 members of the Ansar and Quraysh, and 4,000 to 10,000 other Medinans. Al-Samhudi further claimed that as a result of the alleged rape of Medinan women by Ibn Uqba's troops, 1,000 illegitimate children were later born by them as a result.
The account of the historian Awana ibn al-Hakam (d. 764) describes a more orderly capture, in which Ibn Uqba summoned the notables of Medina to give allegiance to Yazid at the Quba Mosque and used the occasion to execute several prominent leaders of the opposition movement, including a number from the Quraysh and Ma'qil ibn Sinan al-Ashja'i. The latter had been a close friend and belonged to the same Ghatafan tribal grouping as Ibn Uqba but was nonetheless executed for his disavowal of Yazid. A son of Caliph Uthman (r. 644–656), a member of the Umayyad clan, had his beard cut as punishment for suspected collusion with the Medinans, though Ali ibn al-Husayn, a son of Husayn, was well-treated on the personal instructions of Yazid. Wahb ibn Jarir likewise did not make a note of a three-day plunder of Medina, and Wellhausen doubts that it occurred.
The accounts of Abu Mikhnaf and Awana agree that following the ordering of affairs in Medina, Ibn Uqba left to subdue Ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca but fell ill and died on the way in al-Mushallal. As ordered by Yazid, he left as second-in-command Husayn ibn Numayr al-Sakuni, who proceeded to besiege Mecca in September.
## Assessment
In Kister's observation, the rebellion in Medina lacked a political program, in contrast to the revolt of Ibn al-Zubayr, who called for a shura (consultation) to decide the caliphate. The Medinans felt assured of victory in any confrontation with the Syrians. In organizing the defense of their city, they adopted Muhammad's tactics at the Battle of the Trench, where he repulsed a siege against Medina by digging ditches to prevent the entry of enemy horsemen. At al-Harra, the Medinans lacked horses and weapons of their own, as indicated by counsel Marwan gave to Ibn Uqba, where he further advised that the Medinans were not warlike and few would have the resolve to fight. The survivors among Medina's leaders lamented the quick defeat of their pious men at the Harra, contrasting it to the successful six-month resistance against the Syrian army by Ibn al-Zubayr and his smaller coterie of supporters in Mecca. Kister considers the release of the besieged Umayyads, instead of their effective use as hostages, "heedless" and the rebels' belief that the Umayyads would not aid the Syrians or convince them to turn back "credulous".
The alleged cruelty against the townspeople of Medina by the Umayyad army became a cause célèbre that was invoked by future generations. Ibn Uqba was thenceforth known as 'Musrif', a play on his name 'Muslim', which meant "he who exceeds all bounds of propriety". The historian Michael Lecker considers the reports of Syrian atrocities in Medina as "undeniably anti-Umayyad and probably exaggerated". Moreover, Wellhausen dismisses the depiction by later Muslim and western sources of Ibn Uqba as a brutal heathen with a deep hatred for Islam, in general, and the people of Medina, in particular, as a falsity that developed over time and is unsupported by the early and more credible Muslim sources. In Wellhausen's assessment, the suppression of the Medinan revolt was not the cause of the significant decline of the city's political status; this had already been precipitated by the assassination of Caliph Uthman in 656, the aftermath of which marked Medina's end as the capital of the nascent Muslim state. The city continued to be a center for religious scholarship, Arab high culture, and a redoubt for poets and singers. Vaglieri counters Wellhausen's doubts about the extent of the army's pillage, asserting that the "[traditional Muslim] sources are unanimous on this point". |
68,711,354 | 1914–1915 Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills strike | 1,172,405,117 | Atlanta, Georgia labor action | [
"1910s strikes in the United States",
"1914 in Georgia (U.S. state)",
"1914 labor disputes and strikes",
"1915 in Georgia (U.S. state)",
"1915 labor disputes and strikes",
"History of Atlanta",
"Labor disputes in Georgia (U.S. state)",
"Textile and clothing labor disputes in the United States",
"United Textile Workers of America"
]
| The 1914–1915 Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills strike was a labor strike involving several hundred textile workers from the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The strike, which involved about 500 millworkers, began on May 20, 1914, and ended almost a year later on May 15, 1915, in failure for the strikers.
The Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills was a cotton mill facility located in Atlanta's Cabbagetown neighborhood that began operations in the late 1800s. By the early 1900s, it was one of the largest mills in the American South and the largest industrial employer in the city. However, workers criticized many aspects of the mills, including several unpopular company policies, unsafe working conditions, and the use of child labor in the mills. In 1897, the mills saw two labor strikes that contributed to a greater push for unionization within the mills. In October 1913, following another brief strike, workers organized as Local 886 of the United Textile Workers of America (UTW). In response, the company hired private investigators to infiltrate the mills and report union activity back to the supervisors. On May 20, 1914, in response to the company firing over 100 union members, several hundred millworkers went on strike.
Shortly after the outset of the strike, the company evicted striking families from their company-owned houses. Many found shelter in a boarding house rented out by the UTW. In addition to this, the UTW and the American Federation of Labor (AFL) provided abundant financial and organizational support for the strike, as they saw the success of this strike as an important gateway to further textile organizing in the southern states. The strike attracted many noted labor activists, including Sara Agnes Mclaughlin Conboy and Ola Delight Smith, and many public organizations in the city supported the strike. These groups included the Social Gospel-oriented Men and Religion Forward Movement and the Atlanta Federation of Trades. The former petitioned for federal intervention to arbitrate an end to the strike, while the latter provided several thousand dollars in financial support. However, despite the public support, the company took a hardline stance against the strike and refused to negotiate. Due to the labor surplus in the city at that time, striking workers were easily replaced and production levels quickly returned to pre-strike levels. Additionally, the company hired a private investigation firm to spy on the union, with one spy rising in the ranks of the union and corresponding regularly with the strike leaders. By August, with finances dwindling, the union opened a tent city in lieu of its rented boardinghouse. Several months later, however, the UTW and AFL restated their commitment to the strike and UTW President John Golden even traveled to Atlanta to lead the strike himself. However, by February 1915, Golden had returned to UTW headquarters and many strikers were pessimistic about their chances of securing a favorable outcome. While efforts persisted for several more months, on May 15, the strike was officially called off and the tent city was dismantled. Many of the strikers never worked for Fulton Bag and Cotton again.
Historians contend that the strike was among the first major textile strikes in the Southern United States, with historian Gary M. Fink referring to it as "[t]he southern equivalent of the great 1912 "Bread and Roses" textile strike". Historian Jacquelyn Dowd Hall stated that it was the first strike in the region that received significant support from the AFL and UTW, while historian Joseph B. Atkins considers it a precursor to other textile strike action in the region, including the 1929 Loray Mill strike and the 1934 Textile workers strike. Historians have also discussed reasons for the strike's failure, which they commonly attribute to the labor surplus caused by mass migration to Atlanta from the surrounding area, an emphasis on racial rather than class solidarity among the mills' white workers, a hardline anti-union stance from the company, and a lack of participation from rank and file strikers in strike decision-making.
## Background
### Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills
In 1868, businessman Jacob Elsas formed the Elsas, May and Company in Atlanta in order to produce paper bags for use in carrying dry goods, such as flour and sugar. By 1870, the company was also producing cotton bags, and in 1876, in an act of vertical integration, Elsas chartered his own textile mill in Atlanta. This mill began operations in 1881, and in 1889, Elsas rechristened his business ventures the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills, Inc. By this time, the company was the single largest industrial employer in the city. By the early 1900s, the mills were one of the largest in the Southern United States, with the company's facility including four textile factories and several warehouse and machine shops. According to historian Mark K. Bauman, Elsas employed industrial paternalism within his company and the mills. In the Factory Lot neighborhood where the mills were located (later renamed Factory Town and now known as Cabbagetown), the company operated a clinic while Elsas supported a settlement house in the area and offered to build a school near the mills if the government of Atlanta agreed to maintain it. In addition, jobs at the mills offered above-average wages while rent for lodging near the facilities were fairly low.
However, many workers worked long shifts in unsafe working conditions, and child labor was prevalent, with many children employed in the mills. Additionally, the company leveled fines against employees for a number of rules violations, further reducing their take-home pay, while the comparatively high cost of living further reduced employees' purchasing power, and while other mills offered employees land to grow crops or raise livestock, Fulton Bag and Cotton did not, requiring employees to purchase all of their food. Factory Town was also notorious for its poor living conditions, with a general lack of sanitation and overcrowding, and outbreaks of diseases such as pellagra and tuberculosis were common. The town had been condemned as a health hazard by the Atlanta Sanitary Department. Elsas also employed industrial espionage in order to maintain control over the mills' operations. Some workers in the late 1800s and early 1900s complained about a general lack of privacy within the mills and an abundance of workplace rules to follow. In addition, workers who had called out sick were sometimes visited by a company doctor to ensure that the worker was not lying about their illness. As part of a labor contract signed between the employees and the mills, Fulton Bag and Cotton took no responsibility for occupational injuries and reserved the right to fire and evict workers without notice, as well as to withhold the employee's last week of pay for quitting without giving the company a five-day notice before leaving. At the time, no other mill in Georgia had such a provision, and while it was disliked by the workers, a 1909 ruling from the Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed its legality. These conditions, among others, all contributed to a high rate of turnover, and the mills were regarded by workers in Atlanta as a "hobo mill".
### Early labor disputes and unionization at the mills
In 1885, workers at the Fulton Cotton and Spinning Company (a precursor to the Fulton Bag and Cotton Company) organized as Local Assembly 4455 of the Knights of Labor. In November of that year, 50 weavers went on strike due to a dispute with management over their wages. The strike affected a total of 150 workers and saw the destruction of some mill machinery, which caused the Knights of Labor to disavow the strike within a week of its beginning. By 1888, Local 4455, having suffered from financial difficulties, ceased to exist.
In 1897, two labor strikes occurred at the mills. The first was caused by the hiring of twenty African American women to work in the mills' folding department in jobs that had traditionally been held by white Americans. Elsas had announced their hiring to the rest of the workers in the mills' folding department on August 3. The new hires would be physically segregated from the rest of the employees in the facility and were not hired to replace any existing jobs. The following day, he had the new hires arrive early, but when the white folding workers arrived at 6 a.m., they performed a walkout and were joined by the remainder of the white workers at the mills by 11:00 a.m., causing the mills to shut down. A group of about 1,400 workers gathered outside of the mills, with the police called to maintain order as the situation grew violent. By 3:00 p.m., a mass meeting was held where many of these strikers signed up to join the Textile Workers' Union. Elsas, worried about the escalating situation, agreed to negotiate with the strikers, with former U.S. Secretary of the Interior M. Hoke Smith brought in as an arbitrator. On August 5, Elsas agreed to fire the new African American hires, and the strikers returned to work, with some working increased hours as overtime. However, Elsas denied the strikers' demands to fire all African American employees at the mills, instead leaving them employed only in certain departments within the mills. Additionally, Elsas refused a demand that "no member of the Textile Workers' Union or anyone who participated in the strike should be discharged because of their union affiliation, or because they participated in the strike; and that all former employees should be reinstated in their positions". Despite the refusals, the white workers at the mills considered the strike a success, and the white women who had started the walkout were honored by being at the front of that September's Labor Day parade. Additionally, the union began to strengthen its position and affiliated itself with the Atlanta Federation of Trades (AFT), the city's organization of local unions.
Several months after the first strike, management at the mills fired several workers who had acted as strike leaders that August, triggering another strike from the workers. In addition to the firings, the workers were also afraid that their wages were in danger of being decreased and that management might replace them with African American workers. On December 7, with support from the AFT, approximately 1,000 of the 1,200 millworkers went on strike. After a brief meeting with some representatives of the striking workers, Elsas stated his refusal to rehire the fired workers. Starting on the second day of the strike, the company began evicting strikers from company-owned houses, and Elsas performed a lockout. After reopening, non-striking employees were allowed back to work, as were strikers who had abandoned the strike. Additionally, strikebreakers were brought in to replace the strikers. The strike lasted for over a month, but ultimately ended in failure for the strikers by early January, with many of them losing their jobs. The union later dissolved the following year after another attempted strike action by weavers received little support from the rest of the millworkers. Despite the failure for the strikers, the workers at the mills became more active in pushing for labor union representation, with historian Ileen A. DeVault stating that the "workers subsequently became some of Atlanta's most ardent unionists". This was during a time when the labor movement in the United States was experiencing a massive growth, with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) growing from 260,000 members in 1897 to 1,676,200 members by 1904. In Atlanta during this time, many workers joined unions, with the percentage of workers who were unionized in the city greater than the national average. Also, between 1900 and 1910, the mills resumed hiring of African American women, and by 1914, they accounted for 11 percent of the mills' entire workforce. By 1918, Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills was the largest employer of African American women in Atlanta. However, racial violence continued to serve as a major social issue in Atlanta, reaching a peak less than a decade after the initial strike action with the 1906 Atlanta race riot.
### Prelude to strike action
On October 23, 1913, workers at the mills performed a work stoppage. The event involved about 350 loom fixers and weavers protesting against the firing of a loom fixer and a change in company policy earlier that year that saw an extension in the time needed to state one's intent to quit from five days to six days. The stoppage lasted four days and succeeded in reducing the time needed to give your notice from six days to five days, but failed to get the fired workers rehired. Following the strike, the United Textile Workers of America (UTW), an affiliate union of the AFL, organized a union drive at the mills, and on October 31, the union chartered a local union for the workers, UTW Local 886. At the time, the UTW was attempting to expand their union efforts into the Southern United States, driven primarily by a growth in the textile industry in the area and increased competition in textile organizing in the Northern United States from the more radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). They viewed Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills as a good starting place for these efforts based on the location of the mills in the regionally important city of Atlanta as well as the size and militancy of the workforce at the mills. In addition to Atlanta, the UTW was pursuing organizing efforts in several southern cities, while the IWW, in a much smaller scope, was attempting to organize workers in Greenville, South Carolina. The UTW assigned union organizer Charles A. Miles to the union efforts at the mills. Miles had previously been involved in unionization efforts throughout the Midwest and Northeastern United States, but this was his first involvement in organizing in the American South. By early 1914, several hundred millworkers had joined the new local union, but as with previous union organizing at the mills, the company refused to recognize this union.
Through 1913 and into 1914, tensions continued to grow between the workers and management, with many voicing displeasure with new contract policies and increased fines levied by the company. Additionally, several historians note that a wave of antisemitism that had emerged in Atlanta following the 1913 trial of Leo Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan may have contributed to the increased tensions. Speaking about this, historian Joseph B. Atkins stated that "[i]n Atlanta, anti-Semitism contributed to a fetid atmosphere" and that "[m]any Fulton millworkers likely saw in Jacob Elsas what they had come to hate in Leo Frank". However, according to historian Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, while "resentment against Elsas spilled over into the outcry against Leo Frank", "there is no indication that the Fulton Mills walkout was sparked by anti-Semitism". By 1914, there were approximately 1,300 people were employed at the mills, 12 percent of whom were children under the age of 16 and 35 percent of whom were women. By that time, Jacob Elsas had been succeeded as president of the mills by his son, Oscar Elsas. In light of the formation of the union, Elsas contracted the Philadelphia-based Railway Audit and Inspection Company (RA & I, a private investigation firm) to plant undercover agents within the mills to keep tabs on union activities. Additionally, between October 1913 and May 1914, officials within the union alleged that Elsas had fired 104 union members, many of whom had been employed by the mills for a long time beforehand. While Elsas countered that over 300 employees had been fired during that time and that it was irrelevant to him whether they were union members or not, though this statement was challenged by union members. While Miles attempted to discuss these issues with Elsas, Elsas declined.
On May 5, union members met to discuss possible industrial action, but Miles asked the members to postpone any action until after he had met and discussed the situation with UTW officials in Washington, D.C. On May 9, the union met again and voted to approve strike action against the company, but also decided to wait until after Miles had returned to act. On May 15, President S. B. Marks of the Georgia Federation of Labor (a statewide federation of unions that typically represented unions of skilled workers) offered to act as an intermediary between the union and the company, and on May 19, in a secret ballot, union members voted to go on strike at 10 a.m. the next day. Following this, President Marks sent a letter to Elsas requesting a meeting, which was ignored. The following day, a representative of the AFT also sought an audience with Elsas, but was also refused. Following this, several hundred millworkers commenced strike action.
## Course of the strike
### Beginning of the strike and the union's demands
The walkout on May 20 consisted primarily of loom fixers and weavers. Picketing commenced shortly thereafter, and several strikers went to the Atlanta Union Station and Terminal Station to inform new arrivals into the city of the strike. Pickets were also staged at an underpass on Boulevard that served as an entryway from the north to the mills. Additionally, strikers visited the homes of other workers to try to convince them to join. Elsas took a hardline stance against the strikers from the beginning, and in some cases even refused to acknowledge the strike, referring to it at one point as a "little disturbance". While the initial cause of the strike concerned the reinstatement of fired union members, the strikers' demands also included reduced workhours, increased pay, improved living conditions in the company-owned housing, and end to both child labor and the employment contract at the mills. With regards to the employment contract, the strikers especially took issue with the required notice in order to receive their last week of pay. Elsas was unwilling to change this policy, and even later stated that that requirement was what had kept more workers from joining the strike. At the time of the strike, the company saved approximately \$2,500 annually by keeping wages from employees who had quit without properly notifying the company ahead of time. Additionally, Elsas was unwilling to compromise on the system of fines, arguing that it incentivized workers from making mistakes and promoted productivity. Between 1913 and 1914, the company had collected over \$1,500 in fines, compared to the \$90.35 that the Atlanta-based Exposition Cotton Mills had collected. Concerning the workhours, union leaders pushed for a reduction from 60 to 54 hours per week, though they were pessimistic about the chances of this being implemented, as the 60-hour workweek was considered fairly standard in the textile industry at that time. However, they considered that it could be a useful bargaining tool in negotiations. On the issue of child labor, state law prohibited anyone under ten years old from working and had certain restrictions on children under the age of fourteen working. However, enforcement of these laws were lax, and many loopholes existed that allowed children to work illegally. Fulton Bag and Cotton, compared to other mills, had a fairly decent reputation in abiding by the law, and Elsas was actually supportive of more stringent child labor laws in the state. However, the union sought to generate more public support for the strike by tying it to the issue of child labor, as the strike coincided with increased activism for the issue. At the time of the strike, there were 144 children working at the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills, constituting 12 percent of the workforce.
On May 28, the AFT held a meeting to discuss the strike, wherein they arranged for the local government to not intervene in the strike, which was accomplished because union members held several positions in the local government, Atlanta Chief of Police James Beavers was a friend of one of the strike organizers, and the mayor of Atlanta at the time (James G. Woodward) was also a union member. Additionally, the group agreed to levy a weekly \$0.15 due on every member of the organization for the duration of the strike to build up its strike fund. These dues generated approximately \$525 per week for the AFT. In addition to these payments, that UTW agreed to provide \$500 per week to the strike fund, and additional funds were solicited from local organizations and donors both in Atlanta and nationwide. During the initial months of the strike, the strikers' fund received over \$1,500 a week, a large sum for strikes at that time. Shortly after the start of the strike, the UTW sent two more union organizers to help orchestrate the strike: Sara Agnes Mclaughlin Conboy and Mary Kelleher. Conboy had been an activist for the Women's Trade Union League in Boston and was the highest-ranking woman within the UTW's leadership. Miles also convinced the union to hire Ola Delight Smith to help with the strike effort. Smith, known as the "Mother Jones of Atlanta", was a labor activist who had moved to Atlanta several years prior, and served as both an editor for the AFT's Journal of Labor publication and the president of the ladies' auxiliary of the Order of Railroad Telegraphers. Hall referred to her as "a boundary-crossing New Woman" and "the most prominent female member of Atlanta's white labor community", while Fink states that Smith "quickly became the driving force in the strike" and names Miles and Smith as the primary strike leaders. In addition to the UTW representatives, strike leadership also included H. Newborn Mullinax, the president of Local 886 and the only millworker serving as a strike leader.
### Company evicts strikers
Within the first week of striking, Elsas ordered that striking workers and their families be evicted from their company-owned houses. In total, this affected about 218 workers making up 78 families in Factory Town. Deputies from the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, with African American workers hired by the company, began evicting families en masse. Of note, singer Fiddlin' John Carson, who at the time was working at the mills, was evicted along with the rest of his family, who were also millworkers. Carson would later serve as something of a minstrel for the strikers. Led by Smith, strikers and union representatives took ample photographs of the evictions, and these photos and testimonials from evicted strikers were used to generate public sympathy for the strike. Local publications such as The Atlanta Georgian and The Atlanta Journal published many of these images in pro-child labor law articles. Additionally, strikers created and showed movies showcasing their living and working conditions. Photographs of African American men evicting the strikers were widely circulated in an effort, as Hall later stated, to "[appeal] to white racial solidarity". Similar appeals were repeated by the UTW in publications released to other labor unions requesting assistance in the strike, and strike supporters framed the strike as a fight against "white slavery". Many of the evicted workers found lodging at the Textile Hotel, a boarding house the union had rented for strikers in preparation for the evictions. In addition, the union also operated a commissary.
### Strike continues
While the strikers had planned to shut down operations at the factory, this proved unattainable. Within several days, Elsas had leased skilled workers from other mills in the area and Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills was operating at or near the levels it had been operating at before the strike. As a result, the strikers instead pushed to pressure Elsas to bargain with them by garnering public support for their cause. In doing so, strike organizers urged the strikers to remain peaceful and not resort to violence, which could jeopardize their public support. Undercover agents hired by Elsas attempted to counter this public support by gathering unsavory information on strikers and union leaders, painting them as immoral and in the wrong. Within the first few weeks of the strike, the company had ten undercover agents, and both the union hall and Miles's hotel room had been bugged by the RA & I. However, on June 9, the bug at the union hall was discovered, raising suspicions about spies within the union. Additionally, on June 9, Smith discovered two spies who had been active within the union and, while she had intended to have them arrested, both returned to Philadelphia before that could happen. One of the agency's more successful operatives, Harry Preston, managed to stay hidden for much longer and even rose the ranks within the local union, at one point serving as the union's song leader, opening meeting sessions with a singing of "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and leading a rally at the Georgia State Capitol. Preston was so successful in his covert operations that UTW President John Golden once met with him and asked him for his opinion on the strike, and the Massachusetts Federation of Labor treated him as a delegate and guest of honor at one of their meetings.
Despite the spies' efforts, the strike received support from the Men and Religion Forward Movement, a progressive Social Gospel group led by the Evangelical Ministers' Association, which represented the clergy in roughly one hundred Protestant churches in Atlanta. The group criticized Fulton Bag and Cotton for its unsanitary living conditions and poor working conditions and on June 28, strikers and strike supporters held a mass meeting at DeGive's Grand Opera House that saw speakers from the Evangelical Ministers' Association. The event helped renew enthusiasm for the strike, and strikers continued to organize parades through the city to rally additional public support for their cause, often prominently featuring striking women and children in the events. In an attempt to foster arbitration between the union and the company, on July 7, the ministers petitioned the Commission on Industrial Relations (CIR) and the U.S. Department of Labor to send representatives to Atlanta. Both the commission (headed by Frank P. Walsh) and the department (headed by William Bauchop Wilson) were considered fairly sympathetic to organized labor, with Wilson having previously served as a leader of the United Mine Workers of America. Ultimately, the U.S. Federal Government obliged and sent two individuals to Atlanta in an attempt to hold conciliation services between the union and company: W. W. Husband and Herman Robinson of the Department of Labor, with Robinson leading the efforts. The two spent a week in Atlanta and met with Elsas on both July 16 and July 21. In both meetings, they urged him to submit to arbitration, but Elsas steadfastly refused, arguing that the mills were operating fine and that there was nothing he needed to arbitrate with the strikers. The two would later submit a report to Labor Secretary Wilson that was sympathetic to the strike, but stated that there was little the agency could do. Shortly before leaving Atlanta, two representatives of CIR arrived: Alexander M. Daly and Inis Weed. Weed (a progressive labor activist) interviewed with Elsas on July 24, during which Elsas stated that he would be open to arbitration when he felt he might lose the strike, referred to the Men and Religion Forward Movement as being composed of fanatics, and expressed interest in using violence to end the strike, though he said he would not do so because of the women and children on strike. These statements were later widely published in the Atlanta press. Meanwhile, Daly had composed a 49-page report on the strike and conditions at the mills, which, in addition to criticisms of the company's policies and working and living conditions, questioned the legality of the employment contract on the grounds that it lacked mutuality.
### Trouble within the union
However, around the same time that these federal representatives were meeting with Elsas, the union was facing its own issues. Local 886 had continued to accept new members into its ranks, many of whom were transient workers who joined in order to take advantage of the union's benefits. According to Preston, "not a quarter" of the total members of Local 886 had ever worked for the mills. By mid-July, the union had made changes to its acceptance policy in order to screen out these freeloaders, as at the time, over 1,600 people were using the union commissary, costing the union \$1,000 per week. Additionally, around the time that Daly and Weed had arrived in Atlanta, Conboy and Kelleher were recalled to New York City by UTW President Golden, which weakened the leadership in the local union. Conboy and Kelleher had recently become at odds with fellow strike leaders Miles and Smith, causing a division amongst the strike's leadership. At the advice of one of the RA & I agents, the company announced that after July 25, no person involved in the strike would ever be employed at the mills again. Also around this time, the UTW feared that the IWW were planning to send operatives to try to take over the strike, as had occurred during the 1912 Lawrence textile strike, but this never occurred.
By August, with production levels matching those before the strike, Elsas defiantly claimed that the strike was over. Also around that same time, citing financial difficulties and a lack of optimism with the strike's progress, the AFT pulled their support. With reduced financial support, the union shifted to housing striking workers in a tent city near the mills, on property owned by a police officer who was sympathetic to the strikers. These tents had been purchased from the Georgia National Guard, which had previously condemned them. While images and stories from the tent city generated increased support and elicited donations from several unions around the country, reports of immoral and illegal activities within the camp generated some negative publicity in the local media. On September 2, a large thunderstorm struck Atlanta and flooded the tent city, but afterwards, the strikers made repairs and cleaned up the area, showing that despite the difficult situation and Preston's predictions, the workers were determined to the continue the strike. On October 21, the UTW held their national convention in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where the labor union planned to enact some changes to the leadership within the Atlanta strike. While Miles was widely criticized for reimbursement agreements he had made with the AFT (which had gone in debt over the course of supporting the strike), the strike itself still garnered wide support from the union, with many still seeing a successful resolution there as the gateway for further unionizing efforts in the region. Following the AFL's convention, (which was held November 9–21 in Philadelphia) UTW President Golden arrived in Atlanta to take charge of the strike and improve the relationship within the strike leadership. To this end, he also sought to squash rumors of a romantic relationship between Miles and Smith. Smith had been the subject of an intense smear campaign during the strike, with company officials attempting repeatedly to catch her in a compromising situation with another man (at the time, Smith was married). During the strike, Smith's husband initiated a divorce, which further damaged the organizer's public reputation.
Golden hoped to reinvigorate the strike and carried out several reforms, including banning alcohol in the tent city, spending hundreds of dollars purchasing shoes for the strikers, covertly sending union agents into the mills to recruit more strikers, and evicting non-strikers. By December, only slightly over 200 people lived in the tent city, of which about 35 were part of the original group of strikers. Additionally, company spies reported rumors that Golden was planning a walkout in January 1915 to coincide with action from the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. That union's labor contract with Southern Railroad was set to expire on January 1, and the plan was that they would refuse to handle business for the mills until a conclusion to the strike was reached.
### End of the strike
Despite the actions taken by Golden, the next several months saw no real progress in winning the strike. An inability to effectively organize within the mills, combined with a labor surplus and a failure with organizing efforts at the nearby Exposition Cotton Mills, led to many seeing the strike as a hopeless situation. On February 1, 1915, Golden returned to UTW's headquarters in Fall River, Massachusetts and was replaced by Conboy and Thomas Reagan, a noted union organizer. Reagan attempted to boost morale and held several rallies, but as time went on, the situation became increasingly hopeless, and on May 15, 1915, 360 days after it had started, the strike ended. The tent city was taken apart, the commissary closed, and the union provided transportation fare for remaining strikers to either return to their homes or to where they had found new employment. Many of the strikers never worked for the mills again, while many workers who had gone on strike had by this time already moved on to new jobs.
## Aftermath and analysis
Discussing the aftermath of the strike, Historian Gary M. Fink stated, "the first volley in the American labor movement's campaign to organize the South's major industry did surprisingly little damage to the seemingly impregnable industrial fortress that was southern textiles". Further stressing the size and importance of this strike, he refers to it as "[t]he southern equivalent of the great 1912 "Bread and Roses" textile strike", which had been a watershed moment for organized labor in northern textiles. Offering a slightly different take on the strike, historian Jacquelyn Dowd Hall contends that while the strike was not the "first big strike" for southern textile mills, it was the first such strike in which the UTW and AFL significantly contributed. Historian Joseph B. Atkins considered the strike a forerunner to later textile strikes in the south, including the 1929 Loray Mill strike and the 1934 Textile workers strike, both primarily taking place in North Carolina. While the 1934 strike did see some workers at the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills participate, there is no clear link between the two.
In discussing the failure of the strike, Fink compares the social and economic environment of the textile industry in the American South to that of the northern states. In particular, Fink notes that, while government authorities and public groups were either neutral or supportive of the strike effort and that national union groups such as the UTW and AFL provided an abundant amount of resources and support, several factors made the strike difficult to win from the start. Notably, he stated that the millworkers were more concerned with racial rather than class solidarity, as evidenced in the successful 1897 strike action, and that this played to undermine the overall solidarity of the strikers. Knowing this, Elsas made no effort at using African American strikebreakers during the strike, for fear of stoking solidarity among their ranks. This sentiment is shared by historian Mark K. Bauman, who stated that "[t]he company successfully used race to counteract class", something that would also occur in the 1916 Atlanta streetcar strike. Bauman, referencing both the Fulton Bag strikes and the 1906 Atlanta race riot, further states that "both the riot and the strikes have been viewed in part as attempts by whites ... to put African Americans "in their places"".
Additionally, the divide between long-term millworkers and the more transient employees created an irreparable rift between the strikers, which was further damaged as more people joined the union despite having never worked at the mills before. The mills' location in Atlanta also meant that there was an abundance of new workers to be hired to replace the strikers. Union efforts were also hurt by a noticeable separation between the union organizers and the rank and file union members, with actual employees not having too much say in the strike's operations compared to organizers like Miles and Smith. Over the course of the strike, the local union had four different presidents, with the first president ultimately resigning after becoming disillusioned with the strike and finding employment at another mill.
While the CIR had collected extensive testimony from many individuals involved in the strike, the U.S. Congress, at the urging of then-Congressman M. Hoke Smith, voted to restrict the publication of this testimony and limit the publication solely to the CIR's final report on the strike. Smith stated that he had "not the slightest respect for anything the Commission did" and criticized the reliability of the testimony, calling it "so much junk". As a result, despite efforts from organized labor groups, only the final report was ever published. Oscar Elsas, who died in 1924, kept an extensive collection of records relating to the strike in a vault at the mills. In late 1985, historians found these company records, including reports from the hired undercover agents, in the basement of the abandoned mills, prompting renewed historical interest and analysis in the strike. Prior to this, reflecting on the legacy of the strike, historian Clifford M. Kuhn said there had been a collective "amnesia" regarding the strike, due in part to the transient nature of the textile workers. Smith, however, later called the strike a pivotal moment in her history as a labor activist while speaking about the event in 1950. |
2,370,677 | Sailor Mouth | 1,169,045,320 | null | [
"2001 American television episodes",
"Animation controversies in television",
"SpongeBob SquarePants episodes",
"Television controversies in the United States",
"Television episodes about profanity"
]
| "Sailor Mouth" is the first segment of the 18th episode of the second season, and the 38th overall episode of the American animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. It originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on September 21, 2001. In the episode, SpongeBob reads a "bad word" off a dumpster behind the Krusty Krab, but does not know what it means, which gets him into trouble with others.
The episode was directed by Andrew Overtoom for the animation and Walt Dohrn and Paul Tibbitt for the storyboards, and written by Dohrn, Tibbitt, and Merriwether Williams, while Carson Kugler, William Reiss, and Erik Wiese worked as storyboard artists. The episode implicitly satirizes use of swear words among children, based on the writers' own childhood experiences.
The episode was well-received from critics and fans, with various members of the SpongeBob SquarePants crew considering it to be one of their favorites due to its satirical nature. However, the episode was not immune to negative reception, and was criticized by watchdog media group the Parents Television Council, who interpreted the episode as an example of promoting use of profanity among children. The song used for the title card is a sea shanty called "Sailing over the Dogger Bank".
## Plot
When SpongeBob goes around to the back of the Krusty Krab to take out the trash, he reads some graffiti written on a dumpster, one of which contains a word he does not understand. SpongeBob asks Patrick, who says that the word is a "sentence enhancer" which is used "when you want to talk fancy." The next day, SpongeBob walks into the Krusty Krab and says the word to Patrick and then over to the intercom, causing the customers to complain and leave disgustedly. Squidward then informs Mr. Krabs, who firmly explains to them that they were using a bad word; he mentions that it’s in fact, the eleventh in a list of thirteen bad words that they should never use (though Squidward thought that there were only seven, to which Mr. Krabs points out that sailors have more in said vocabulary.). Upon hearing this, SpongeBob and Patrick agree to never use the bad word again.
Later, they play their favorite game, Eels and Escalators; Spongebob loses and accidentally utters the bad word in frustration. Patrick then races to the Krusty Krab to tell Mr. Krabs with SpongeBob trying to stop him. Patrick also uses the word during the chase, leading SpongeBob to burst through the front door and tell Mr. Krabs that Patrick said the bad word, with Patrick joining along. Eventually, Mr. Krabs stops their gibberish explanations and tells them to simply explain the problem. Once they do, the shocked Mr. Krabs angrily removes them from the restaurant and prepares a punishment. Feeling remorseful, SpongeBob and Patrick apologize to one another and make a vow to stop using the bad word altogether.
As Mr. Krabs is about give them their task of painting the restaurant as punishment, he hits his foot on a rock, prompting him to yell out all thirteen bad words in pain. When SpongeBob and Patrick hear the bad words, they run to Mama Krabs' house to tattle on him. The three reach her house at the same time, and all explain what happened at once, saying the same bad words in the process. After she briefly faints, Mr. Krabs accuses them of causing her to pass out, but before they can argue, Mama Krabs regains consciousness and chastises them all for their actions. She then tells them to paint her house as punishment. Later on, Mama Krabs goes to reward them with lemonade for their hard work, but she hits her foot on a rock like Mr. Krabs did. When she complains about her injury, SpongeBob, Patrick, and Mr. Krabs are shocked at her apparent bad language, though the noise she “made” turns out to be Old Man Jenkins honking in his jalopy, much to everyone’s amusement.
## Production
The animation of "Sailor Mouth" was directed by Andrew Overtoom, and the episode was written by Walt Dohrn, Paul Tibbitt, and Merriwether Williams. Dohrn and Tibbitt served as the episode's storyboard directors, and Carson Kugler, William Reiss and Erik Wiese worked as storyboard artists. Series creator Stephen Hillenburg has described the episode plot as "a classic thing all kids go through." Much of the storyline for the episode was inspired by the writers' own experiences from childhood. The episode originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on September 21, 2001. The episode marks the introduction of Mr. Krabs' mother, Mama Krabs, who was voiced by former SpongeBob SquarePants creative producer and current executive producer Paul Tibbitt.
The writing staff used their individual childhood experiences as inspirations to come up with much of the story lines for this episode. The idea for "Sailor Mouth" was inspired by creative director Derek Drymon's experience "[when] I got in trouble for saying the f-word in front of my mother." Drymon said, "The scene where Patrick is running to Mr. Krabs to tattle, with SpongeBob chasing him, is pretty much how it happened in real life." The end of the episode, where Mr. Krabs uses more profanity than SpongeBob and Patrick, was also inspired "by the fact that my [Drymon's] mother has a sailor mouth herself."
The initial decision to use dolphin noises in place of a traditional bleep was influenced by concerns over the episode's suitability for its audience. Stephen Hillenburg recalled in 2016, "I pitched the idea that SpongeBob and Patrick learn a swearword. Everyone said no. I couldn't even use a bleep. So I used a dolphin sound instead." Voice actor Tom Kenny reveals in the description of this episode in the iTunes collection, SpongeBob SquarePants: Tom Kenny's Top 20, that they actually improvised fake profanities that would be censored by the humorous sound effects later. He adds jokingly, "I was laughing so hard [recording this episode], they recorded me while I lay on the floor of the sound booth."
The scene where SpongeBob and Patrick playing a game of Eels and Escalators, which is a parody of Snakes and Ladders, was difficult for the crew to animate, since many shots featured certain board pieces changing location. Storyboard artist Erik Wiese admitted that it was a challenge to storyboard Walt Dohrn's idea and vision of the Eels and Escalators scene.
"Sailor Mouth" was released on the DVD compilation called SpongeBob SquarePants: Sea Stories on November 5, 2002. It was also included in the SpongeBob SquarePants: The Complete 2nd Season DVD released on October 19, 2004. On September 22, 2009, "Sailor Mouth" was released on the SpongeBob SquarePants: The First 100 Episodes DVD, alongside all the episodes of seasons one through five.
## Reception
The episode received generally positive reviews from critics. In 2018, Nancy Basile of About.com ranked the episode at number two for her list of the Top 10 SpongeBob SquarePants Episodes (behind "Band Geeks"). She said "'Sailor Mouth' just barely missed being in the number one slot." Basile praised the episode's plot and called it "genius[...] because children can relate to the forbidden thrill of using curse words, and adults can laugh at the parody of TV censorship." Erik Wiese, who helped to storyboard "Sailor Mouth", considers it to be his favorite episode, mainly due to its random and satirical nature, saying "Sometimes SpongeBob just catches me off-guard." In an interview with Paul Tibbitt, one of the episode's writers, he said that "Sailor Mouth" is his second favorite SpongeBob episode.
The Eels and Escalators board game from the episode has become a memorable scene among fans. In 2021, BoxLunch and Nickelodeon collaborated to produce a re-creation of the board game that it currently available to purchase.
### Criticism and controversies
According to a report titled Wolves in Sheep's Clothing, which documents the increase in potentially violent, profane, and sexual content in children's programming, the Parents Television Council, a watchdog media group, critics, and fans believed the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Sailor Mouth" was an implicit attempt to promote and satirize use of profanity among children. The episode originally aired during the 2001–02 television season, ironically the season in which the PTC named SpongeBob SquarePants among the best programs on cable television, but the report cited a repeat broadcast of this episode from 2005 to prove its point that it promoted use of profanity among children. In a later report, several members of the PTC listed "Sailor Mouth" as an example of how levels of profane, sexual, and violent activity has increased in children's television programming. Nickelodeon, in response to the incident, said "It's sad and a little desperate that they stooped to literally putting profane language in the mouths of our characters to make a point. Has the FCC looked at this?" Richard Huff of the New York Daily News criticized the report for misinterpreting "Sailor Mouth" over its intent to satirize profanity implicitly.
## See also
- "Rude Removal", a similar episode of Dexter's Laboratory.
- "Bleep", a similar episode of Arthur.
- "Caillou Crossword", a similar episode of Caillou
- "who said that?", a similar episode of Baby Looney Tunes. |
22,934,601 | 2nd Brigade, 7th Infantry Division (United States) | 1,054,637,424 | null | [
"Infantry brigades of the United States Army",
"Military units and formations disestablished in 1993",
"Military units and formations established in 1917"
]
| The 2nd Brigade, 7th Infantry Division, originally known as the 13th Infantry Brigade was an infantry brigade of the United States Army, and a part of the 7th Infantry Division. The brigade was based at Fort Ord, California for most of its history.
Activated for service in World War I, the unit saw brief service in the conflict, but never fought as an entire unit. After the Korean War, it was reactivated as a brigade, and was returned to the United States where it saw action in Operation Just Cause and Operation Golden Pheasant. The 2nd Brigade was sent to quell civil unrest resulting from the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. The brigade was finally deactivated in 1993.
## History
### World War I
The 2nd Brigade, 7th Infantry Division was first constituted and activated in the regular army as the 13th Infantry Brigade on 6 December 1917 at Camp Wheeler, Georgia. One month later it organized and prepared for deployment to Europe to participate in World War I as a part of the American Expeditionary Force, along with the rest of the division. The 13th Infantry Brigade was one of two brigades assigned to the division headquarters, the other being the 14th Infantry Brigade. Serving within the brigade were the 34th Infantry Regiment and the 55th Infantry Regiment, bringing the total strength of the brigade to around 8,000 men. Most of the brigade sailed to Europe aboard the SS Leviathan.
During its time in France, the brigade did not participate as a whole in any engagements, though its infantry and reconnaissance elements did engage German forces. On 11 October 1918 the 13th Brigade and 7th Division first came under shelling attacks. At Saint-Mihiel the units also came under chemical attack. Elements of the 7th probed up toward Prény near the Moselle River, capturing positions and driving German forces out of the region. It was around this time that the division first received its shoulder sleeve insignia, which the 13th Brigade wore as a part of the division.
In early November, the 13th Brigade began readying itself for an attack on the Hindenburg Line with the division, which was part of the Second Army. The division launched a reconnaissance in force on the Voëvre Plain, but before it could begin a full assault, the Allies signed an Armistice ending hostilities. After 33 days on the front lines, the 7th Division suffered 1,988 casualties. It was awarded one campaign streamer for Lorraine. The brigade performed occupation duties for the next year as it began preparations to return to the continental United States.
The 13th Brigade returned to the United States in late 1919, and gradually demobilized at Camp George G. Meade, Maryland until 1921. On 22 September of that year, the Headquarters Company, 7th Division was inactivated, and the 13th and 14th Brigades deactivated with it.
### Reorganization
On 1 July 1940, the 7th Infantry Division was reactivated at Camp Ord, California Under the command of Major General Joseph W. Stilwell. The Headquarters element, 13th and 14th Brigades did not reactivate, however, and the division was instead centered around three infantry regiments; the 17th Infantry Regiment, the 32nd Infantry Regiment, and the 53rd Infantry Regiment. The 13th Brigade was not activated for the duration of the war and its headquarters formation was not used to form a new unit.
### Post-Korean War
In the wake of the Korean War, between 1953 and 1971, the 7th Infantry Division defended the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Its main garrison was Camp Casey, South Korea. During these occupation duties, the division saw a complete reorganization in compliance with the Reorganization Objective Army Divisions plan. In 1963, the division's former headquarters company grew into the 1st Brigade, 7th Infantry Division while the 13th Infantry Brigade became the 2nd Brigade, 7th Infantry Division. The 14th Infantry Brigade redesignated at the 3rd Brigade, 7th Infantry Division. These renamed formations retained all of the lineage and campaign credits of their previous designations. On 2 April 1971, the division and its brigades returned to the United States and inactivated at Fort Lewis, Washington.
In October 1974 the 7th and two brigades reactivated at their former garrison, Fort Ord (a National Guard "roundout" brigade, the 41st, would periodically train with the division as its third brigade). The unit did not see any action in Vietnam or during the post war era, but was tasked to keep a close watch on South American developments. It trained at Fort Ord, Camp Roberts, and Fort Hunter Liggett. On 1 October 1985 the division redesignated as the 7th Infantry Division (Light), organized again as a light infantry division. It was the first US division specially designed as such. The various battalions of the 17th, 31st, and 32nd Regiments moved from the division, replaced by battalions from other regiments, including battalions from the 21st Infantry Regiment, the 27th Infantry Regiment, and the 9th Infantry Regiment. The 27th Infantry and the 9th Infantry Regiment participated in Operation Golden Pheasant in Honduras. In 1989 the 2nd Brigade, 7th Infantry Division participated in Operation Just Cause in Panama.
In 1991 the Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommended the closing of Fort Ord due to the escalating cost of living on the Central California coastline. By 1994, the garrison was closed and the Division was assigned to relocate to Fort Lewis, Washington. The 2nd Brigade, to include its Headquarters and Headquarters Company along with the 3rd Brigade's 3rd Battalion 17th Infantry Regiment and other assigned military police companies participated in one final mission in the United States before inactivation; quelling the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, called Operation Garden Plot. In 1993 the division was slated to move to Fort Lewis, WA and inactivate as part of the post-Cold War drawdown of the US Army, but the 2nd and 3rd Brigades of the 7th inactivated at Ft. Ord in 1993. The 1st Brigade relocated to Ft. Lewis and was later reflagged as the 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division while the division headquarters formally inactivated on 16 June 1994 at Fort Lewis.
## Honors
### Unit decorations
### Campaign streamers |
17,016,967 | Piru Singh | 1,160,976,559 | Recipient of Param Vir Chakra | [
"1918 births",
"1948 deaths",
"Indian military personnel killed in action",
"Military personnel from Rajasthan",
"People from Churu district",
"Rajasthani people",
"Recipients of the Param Vir Chakra"
]
| Company Havildar Major Piru Singh Shekhawat (20 May 1918 – 18 July 1948) was an Indian Army non-commissioned officer, awarded the Param Vir Chakra (PVC), India's highest military decoration 3245.
Singh enrolled in the British Indian Army on 20 May 1936, and was assigned to the 1st Punjab Regiment. Between 1940 and 1945, he served on the North-West Frontier and as an instructor, before deploying to Japan as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force. After independence, he took part in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, serving with the Indian Army's 6th Rajputana Rifles. During the battle, Singh was part of the leading section of a company that was assigned to capture a Pakistani post at Tithwal, in Jammu and Kashmir. Soon after their attack was launched, the company suffered heavy casualties. In time, Singh successfully occupied a Pakistani medium machine-gun post. But, by that time, the entire company lay dead or wounded. Singh was left alone to achieve the objective. He moved out and lobbed grenades at the next enemy post. Before moving to another trench, he received a mortal bullet wound to the head.
## Early life
Piru Singh was born on 20 May 1918, in village Rampura Beri in Beri, Rajputana. He was the son of Lal Singh. His family consisted of seven children—three brothers and four sisters—with Singh being the youngest son. As a young boy, Singh always hated school, as he was unable to cope with the restricted environment. One day, after being scolded by his class teacher for quarreling with one of his classmates, Singh ran away, and never returned to school. After that, Singh continued to help his parents in their farm, and grew up to be well-built and handsome youth. Shikar, a local Indian sport, was his favourite game. Though Singh wanted to join the army from his childhood, he was rejected twice, as he was too young, before he was accepted at the age of eighteen.
## Military career
Piru Singh Shekhawat was enrolled in the 10th Battalion of the 1st Punjab Regiment on 20 May 1936 at Jhelum. After completion of his training, on 1 May 1937, Singh was posted to the 5th Battalion of the same regiment. Despite his earlier hostility to schooling, Singh took education seriously and passed the Indian Army Class Certificate of Education. After clearing a few other tests, he was promoted to lance naik (lance corporal) on 7 August 1940. During his tenure with the 5th Battalion of the 1st Punjab, he saw action on the North-West Frontier.
In March 1941, he was promoted to naik (corporal), and was posted as an instructor to the Punjab Regimental Centre at Jhelum in September. In February 1942, he was promoted to havildar (sergeant). Singh was an outstanding sportsman, he represented his regiment in hockey, basketball and cross-country running at inter-regimental and national level championships. In May 1945, he was promoted to company havildar major (company sergeant major). He served as an instructor until October 1945. After the end of the Second World War, he was sent to Japan as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force, where he served until September 1947. Following the partition, Singh was transferred to the 6th Battalion of the Rajputana Rifles.
### War of 1947
Following tensions between the newly independent nations of India and Pakistan, war broke out over control of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in October 1947, shortly after Singh returned from Japan. In July 1948, Pakistan launched offensive strikes in the Tithwal sector of Jammu and Kashmir, and captured a ring contour on 8 July. This forced the Indian troops stationed in the forward positions across Kishanganga River to retreat. In an attempt to reverse the situation, Singh's unit, the 6th Battalion of the Rajputana Rifles, was moved from Uri to Tithwal, and was assigned to the 163rd Brigade. The troops took position on the Tithwal bridge.
On 11 July, the Indian troops commenced their attack. These strikes continued for another four days. But reports regarding the situation suggested that the Pakistanis were still in command of a strategically important position and the Indian commanders decided that these had to be captured before the advance could continue. Apart from this position, another position was also to be captured by the Indians. The task of capturing these two positions was assigned to the 6th Rajputana Rifles. Two companies were assigned to the operation, with the battalion's 'C' Company securing the second position after the first was captured by 'D' Company.
On 18 July, the 'D' Company launched it first attack at 01:30. The path to the position held by the Pakistani troops was just 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) wide, and deep ravines lay on either side. This narrow path was overlooked by hidden Pakistani bunkers that allowed both observation and clear fields of fire for the defending troops. As they advanced, the Indian company was subjected to heavy shelling from the Pakistanis, and within half an hour the company had recorded fifty-one casualties.
During the battle, Singh's section, leading the company, was sheared down to half strength due to heavy casualties. Singh rushed towards a Pakistani medium machine gun post, which was causing most of the casualties, during which he suffered multiple shrapnel wounds across his body as the Pakistani defenders began rolling grenades down from the heights. Undeterred, Singh continued to advance adopting the battle cry, "Raja Ramchandra Ki Jai" (English: Hail Lord Rama). Soon he occupied the post killing the men on guard with his bayonet and Sten gun.
But by the time he captured the position, the rest of his company lay dead or wounded. Singh was left alone to achieve the objective assigned. He advanced towards the second Pakistani medium machine gun post. At this juncture, he was almost blinded by a grenade that blast at his face. His Sten gun ammunition had run out. Singh moved out of the trench and lobbed grenades at the next Pakistani post. Meanwhile, he jumped into another trench, and killed two Pakistani soldiers with his bayonet. Before he was able to move out of the trench, he was hit by a bullet in his head. As he succumbed to his wounds, Singh hurled a grenade into a nearby Pakistani trench.
### Param Vir Chakra
On 17 July 1948, Company Havildar Major Singh was posthumously was awarded the India's highest military decoration, the Param Vir Chakra. The citation reads of follows:
> South of Tithwal, 'D' Company, of which No 2831592 Piru Singh, was Havildar Major was detailed to attack and capture an enemy occupied hill feature. The enemy had well dug in positions and had sited his MMGs so as to cover all possible approaches. As the attack advanced, it was met with heavy MMG fire from both flanks. Volleys of grenades were hurled down from enemy bunkers. Company Havildar Major Piru Singh was then with the forward most Section of the company. Seeing more than half of the Section killed or wounded, he did not lose courage. With battle cries he encouraged the remaining men and rushed forward with great determination onto the nearest enemy MMG position. Grenade splinters ripping his clothes and wounding him at several places, he continued to advance without the least regard for his safety. He was on top of the MMG position wounding the gun crew with Sten gun fire. With complete disregard to his bleeding wounds he made a mad jump on the MMG crew bayoneting them to death, thus silencing the gun. By then he suddenly realized that he was the sole survivor of the section, the rest of them either dead or wounded. Another grenade thrown at him wounded him in the face. With blood dripping from his face wounds in his eyes, he crawled out of the trench, hurling grenades at the next enemy position.
## Legacy
Singh was never married. In the 1980s, the Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), a Government of India enterprise operating under the aegis of Ministry of Shipping, named fifteen of her crude oil tankers in honour of the Param Vir Chakra recipients. The crude oil tanker named MT "Company Havildar Major Piru Singh, PVC" was delivered to SCI on 12 October 1984. Due to MARPOL Convention on single hull tankers, SCI phased out all her fifteen PVC series crude tankers on completion of their economic age of 25 years. A road roundabout called "Shahid Piru Singh Shekhawat Circle" was named after him, in Jhunjhunu, by the Government of Rajasthan. An intersection called "Piru Singh Chowk" has been named after him in Yol, Himachal Pradesh. |
6,127,004 | The Host (The X-Files) | 1,170,104,772 | null | [
"1994 American television episodes",
"Fiction about parasites",
"Television episodes directed by Daniel Sackheim",
"Television episodes set in New Jersey",
"Television episodes set in Virginia",
"Television episodes written by Chris Carter (screenwriter)",
"The X-Files (season 2) episodes"
]
| "The Host" is the second episode of the second season of the science fiction television series The X-Files, premiering on the Fox network on September 23, 1994. It was written by Chris Carter, directed by Daniel Sackheim, and featured guest appearances by Darin Morgan. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "The Host" earned a Nielsen household rating of 9.8, being watched by 9.3 million households in its initial broadcast. The episode received positive reviews, praising the creepiness of the antagonist.
The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. In the episode, Mulder and Scully investigate a body found in sewage after being reassigned to different sections. Their inquiry results in the discovery of a bizarre fluke-like man—the product of the Chernobyl disaster—that soon goes on a rampage in the sewers of New Jersey.
Carter claimed to have been inspired to write the episode based on three incidents; his dog having worms, his research into Chernobyl, and the extinction of species during the 1990s. The Flukeman character was portrayed by Darin Morgan, brother of executive producer Glen Morgan. Darin would become a staff writer for the show later in the second season. In addition, "The Host" also introduced the character of X, the successor of Mulder's former Syndicate informant Deep Throat.
## Plot
On a Russian freighter off the coast of New Jersey, a crewman trying to fix the ship's toilets is pulled into the septic system. His half-eaten body appears in the sewers of Newark days later. Fox Mulder is assigned the case and visits with a Detective Norman in Newark, being shown the still-unidentified body. He angrily confronts Assistant Director Walter Skinner, feeling he has been given this seeming "wild goose chase" as a form of punishment. That night, Mulder talks to Dana Scully, telling her that he's thinking of leaving the FBI. Scully performs the autopsy on the crewman's body, finding a Russian language tattoo on his arm and a flukeworm inside his liver.
In a Newark sewer, a city sanitation worker named Craig is rescued when an unseen creature pulls him underwater. Believing he was attacked by a python, he visits a doctor with Mulder observing. An examination of his back reveals an abnormal four-pointed wound. Shortly afterwards, Mulder receives a call from a mysterious man, telling him he has a friend at the FBI. Scully shows Mulder the flukeworm, whose mouth, though much smaller, matches the wound on Craig's back. That night, Craig dies in his shower after coughing up a flukeworm. Mulder visits a sewage processing plant and along with plant foreman Ray, finds a large humanoid mutant with a fluke-like mouth.
At Quantico, someone slips a newspaper article under Scully's door enabling her to identify the original body. Mulder and Scully meet at the processing plant and observe the "Flukeman". Skinner wants to prosecute the creature and subject it to a psychiatric evaluation, which Mulder thinks would be difficult. Skinner tells Mulder of Craig's death and admits that this would have been an X-file had they still been open. Mulder insists that the death could have been prevented if the X-files had remained open, but Skinner implies that the decision came from higher up the chain of command.
That night, the Flukeman is being transported by van, it escapes its restraints and kills the driver. It hides in a portable toilet, is soon suctioned into a septic truck, and is brought back to the sewage processing plant. Meanwhile, Mulder receives another call from the mysterious man, telling him that the X-files must be reopened. Scully tells Mulder that the flukeworm she discovered is a larva, revealing that the Flukeman is capable of asexual reproduction. Meanwhile at the plant, the Flukeman is spotted in a storm drain overflow pipe, with Mulder realising the Flukeman is using the drain to make an escape back to the ocean. Mulder and Ray then investigate the overflow pipe, but Ray is pulled underwater by the Flukeman. Mulder saves him, bisecting the Flukeman at the waist with a sewer grate.
Scully concludes her investigation, hypothesising that the creature was brought to the U.S. by a Russian freighter that was hauling salvage material from the Chernobyl disaster, and that the creature was created in a 'soup' of radioactive sewage. Elsewhere in the drains beneath the city, the Flukeman's remains open its eyes.
### Continuity
In the 2013 comic continuation of The X-Files called Season 10, a two-issue story, "Hosts", continues the story almost twenty years later after the events of this episode. According to the comics, the Flukeman escaped to Martha's Vineyard and began to multiply, abducting multiple beach-goers. The Flukeman and its offspring were nearly all killed, however, by a man revealed to be one of the Chernobyl liquidators. In addition, the story expanded upon the Flukeman's backstory, revealing that he was a liquidator named Gregory, who, after being locked in a sewage tanker truck at Chernobyl, gestated the mutated flukeworm that grew into the original Flukeman after he was exposed to irradiated cooling water from the still-burning nuclear reactor and to flatworms in the sewage tank.
## Production
### Writing
Chris Carter claimed to have been inspired to write the episode after his dog had worms, a situation he called "very disgusting". He also had been reading about the Chernobyl disaster and the extinction of species at the time, blending all three of these concepts when writing the episode. Carter described his mood while writing the episode: "I was in a funk when I wrote that episode. We were coming back from hiatus and I was trying to find something more interesting than just the Flukeman. I was irritated at the time and I brought my irritation to Mulder's attitude. Basically, he had become fed up with the FBI. They had given him what he felt was a low assignment, which was sending him into the city after a dead body. But lo and behold, he finds that this is a case that for all intents and purposes is an X-File. It's been given to him by a man he's never looked at as an ally, Skinner. So it's an interesting establishing of a relationship between them." Producer J. P. Finn described the episode as a departure from Carter's usual work as it did not deal with an alien subject matter.
### Casting and filming
The Flukeman—also known affectionately as "Flukey" by the cast and crew—was portrayed by Darin Morgan, brother of executive producer Glen Morgan. He would become a staff writer for the show later in the second season. The Flukeman suit used by Morgan, which included flipper-like feet, yellow contact lenses and fake teeth, took six hours to put on; this process was eventually sped up. Morgan wore the suit as much as twenty consecutive hours during shooting. As a result, he was forced to go to the bathroom while still wearing the suit. Morgan was rarely on set without being in full costume, and recalled that when he met up with David Duchovny again upon joining the series' writing staff, the actor had no idea who he was despite having enjoyed an amiable relationship with the costumed Morgan previously.
The suit dissolved in water, forcing special effects artist Toby Lindala to reconstruct the suit each day. Because the suit did not permit Morgan to breathe through his nose, he was unable to eat while wearing it. Carter described the character as "the embodiment of everyone's sense of vulnerability, the idea of something that exists in the underworld of the sewer system and might in fact come to bite you in the least elegant of places". The original intention was showing even less of the Flukeman, but some angles and lighting ended up revealing more of the creature's design. Carter still felt it helped to "get more creepy", as the Flukeman is not shown fully until the final scenes.
The sewer processing plant scenes were shot at Iona Island Sewage Treatment plant in Canada. The sewer scenes were shot in a pit on the show's stage, with Carter using his father, who worked as a construction worker, as a consultant on how to build it. As no ship was available for filming the opening scenes in the Russian freighter, a hydro sub station in Surrey, British Columbia, was adapted into an engine room.
Carter had to fight with the Fox network's broadcast standards department over the scene where a victim vomits up a flukeworm while in the shower. James Wong described it as the grossest piece of television ever put on the air. As Gillian Anderson's pregnancy was getting more apparent, the producers started to shoot Scully's scenes in a way it would be disguised, with "very fancy trick angles, trench coats, and scenes where she is seated rather than standing".
## Broadcast and reception
"The Host" premiered on Fox on September 23, 1994, and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on September 4, 1995. This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 9.8, with a 17 share, meaning that roughly 9.8 percent of all television-equipped households, and seventeen percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. It was viewed by 9.3 million households.
The episode received glowing praise from critics. Entertainment Weekly gave "The Host" a rare A+, noting that it was "a refreshing instance of a fully and satisfactorily resolved episode — like a perfect meal, although you definitely don't want to eat during this one." Reviewer Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club described the episode as "the first really, really icky X-Files", and while considering redundant the "circular" nature of the plot, with the creature coming back to the sewers after escaping, he felt that "The Host" "holds up because of the Flukeman's irreconcilable ugliness, and because it continues down the path that "Little Green Men" started on". On a more negative view, Critical Myth's John Keegan gave the episode 6/10, considering that "as fun as this episode can be, there are some places where it just doesn’t quite add up", criticizing writing elements such as the lack of resolution, the explanation for the Flukeman's origins, and the "heavy-handed" introduction of X. A writer from the Vancouver Sun listed "The Host" as one of the best stand alone episodes of the show, saying that it broke the "B-movie fun at best" quality of most X-Files standalone episodes, saying that "thanks to its cinema-grade make-up effects, claustrophobic sets and chilling subject matter, this Chris Carter-penned episode not only took the show to new heights of horror and suspense, it offered a fresh alternative on network television". "The Host" was later picked for the 2008 DVD The X-Files: Revelations, with eight episodes Chris Carter considered "essential grounding" for the film The X-Files: I Want to Believe. The plot for the episode was also adapted as a novel for young adults in 1997 by Les Martin.
The Flukeman character has also attracted praise. Writing for Den of Geek, John Moore listed the Flukeman as one of his "Top 10 X-Files Baddies", writing that "the idea of a man size biter running around drains in a city near me – looking like a giant, fanged maggot – was always likely to induce a goodly amount of cheek-shifting on the sofa." The A.V. Club's Zack Handlen described the flukeman as a "beyond icky" monster that "just looks wrong", adding that "the plain fact of its existence is horrifying enough that it doesn't need to do more". Connie Ogle from PopMatters ranked the character among the "best" monsters-of-the-week, describing it as "something of a poster boy for XF villains," and considering that "never has toxic waste seemed so dangerous as when the big slimy white fellow slithers onto the screen and starts attacking people in the sewers." |
94,342 | Uxbridge | 1,169,035,872 | Town in the west of Greater London, England | [
"Areas of London",
"Districts of the London Borough of Hillingdon",
"Market towns in London",
"Metropolitan centres of London",
"Places formerly in Middlesex",
"Uxbridge"
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| Uxbridge (/ˈʌksbrɪdʒ/) is a suburban town in west London and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Hillingdon. Situated 15.4 miles (24.8 km) west-northwest of Charing Cross, it is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Uxbridge formed part of the parish of Hillingdon in the county of Middlesex, and was a significant local commercial centre from an early time. As part of the suburban growth of London in the 20th century it expanded and increased in population, becoming a municipal borough in 1955, and has formed part of Greater London since 1965.
A few major events have taken place in and around the town, including attempted negotiations between King Charles I and the Parliamentary Army during the English Civil War. The public house at the centre of those events, since renamed the Crown & Treaty, still stands. RAF Uxbridge houses the Battle of Britain Bunker, from where the air defence of the south-east of England was coordinated during the Battle of Britain especially from its No. 11 Group Operations Room, also used during the D-Day landings.
Today the town serves as a significant retail and commercial centre; it is also considered as a university town as it houses Brunel University London as well as the Uxbridge campus of Buckinghamshire New University. A part of the town which has large converted flour mills adjoins Buckinghamshire, the boundary being the River Colne.
Government data analysts have confirmed within its Borough are suburbs Harefield, Ickenham, Hillingdon, Newyears Green and Cowley; with Uxbridge these are represented by six electoral wards (units for the election of councillors to Hillingdon Council and commonly for statistical purposes). The 2011 Census recorded a population figure of 70,560 for these wards combined.
## History
### Toponymy
The name of the town is derived from "Wixan's Bridge", which was sited near the bottom of Oxford Road where a modern road bridge now stands, beside the Swan and Bottle public house. The Wixan were a 7th-century Saxon tribe from Lincolnshire who also began to settle in what became Middlesex. Anglo-Saxons began to settle and farm in the area of Uxbridge in the 5th century, clearing dense woodland. Two other places in Middlesex bore the name of the Wixan: Uxendon ("Wixan's Hill"), a name now preserved only in the street names of Uxendon Hill and Crescent in Harrow, and Waxlow ("Wixan's Wood") near Southall.
Archaeologists found Bronze Age remains (before 700 BC) and medieval remains during the construction of The Chimes shopping centre; two miles (3.2 km) away at Denham, Upper Paleolithic remains have been found. Uxbridge is not mentioned in the Domesday Book of the 11th century, but a hundred years later St Margaret's Church, was built. The town appears in records from 1107 as "Woxbrigge", and became part of the Elthorne Hundred with other settlements in the area.
### Early developments
The Parliamentary Army garrisoned the town upon the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642 and established their headquarters there in June 1647 on a line from Staines to Watford, although the king passed through Uxbridge in April 1646, resting at the Red Lion public house for several hours. Charles I met with representatives of Parliament at the Crown Inn in Uxbridge in 1645, but negotiations for the end of hostilities were unsuccessful due in part to the king's stubborn attitude. The town had been chosen as it was located between the Royal headquarters at Oxford and the Parliamentary stronghold of London.
The covered market was built in 1788, replacing a building constructed in 1561. In the early 19th century, Uxbridge had an unsavoury reputation; the jurist William Arabin said of its residents "They will steal the very teeth out of your mouth as you walk through the streets. I know it from experience." For about 200 years most of London's flour was produced in the Uxbridge area.
The Grand Junction Canal opened in 1794, linking Uxbridge with Birmingham and the River Thames at Brentford. By 1800 Uxbridge had become one of the most important market towns in Middlesex, helped by its status as the first stopping point for stagecoaches travelling from London to Oxford. The development of Uxbridge declined after the opening of the Great Western Railway in 1838, which passed through West Drayton. A branch line to Uxbridge was opened in 1856, but it was the opening of the Metropolitan Line in 1904 which restarted Uxbridge's growth by giving the town its first direct link to London.
Harman's Brewery was established in Uxbridge by George Harman in 1763, and moved into its new headquarters in Uxbridge High Street in 1875. The eventual owners of the brewery, Courage, closed the headquarters in 1964. It was demolished and replaced by a Budgen's supermarket, which in turn was demolished with the construction of The Chimes shopping centre. The brewery building in George Street remained in place until it was demolished in 1967. The office building Harman House was built on the site in 1985, named after the brewery.
### Urban development
The main enclosures effected in the parish of Hillingdon, by statute in 1819, saw the reduction of Uxbridge Common, which at its largest had been 4 miles (6.4 km) in circumference. It originally straddled Park Road, north of the town centre, but now covers 15 acres (6.1 ha).
In 1871 the town's first purpose-built police station was built in Windsor Street. The building included three cells and stables. The Metropolitan Police continued to use the building until 1988, when operations moved to a new site in Harefield Road. The building subsequently became the Old Bill public house in 1996, renamed the Fig Tree in 2006.
In the early 1900s the Uxbridge and District Electricity Supply Company had been established a power station in Waterloo Road, and much of the town was connected by 1902, although some houses still had gas lighting in 1912. A water tower on Uxbridge Common was built in 1906, resembling a church tower, to improve the supply to the town.
Wood panelling from a room in the Crown & Treaty public house was sold in 1924 to an American businessman, who installed it in his office in the Empire State Building in New York. It was returned in 1953 as a gift to the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II and returned to the house, although the monarch retained ownership.
On 31 August 1935 Uxbridge Lido, an outdoor swimming pool built in the "Moderne" or Art Deco style, was officially opened. Before the opening, many residents swam in a section of the Frays River near Harefield Road, and the Colne. The pool, pavilion building, entrance building and both fountains were designated Grade II listed buildings in 1998. Despite the listing, the pool was closed to the public and the buildings became subject to heavy vandalism. Uxbridge open-air pool was fully refurbished during 2009 and re-opened in May 2010. Added to the site, now named Hillingdon Sports and Leisure Complex, is a 50 m indoor competition pool, a leisure pool, a 100-station gym, a wide range of exercise classes, an athletics stadium and track, 3G floodlit pitches, a sports hall, a café and a crèche. The Grade II listed buildings are still standing.
During the Second World War Uxbridge adopted the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Intrepid in 1942, to help towards the ship's costs; Intrepid was lost to enemy action the following year. The town and surrounding areas suffered bombing by the Luftwaffe. V1 flying bombs fell on the town between June 1944 and March 1945. The first recorded bombing using a V1 was on 22 June 1944 at 07:00, when the bomb passed over the top of a bus and hit four houses nearby. Seven people were killed and 25 injured, leaving 46 houses in the area uninhabitable. In all the Uxbridge Urban District suffered 79 civilian deaths through enemy action in the war.
In 1958 the 199-acre (81 ha) Lowe & Shawyer plant nursery to the west of RAF Uxbridge entered voluntary liquidation. The nursery had stood in Kingston Lane since 1868, and was the largest producer of cut flowers in the country. Demolition work began in 1962, and the construction of Brunel University commenced. Chrysanthemums are included the coat of arms of the Borough of Uxbridge in memory of the nursery. The Uxbridge (Vine Street) railway branch line, which partly ran alongside the site, was closed in 1964 and in 1966 the university opened, purchasing the land where the railway had run from the local council for £65,000.
The Uxbridge Cricket Club moved from Cricketfield Road in 1971 to make way for the new Civic Centre. The club had been at Cricketfield Road since 1858, but moved to a new site on part of Uxbridge Common on Park Road. The Market Square shopping precinct in the town centre was built in the late 1970s, but its lack of shelter made it unpopular and it did not attract the expected levels of custom. Many buildings along the High Street and Windsor Street had been demolished to make way for the new precinct, which was eventually sold to the Prudential Assurance Company and redeveloped with a roof in the early 1980s to become the Pavilions Shopping Centre. The Peacock public house (later renamed The Chequers) in one of the two main squares was built partially underground having two flights of steps down into the pub at either end. It was demolished and replaced with a café named also named The Chequers, which remains. Rayner's pharmacy shop was also demolished during the Market Square development, although the shopfront was saved by the Museum of London and is held in storage.
The Chimes shopping centre was built beside Uxbridge station in 2001, incorporating many of the existing buildings into the new structure. The centre was originally to be named St George's Centre in plans dating back to the early 1990s, though this name was eventually taken by another shopping centre in Harrow. Instead, The Chimes was said to refer to the sound of the bells from the nearby market house on the High Street. An Odeon cinema opened as a major part of the centre, with the smaller cinema at the opposite end of the High Street closing. Some houses on Chippendale Way and the St George's car park were demolished to allow for the construction of the new shopping centre car park. The offices of the local building company Fassnidge were also included in the new development; built in the 19th century, they now house a Pizza Express restaurant. Preserved timber from earlier demolished buildings in Uxbridge was used in the construction of a new building beside the former offices of Fassnidge, designed to resemble a much older structure.
In 2002 the dry ski slope near Park Road and the Uxbridge Lido was closed and the remaining buildings and structures removed. The Hillingdon Ski Centre had been subject to several arson attacks during 2001 and the company operating it became insolvent. The slope, which had been built in 1977, was left to return to nature.
Work began in 2008 to extensively refurbish and extend Uxbridge Lido, and it reopened to the public in February 2010 as the Hillingdon Sports and Leisure Complex. On 8 September 2010 the 75th anniversary of the first opening of the Lido was celebrated at the pool.
## Governance
Uxbridge is known from tithe assignments to the vicar of Hillingdon in 1281 and hundreds of later documents as a chapelry in the large parish of Hillingdon; the town core was upgraded to a full parish (and thus its large chapel to a church) in 1827. Eleven years later a parish of Saint John was added in Uxbridge Moor, Hillingdon. A parish of Saint Andrew, Uxbridge, was added in 1865. From Tudor times, parishes had a select or elect vestry which determined much local maintenance, including poor relief, but under the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, broader local poor law unions took on the relief role and shifted funds towards workhouses and associated hospitals.
Uxbridge was in the first main wave of the new, secular system of civil parishes, gaining a council and territory in 1866, and an Urban District under the Local Government Act 1894. In 1955 the council successfully petitioned for a charter of incorporation and became a municipal borough. This stood for ten years, followed by incorporation into the new system of London Boroughs, as the London Borough of Hillingdon.
Uxbridge gave its name to a parliamentary constituency from 1885 until boundary changes led to the creation of the Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency. The seat is held by Steve Tuckwell of the Conservative Partyas a result of the recent By-election.
## Geography
Uxbridge lies at a mean elevation of 130 feet (40 m) above mean sea level. Like much of the rest of the UK its climate is generally temperate, with few extremes of temperature or weather.
The landscape upon which the settlement of Uxbridge was established is largely unchanged from the Mesolithic era. Much of it was covered by oak and elm trees, which were gradually cleared by early settlers. An archaeological excavation by the Museum of London in the 1990s found evidence of flint items shaped by Mesolithic hunters, as well as various animal bones and traces of charcoal from the remains of campfires.
The River Pinn runs through Uxbridge, passing through the former site of RAF Uxbridge and the grounds of Brunel University. It joins the Frays River, which branches off from the River Colne and acts as the boundary between Uxbridge and the neighbouring county of Buckinghamshire.
Uxbridge is centred 15.4 miles (24.8 km) from Charing Cross in Central London; 3 miles (4.8 km) from Hayes; 3.1 miles (5.0 km) from Ruislip; 4.7 miles (7.6 km) from Northolt; 5.4 miles (8.7 km) from Slough; and 12.8 miles (20.6 km) from High Wycombe.
## Demography
The table below shows housing data for Uxbridge, broadly defined, and its neighbourhoods.
The human, resident population of Uxbridge North was estimated in 2009 by the Office for National Statistics as 11,812, and 11,887 for Uxbridge South. Around 85% of residents of Uxbridge North are projected as White, 6% more than both the borough average and Uxbridge South. Other residents are mixed-race, Asian or Asian British, Black or Black British, and Chinese or other ethnic groups. Uxbridge South is projected as having more Black and Chinese residents, than any other Hillingdon ward.
By the time of the 2011 UK Census, the population of Uxbridge had reached 12,048 in Uxbridge North and 13,979 in Uxbridge South. The most common ethnic group was White British in Uxbridge North, was in that survey taken as 69.8%, followed by Asian or Asian British (19.5%) and Black or Black British (4.1%). The remaining percentage was made up of mixed-race and other unspecified ethnic groups. White British was also the largest ethnic group in Uxbridge South, at 62.1%, followed by Asian or Asian British (22.6%), Black or Black British (7.3%) and mixed-race (4.3%). The remaining percentage was made up of other unspecified ethnic groups.
Uxbridge North saw its most common category of employment as those in management, as at the 2001 and 2011 census.
The life expectancy for men was estimated at 77 years in Uxbridge North, compared with 74 years in Uxbridge South. The figures for women are 83 years in Uxbridge North and 81 years in Uxbridge South.
## Religion
In the 2011 census, 72.8% of residents in the Uxbridge North ward answered that they had a religion, compared with 19.3% who did not and 7.9% who did not answer. Of those who answered, 53% identified as Christian, followed by 6.7% who identified as Muslim and 6.2% as Sikh. The percentage identifying as Hindu was 5.4%. Figures for residents identifying as either Jewish, Buddhist or other unspecified religions were each below 1%.
Within the Uxbridge South ward, 69.2% of residents answered that they had a religion, compared with 23.8% who did not and 7% who did not answer. As with Uxbridge North, the majority (46.4%) identified as Christian, followed by 13.4% who identified as Muslim and 5% as Hindu. The percentage identifying as Sikh was 2.3% and those identifying as Buddhist were 1.2%. Figures for residents identifying as either Jewish or other unspecified religions were each below 1%.
### Churches
#### St Margaret's Church
This is the original parish church of Uxbridge, and one of the oldest buildings in the town. Located in Windsor Street, it is known to have existed since at least 1245, when a series of hearings took place there in which the Abbot of Bec in Normandy brought an action against the rector of Great Wratting in Suffolk for non-payment of tithes. On parchments kept at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, in connection with this event, St. Margaret's is mentioned by name, and there are several other references between 1245 and 1247 to the "chapel at Uxbridge".
The oldest portion of the existing building is part of the north tower, which was built in the late 14th century. The north aisle, together with the nave and its arcades, dates from the early 15th century, while the south aisle, with its fine hammer-beam roof, was added about 1450. The carved stone font was placed in the church soon afterwards, dating from about 1480.
For most of its history, St Margaret's served as a chapel-of-ease to St John the Baptist's Church in Hillingdon; it was not until 1827 that it was given its own parish.
#### St Andrew's Church
By the 1850s the population of both Hillingdon and Uxbridge was beginning to rise. With new housing being built between the two centres the then Vicar of Hillingdon, Richard Croft (served 1856–69) gained permission to build a new local church for a newer part of the town traditionally called Hillingdon West. He asked architect Sir George Gilbert Scott "to draw up plans to build a church without unnecessary ornament but in handsome proportions suitable to its position at the entrance to Uxbridge Town..."
Scott produced his plans and local Uxbridge builder William Fassnidge was employed to construct the church. On St Peter's Day, 29 June 1864, the foundation stone was laid at the south end of the chancel arch by the Lord Bishop of London, Archibald Campbell Tait. He returned to consecrate and open the church on the feast day of saints Philip and James, 1 May 1865.
The spire was completed the following year. Together with the bells, vestry and organ and other embellishments, the building cost £12,000 ().
#### Church of Our Lady of Lourdes and St Michael
After the Reformation in the 16th century, there was no official Roman Catholic place of worship in Uxbridge until after the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act in the late 19th century. In 1892 Father Michael Aloysius Wren bought a presbytery at 37 Lawn Road, next to which a temporary church of corrugated iron was built, dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes and St Michael. St Mary's School was also founded on Rockingham Road at this time. Fr Wren was helped by his nephew John, who acted as his assistant priest. They covered an extensive area, including the modern Catholic parishes of Ruislip and Hillingdon.
The mission grew and by 1907 the congregation numbered 150, with school attendance at 60. In time plans were made for a larger, more permanent church. This was led by Father Thomas Moloney, who bought the current presbytery and acquired the land that stood at the back so that a church could be built. The foundation stone was eventually laid on Low Sunday 1931 by Archbishop Alban Goodier, an English Jesuit who had been Archbishop of Bombay between 1919 and 1926. The new church, in Oxford Road, was designed by the diocesan architect, T. H. B. Scott. It was built of brick in the Romanesque style, seating 350. The church was opened by Cardinal Bourne on 29 September 1931 and was officially consecrated on 14 May 1936, after its debts were cleared.
#### Faith Assembly, Uxbridge
The Redeemed Christian Church of God is based at 2 Harefield Road, worship is in the Kate Fasnidge Hall, it is contemporary and Pentecostal.
## Economy
As of 2012, Uxbridge had 112,175 square metres (1,207,440 sq ft) of town centre floorspace. Uxbridge has two shopping centres, The Pavilions and The Chimes (formerly Intu Uxbridge). Much of the town centre is pedestrianised. Just off the High Street is Windsor Street, a short street with older shops.
The town centre consists of retail outlets and office buildings, including the main UK and European offices of international companies such as Coca-Cola European Partners, Cadbury, Xerox, General Mills, F. Hinds, PAREXEL, Arri, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Monster Energy, APL, Herbalife Europe. Other employers include NetApp, Anixter International, PricewaterhouseCoopers, WMS Gaming, IBB Solicitors and Nexen.
Within the London Borough, 55.1% of residents travel to the Uxbridge North and Uxbridge South wards to work, and only 8% of residents working there who also live within the wards. The 2001 census measured a total of 6,007 (35.9%) of residents leaving the North ward to go to work. Uxbridge South had a figure of 5,666 (26.5%) of residents leaving the ward to work elsewhere.
In 2005 retail footprint research, Uxbridge ranked 9th in terms of retail expenditure in Greater London at £311 million.
A terraced landmark with tower on Vine Street is what was Randalls, the Art Deco-architecture department store owned by relations of John Randall MP. It is a 1939, remodelled rebuilding of a 1900 building. The building has the initial, mainstream category of listed building since October 2008. The store closed in January 2015.
## Education
Primary schools in Uxbridge include Hermitage Primary School, St Andrew's Church of England Primary School, St Mary's Catholic Primary School, Whitehall Infant School, and Whitehall Junior School. Uxbridge High School is a comprehensive secondary school in the town.
Uxbridge is also home to Brunel University and the Buckinghamshire New University's nursing campus. The main campus of Uxbridge College is also in the town.
## Transport
Uxbridge tube station is the western terminus of branches of the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines of the London Underground. The station, built in 1933, is fronted by a pedestrian high street and is connected to a bus terminus with connections to Hillingdon, Hayes, Ealing, Ruislip, and Slough. Uxbridge Belmont Road was the first underground station, built slightly outside the town centre to allow for a possible extension to High Wycombe. This was subsequently replaced by the current station.
There were two Great Western Railway branch lines to Uxbridge with terminus stations at Uxbridge Vine Street (originally just Uxbridge Station) and Uxbridge High Street. The two railway lines were planned to be joined, with a new Uxbridge station to be built on the west side of the town replacing the existing station at Vine Street which had been opened in 1856. Work on the new branch line from the north at Denham started in 1900. However with the Metropolitan Railway being extended into Uxbridge Belmont Road station in 1904 it was decided to temporarily terminate the line at a bridge over Uxbridge High Street. The extension through Uxbridge to join the lines was never completed. Uxbridge High Street station opened on 1 May 1907 but had low passenger numbers and closed on 1 September 1939 as a war economy and never reopened. By the 1960s the Uxbridge Vine Street branch line to West Drayton station was being affected by competition on London services from the town's faster Underground lines. Passenger services were stopped on 10 September 1962. Goods traffic ceased two years later. Uxbridge Vine Street station was demolished in 1969.
The B483 road connects the centre of Uxbridge with the Swakeleys Roundabout junction of the A40. Uxbridge is also connected by major roads to Slough, Denham, Ickenham, Cowley, Iver Heath, Hillingdon Heath and Hayes.
The Grand Union Canal, formerly the Grand Junction Canal, connects London with Birmingham and passes immediately to the west of Uxbridge, forming part of the borough boundary. The first stretch was built in the late 18th century from Brentford to Uxbridge. Further upstream is Uxbridge Lock, and nearby is a derelict flour mill formerly owned by Allied Mills. The mill was bought in the 19th century by William King, who named it "Kingsmill". Kingsmill continues to be used as a brand of bread by Associated British Foods.
London Buses routes 222, 331, 427, 607, A10, U1, U2, U3, U4, U5, U7, U9, U10 and N207 serve the area, alongside 8 non-Transport for London (TfL) routes: First Berkshire & The Thames Valley route 3, Green Line route 724 and Carousel Buses routes 101, 102, 104, 105, 581 & 583.
The proposed West London Tram was postponed indefinitely by TfL in August 2007 after it was announced that the Crossrail project would be going ahead. TfL cited "an effective bus-based solution" as an alternative, delivered in conjunction with local councils. Since 2013 the route has been served by the 427, 207, and 607 bus services.
## Landmarks
### Civic Centre
The London Borough of Hillingdon's Hillingdon Civic Centre was built in Uxbridge High Street in 1973, as part of an effort to unite the services of the council, which had formed in 1965 with the merger of the Municipal Borough of Uxbridge, Ruislip-Northwood Urban District, Hayes and Harlington Urban District and Yiewsley and West Drayton Urban District. Before the new building was completed, council services had been spread throughout Uxbridge and the rest of the borough and various buildings, as a result of the merging of the former district councils.
Part of the original Middlesex County Council office building that stood on site was incorporated into the new Civic Centre. The centre's clock tower is the only visible section from the old building. The Uxbridge Cricket Club Ground and Uxbridge fire station were relocated as part of the new development, which became controversial owing to its size and cost. Areas of the building, particularly the council chambers, continue to suffer from poor acoustics.
### Uxbridge Magistrates' Court
The original Magistrates' Court opened in 1907 in an Edwardian style. A new building with little exterior styling opened nearby in the 1990s and legal proceedings were transferred. The Magistrates' Court is often referred to in John Mortimer's Rumpole of the Bailey short stories.
### RAF Uxbridge, Battle of Britain Bunker and Hillingdon House
Uxbridge had a Royal Air Force station, known as RAF Uxbridge, until its closure on 31 March 2010. The station was built within the grounds of Hillingdon House, a 19th-century mansion bought by the British government in 1915, and became the home of RAF Fighter Command's No. 11 Group Operations Room during the Battle of Britain. Fighter squadrons at airfields in the south-east of England were directed from the station, which was visited by Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the battle, and other foreign leaders throughout the rest of the war.
Following the station's closure, the replica No. 33 Squadron Supermarine Spitfire gate guardian was removed from the main entrance for restoration work and moved to the entrance of the Operations Room (now known as the Battle of Britain Bunker). The area around the bunker was retained as an enclave under the RAF Uxbridge name, under the care of RAF Northolt. An additional guardian, a Hawker Hurricane in the colours of No. 303 (Polish) Squadron, was added to the area in November 2010.
## Sport and leisure
Uxbridge has a Non-League football team, Uxbridge F.C., which plays at Honeycroft, Yiewsley. Uxbridge Cricket Club is also based in Uxbridge and is a member of the Middlesex County Cricket League, a designated ECB Premier League. Hillingdon Sports and Leisure Complex has recently been refurbished and contains an indoor and outdoor swimming pool, an athletic track and large sports complex. The South Korean Olympic Team used the centre for training during the 2012 Olympic Games.
## Neighbouring areas
## Notable people
### 1850 to 1906
- Charles Brown (1827–1905), engineer and inventor of the Brown valve gear, born in Uxbridge.
- Annie Isherwood (1862–1906), Anglican nun and founder of the Community of the Resurrection in Grahamstown, Southern Africa, was born in Uxbridge.
### 20th century
- Bernard Miles (1907–1991), actor, writer and director, attended Bishopshalt Grammar School and given a peerage.
- Peggy Eileen Whistler (1909–1958), poet, novelist and illustrator who used the pseudonym Margiad Evans, born in Uxbridge,
- Joan Dowling (1928–1954), actress, best known for her role in the first "Ealing Comedy" Hue and Cry, grew up in Uxbridge.
- John Stears (1934–1999), Academy Award-winning creator of James Bond's Aston Martin DB5 and Star Wars robots, born in Uxbridge.
- Daniel Ivanov Bulgarian Long Jumper was born in Uxbridge
- Christine Keeler, 1960s model, party to the 1963 Profumo affair, born in Uxbridge. |
20,397,796 | Nick Griffin | 1,172,874,135 | British politician | [
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| Nicholas John Griffin (born 1 March 1959) is a British politician who represented North West England as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2009 to 2014. He was chairman and then president of the far-right British National Party (BNP) from 1999 to 2014, when he was expelled from the party.
Born in Barnet, Griffin was educated at Woodbridge School in Suffolk. He joined the National Front at the age of 14 and, following his graduation from the University of Cambridge, became a political worker for the party. In 1980 he became a member of its governing body, and later wrote articles for several right-wing magazines. He was the National Front's candidate for the seat of Croydon North West in 1981 and 1983, but left the party in 1989. In 1995, he joined the BNP and in 1999 became its leader. He stood as the party's candidate in several elections and became a member of the European Parliament for North West England in the 2009 European elections.
In 1998, Griffin was convicted of distributing material likely to incite racial hatred, for which he received a suspended prison sentence. In 2006, he was acquitted of separate charges of inciting racial hatred. He has been criticised for many of his comments on political, social, ethical and religious matters, but after becoming leader of the BNP he sought to distance himself from some of his previously held positions, which included Holocaust denial. Events where Griffin has been invited to participate in public debates or political discussions have often resulted in protests and cancellations. Since 2018, he has been the vice-president of the Alliance for Peace and Freedom.
## Early life and education
The son of former Conservative councillor Edgar Griffin (who was expelled from the Conservatives amid accusations of racism) and his wife Jean, Nicholas John Griffin was born on 1 March 1959 in Barnet and moved to Southwold in Suffolk aged eight. He was educated at Woodbridge School before winning a sixth-form scholarship to the independent Saint Felix School in Southwold, one of only two boys in the all-girls school.
Griffin read Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf when he was 14, and "found all but one chapter extremely boring". He joined the National Front in 1974, while he was still 14, though he had to pretend he was 15, and at the age of 16 is reported to have stayed at the home of National Front organiser Martin Webster. In a four-page leaflet written in 1999, Webster claimed to have had a homosexual relationship with Griffin, then the BNP's publicity director. Griffin has denied any such relationship.
From 1977, Griffin studied history, then law, at Downing College, Cambridge. His affiliation with the National Front was revealed during a Cambridge Union debate, and his photograph was published in a student newspaper. He later founded the Young National Front Student organisation. He graduated with a lower second-class honours degree in law (2:2), and a boxing blue, having taken up the sport following a brawl in Lewisham with a member of an anti-fascist party. He boxed three times against Oxford in the annual Varsity match, winning twice and losing once. In an interview with The Independent, he said he gave it up because of a hand injury. He is a fan of Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe, and an admirer of Amir Khan.
## Political career
### 1970s–1990
Following his graduation, Griffin became a political worker at the National Front headquarters. As a teenager he had accompanied his father to a National Front meeting, and by 1978, he was a national organiser for the party. He helped set up the White Noise Music Club in 1979, and several years later worked with white power skinhead band, Skrewdriver. In 1980, he became a member of the party's governing body, the National Directorate, and in the same year launched Nationalism Today with the aid of Joe Pearce, then editor of the NF youth paper Bulldog. As a National Front member, Griffin contested the seat of Croydon North West twice, in the 1981 by-election and 1983 general election, securing 1.2% and 0.9% of the vote.
Membership of the National Front declined significantly following the election of the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher. As a result, the party became more radicalised, and a dissatisfied Griffin, along with fellow NF activists Derek Holland and Patrick Harrington, began to embrace the ideals of Italian fascist Roberto Fiore, who had arrived in the UK in 1980. By 1983, the group had broken away to form the NF Political Soldier faction, which advocated a revival of country "values" and a return to feudalism with the establishment of nationalist communes. Writing for Bulldog in 1985, Griffin praised the black separatist Louis Farrakhan, but his comments were unpopular with some members of the party. He also attempted to form alliances with Libya's Muammar al-Gaddafi and Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, and praised the efforts of Welsh nationalist movement Meibion Glyndŵr.
Following a disagreement with Harrington (who subsequently formed the Third Way), and objections over the direction the party was heading, in 1989, Griffin left the National Front. Along with Holland and Fiore, he helped form the International Third Position (ITP), a development of the Political Soldier movement, but left the organisation in 1990. In the same year, he lost his left eye when a discarded shotgun cartridge exploded in a pile of burning wood, and since then he has worn a glass eye. The accident left him unable to work, and owing to other financial problems he subsequently petitioned for bankruptcy (the accident occurred in France, where he later lost money in a failed business project). For several years thereafter, he abstained from politics and was supported financially by his parents. He later stewarded a public Holocaust denial meeting hosted by David Irving.
### 1993–1999
Griffin re-entered politics in 1993 and, in 1995, at the behest of John Tyndall, joined the British National Party (BNP). He also became editor of two right-wing magazines owned by Tyndall, Spearhead and The Rune. Referring to the election of the BNP's first councillor, Derek Beackon, at a 1993 council by-election in Millwall, he wrote:
> The electors of Millwall did not back a post modernist rightist party, but what they perceived to be a strong, disciplined organisation with the ability to back up its slogan "Defend Rights for Whites" with well-directed boots and fists.
Tyndall, also previously in the National Front, had founded the BNP in 1982, but his "brutal, streetfighting background" and admiration for Hitler and the Nazis had made any kind of respectability impossible. In his 1999 leadership campaign, Griffin embarked on a strategy to make the party electable, by taking it away from Tyndall's extremist image. He was helped by Tyndall's lack of familiarity with the mainstream media, and in the party's September election he defeated Tyndall to become head of the BNP. One of Griffin's changes included moderating the party's emphasis on the removal of multiculturalism, a policy it claims has a destructive influence on both immigrant and British cultures. Griffin pledged to eliminate "the three Hs: hobbyism, hard talk and Hitler". This realignment was designed to position the BNP alongside successful European far-right groups, such as the French Front National. Street protests were replaced by electoral campaigning, and some policies were moderated (the compulsory repatriation of ethnic minorities was instead made voluntary). Other policies included the introduction of capital punishment for paedophiles, rapists, drug dealers and some murderers, and corporal punishment for less serious crimes such as juvenile delinquency. Griffin's image as a Cambridge-educated family man was in contrast to the extremist image presented by the BNP under Tyndall's leadership. In October 1999, Nick Griffin, supported by Tony Lecomber stood against Tyndall for leadership of the BNP. John Tyndall received just 30% of the votes, while Griffin the majority, 70%.
### 2000–present
Griffin stood as his party's candidate in several English elections after joining the BNP. In 2000, he stood in West Bromwich West, in a by-election triggered by the resignation of Betty Boothroyd. He came fourth, with 794 votes (4.21% of those cast). Following the Oldham race riots he ran in Oldham West and Royton in the 2001 general election. He received 6,552 votes (16%), coming third ahead of the Liberal Democrats, but closely behind the second place Conservatives, who received 7,076 votes. He again stood for election in the Oldham Council election, for a seat representing the Chadderton North ward. He came second to the Labour candidate, receiving 993 votes (28%). In the 2004 European Parliament election, when he was the BNP candidate for the North West England constituency, the party received 134,959 votes (6.4% of those cast), but won no seats. In the 2005 general election he contested Keighley in West Yorkshire, and polled 4,240 votes (9.2%), finishing in fourth place.
Griffin was the BNP candidate in the 2007 Welsh National Assembly Elections, in the South Wales West region. The BNP received 8,993 votes (5.5% of those cast), behind the Labour party's 58,347 votes (35.8%). In October 2007, he was an unsuccessful candidate in the Thurrock Council election. In November 2008, the entire membership list of the BNP was posted on the Internet (though the list may have included lapsed members of the party and people who had expressed an interest in joining the party, but had not signed up). Griffin claimed that he knew the identity of the individual responsible, describing him as a hard-line senior employee who had left the party in the previous year. He welcomed the publicity that the story generated, using it to describe the common perception of the average BNP member as a "skinhead oik" as untrue.
He was elected as a member of the European Parliament for North West England in the 2009 European Elections. The BNP polled 943,598 votes (6.2%), gaining two MEPs. Griffin and fellow MEP Andrew Brons were subsequently pelted with eggs as they attempted to stage a celebratory press conference outside the Houses of Parliament. A second venue – a public house near Manchester – was chosen the following day. A line of police blocked a large group of protesters, who chanted "No platform for Nazi Nick" and "Nazi scum off our streets". Griffin viewed the election as an important victory, claiming that his party had been demonised and blocked from holding public meetings. "In Oldham alone there have been hundreds of thousands of pounds spent on employing bogus community workers to keep us out. To triumph against that level of pressure as a political party has never been done before."
In May 2009, he was invited by the BNP representative on the London Assembly, Richard Barnbrook, to accompany him to a Buckingham Palace garden party hosted by Queen Elizabeth II. The invitation prompted objections from several organisations and public figures, including the Mayor of London Boris Johnson, and the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight. Griffin declined this first invitation, out of fear of embarrassing the Queen via association, but when invited personally in 2010 he accepted:
> This event shows just how far this party has come in the last few years but I won't be at the Palace for myself or my family. No! I will be there to represent the patriots who made this possible; I'll be there for you. I'll be there for all the stout-hearted men and women who down through the turbulent years tramped the streets with me in all weathers knocking doors, and those who ran the gauntlets of hate wherever we went.
The Palace later decided to deny Griffin entry to the event, claiming that he had used his invitation "for party political purpose through the media", and citing security concerns. Griffin claimed the decision was an "absolute scandal", and appeared to be "a rule invented for me".
In September 2009, he appealed to party activists for £150,000 of extra funding for the BNP. In the letter, he said that the party's ailing fortunes were a direct result of "attacks on the party". He also defended questions by the Electoral Commission about the transparency of BNP funding. In November 2009, Griffin was a witness at the trial of an Asian man, Tauriq Khalid, at Preston Crown Court. The prosecution claimed that in November 2008 Khalid repeatedly drove past a demonstration that Griffin was attending, and on the second occasion shouted "white bastards". Khalid admitted shouting derisory comments at Griffin and other demonstrators, telling the jury he shouted "Nick Griffin, you fucking wanker" and "Get the fuck out of Burnley, you're not welcome here", but denied shouting "white bastard". Griffin gave evidence against Khalid, and affirmed that Khalid had shouted "white bastard" at him. Griffin said the man "leaned out of the car and pointed at me and made a gun and gang gesture", and that he threatened him by shouting "I'm going to ...". Griffin said he had left the demonstration early, fearing for his safety. The 23-year-old defendant denied his comments had any racial intent, and was found not guilty. Griffin later commented "I think it's unfortunate and I think it's wrong, but that's the jury's right. They saw all the evidence, I accept their decision. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it."
In the 2010 general election he contested the Barking constituency polling 6,620 votes and finishing in third place. In 2011, following the loss of many of the council seats the BNP held in England, Griffin narrowly survived a leadership challenge.
In 2010, Griffin announced that by 2013 he would stand down as leader, to focus on his European Parliament election campaign. He lost his seat in Europe in the May 2014 European election and stepped down as BNP leader on 19 July 2014, becoming the organisation's president. But on 1 October, the party announced that it had expelled Griffin, who, it claimed, was "deliberately fabricating a crisis" and leaking "damaging and defamatory allegations". Following his departure from the BNP, he founded British Unity, which he describes as "a growing team of experienced nationalist publicists and militants". He was a founder-member of the European far-right party, the Alliance for Peace and Freedom (APF) in 2015. In 2018, a new APF board was elected with Griffin as the vice-president.
## Criminal charges
### 1998
In 1998, Griffin was convicted of violating section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986, relating to the offence of 'publishing or distributing racially inflammatory written material' in issue 12 of The Rune, published in 1996. Griffin's comments in the magazine were reported to the police by Alex Carlile, then the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Montgomeryshire. Following a police raid at Griffin's home, he was charged with distributing material likely to incite racial hatred. Fellow BNP member Paul Ballard was also charged, but entered a guilty plea and did not stand trial. Griffin pleaded not guilty, and was tried at Harrow Crown Court. He called the French Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson and the nationalist Osiris Akkebala as witnesses, was found guilty and given a nine-month sentence, suspended for two years, and a £2,300 fine. Ballard was given a six-month sentence, also suspended for two years. He said:
> I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that six million Jews were gassed and cremated and turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the world is flat.
Griffin claimed that the law under which he was convicted was an unjust law and he therefore had no obligation to follow it. He was secretly recorded by the ITV programme The Cook Report in 1997 describing Carlile as "this bloody Jew ... whose only claim is that his grandparents died in the Holocaust".
Transcripts released under a 2014 Freedom of Information (FOI) request by The Guardian claimed that everything he did could be summed up as follows: "We must secure the existence of our race and a future for white children. Everything I do is related to building a nationalist movement through which peaceful persuasion and through the ballot box can place us in a position whereby those 14 words can be carried out." He reiterated his contention of Jewish control over the media, as well as his prior stance on Holocaust denial, and said that his aim was to "[take] political power so as to be able to institute changes, to undo the population shift which has taken place since 1948 with the first Immigration Act, to peacefully and as humanely as possible reverse that and to return Britain to being a homogeneous white nation".
### 2004–2006
On 14 December 2004, Griffin was arrested at his home in Wales, on suspicion of incitement to racial hatred, over remarks he made about Islam in an undercover BBC documentary titled The Secret Agent. He was questioned at a police station in Halifax, West Yorkshire, before being freed on police bail. He said that the arrest was "an electoral scam to get the Muslim block vote back to the Labour party" and that the Labour government was attempting to influence the results of the following year's general election.
Griffin's arrest was made two days after those of John Tyndall and several other people, over remarks they had made in the same programme. Following its broadcast on 15 July 2004, the police began an investigation into the programme's contents. The following April he was charged with four offences of using words or behaviour intended or likely to stir up racial hatred. The trial began in January 2006. Griffin stood alongside fellow party activist Mark Collett, who faced similar charges. Prosecuting, Rodney Jameson QC told the jury of six speeches that the accused had made in the Reservoir Tavern in Keighley on 19 January 2004. Reading excerpts from them, he claimed that they included threatening, abusive and insulting words directed at "people of Asian ethnicity", with the intention of "stirring up racial hatred".
Griffin was also accused of calling murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence a drug dealer and bully who stole younger pupils' dinner money. In the witness box he defended himself by quoting passages from the Qur'an, saying that his comments describing Islam as a "vicious, wicked faith" were attacking not a race, but a religion. During the two-week trial he used a laptop to post daily updates on a blog on the BNP's website. In his closing address, defence barrister Timothy King QC said:
> The British National Party is a legal, political entity. It has a right in a democratic society to put forward ideas and policies which some might find uncomfortable and some might find even offensive. There has been a tendency in this case to over-analyse speeches, to take one line here and one line there. You have got to look at the overall impact of these speeches—remember the context of each speech.
Griffin and Collett were cleared of half the charges against them—the jury remained divided on the other charges, and a retrial was ordered. On 10 November 2006, after five hours of deliberations, the jury at Leeds Crown Court cleared them of all charges. They were met outside the court by about 200 supporters, who Griffin addressed with a megaphone. He attacked Tony Blair and the BBC, and defended the BNP's right to freedom of speech. BNP Deputy Chairman Simon Darby later claimed that had Griffin been convicted, the BNP leader planned to go on hunger strike.
## Public debates
Following his election as BNP leader, Griffin was invited to participate in debates at several universities. In November 2002, the Cambridge Union Society invited him to take part in a debate the following January. Titled "This house believes that Islam is a threat to the west", the resolution was controversial; alongside more moderate speakers, one of those invited was Abu Hamza al-Masri, a fundamentalist Muslim cleric. Some participants threatened to withdraw, and several official bodies criticised the invitations. The two had met earlier in the year, in a debate chaired by Rod Liddle, then editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme. He was also invited by the Cambridge Forum to a debate on extremism in December 2002, with Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Öpik. The venue was changed twice after protests from property owners, but the threat of a violent confrontation between the Anti-Nazi League and BNP supporters forced the president of the Cambridge Forum, Chris Paley, to cancel the event. Paley called the decision an "own goal" for the values of free speech, and Öpik criticised it, emphasising his belief in "people's right to make their own decisions in a democracy".
In February 2005, Griffin was asked to take part in a debate on multiculturalism at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. He was invited by the president of the students' debating society, who said "We believe that the only way to get the truth of what the BNP are saying and to combat them is to do it in public in a debate." The move was attacked by anti-racist groups, some of whom refused to participate in the discussion. Griffin said "I am coming up because I was invited by the students at the university because they have a debate on an intelligent subject on which I have something to say. The people against it are the usual bunch of people who cannot win the argument and refuse to stand on a platform." The society withdrew the invitation before the event was to take place.
In May 2007, Griffin was invited to address a meeting at the University of Bath by politics student and BNP youth leader Danny Lake. Lake wanted Griffin to visit the university and explain the BNP's policies to lecturers and students. The invitation was viewed by some as an attempt by the party to establish a foothold on the university campus. Eleven union general secretaries wrote to the university's vice-chancellor and asked her to reconsider the decision to allow the meeting. A large protest was planned, and following students' concerns over their personal safety, the University cancelled the invitation.
Several months later, the Oxford Union invited Griffin to speak at a forum on the limits of free speech, along with other speakers including David Irving. The invitation was condemned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission head Trevor Phillips and the president of the Oxford Students' Union. The Conservative MP Dr Julian Lewis resigned his membership of the Union. A rally against the invitation was held at Oxford Town Hall on 20 November, and included the Oxford Students' Union president, the National Union of Students black students' officer, and the Trades Union Congress south east regional secretary. Representatives of Unite Against Fascism also attended, as well as the University of Oxford's Jewish student chaplain. Several Holocaust survivors spoke at the rally. Stephen Altmann-Richer, co-president of the Oxford University Jewish Society, said "I don't think these people should be invited to the Oxford Union, by having them speak, it legitimises their views ..." On the night of the debate, about 50 protesters forced their way into the venue, and a crowd of hundreds gathered outside carrying banners bearing anti-racist slogans and voicing anti-BNP chants. Police blocked the entrances to the building, and removed the protesters encamped inside. Griffin was accompanied into the premises by security guards. The event was eventually split between two rooms, with Griffin speaking in one, and Irving in the other; many Union Society members were unable to gain access. Although many present found the debate objectionable, some were supportive of both Griffin and Irving's right to freedom of speech. The Oxford Union later endorsed the debate as a success.
Griffin travelled to the United States and spoke at Clemson University and Texas A&M University, but the reception he received in October 2007 at Michigan State University was markedly different from that in the other venues. Intending to address the "overpopulation of Islamists in Europe", he was repeatedly interrupted, to the point where the event became a question and answer session. He was heckled by hostile elements of the audience, and at one point the fire alarm was activated.
### 2009 appearance on Question Time
On 22 October 2009, Griffin took part in the BBC's topical debate programme, Question Time, as a representative of the BNP. He appeared alongside Bonnie Greer, Jack Straw, Baroness Warsi and Chris Huhne. He was challenged by members of the studio audience, and questioned by host David Dimbleby on comments he had previously made on the Holocaust. He was also critical of Islam. His invitation followed the election of two BNP MEPs to the European Parliament, and led to significant debate over the merits of the BBC's decision. The appearance sparked a protest outside the BBC Television Centre prior to the recording of the programme, in which an estimated 500 people picketed the front entrance of the complex, many chanting anti-Nazi slogans and others trying to break into the building to stop the programme being filmed. Some got past the police and security, but were expelled. Six protesters were arrested, and three police officers were injured, one needing hospital treatment.
The programme was watched by an estimated 8.2 million viewers, more than three times the average figure for Question Time, and on a comparable level with prime time entertainment shows. Griffin's appearance dominated the following day's media; a follow-up report in the New York Times said that "the early reading by many of Britain's major newspapers was that Mr. Griffin lost heavily on points."
In a press conference held on 23 October, Griffin stated that he would make a formal complaint about the format of the programme, which he said was "... not a genuine Question Time; that was a lynch mob". He suggested that he should appear again, but that "... [we] should do it properly, and talk about the issues of the day", and added, "That audience was taken from a city that is no longer British ... That was not my country any more. Why not come down and do it in Thurrock, do it in Stoke, do it in Burnley? Do it somewhere where there are still significant numbers of English and British people, and they haven't been ethnically cleansed from their own country."
## Policies and views
Griffin describes himself as a "moderniser", and "new nationalist", and after his election as leader of the BNP, according to The Guardian contributor Francis Wheen, was "contemptuous" of the party's traditional supporters. He changed the BNP's traditional focus on immigration and race, to a defence of what it sees as "our traditional principles against the politically correct agenda" espoused by mainstream politicians. He has portrayed himself as a defender of free speech, and has repeatedly spoken out against multiculturalism. During 2000, he attempted to further the BNP's popular appeal by targeting specific groups, including lorry drivers—some of whom were at the time engaged in mass protests against fuel prices—and farmers. The BNP also produced a journal devoted to rural matters.
The BNP's constitution grants its chairman full executive power over all party affairs, and Griffin thus carried sole responsibility for the party's legal and financial liabilities, and had the final say in all decisions affecting the party.
Upon his election to the European Parliament Griffin unsuccessfully tried to form an alliance with right-wing parties, which would have entitled the group members to extra funding. He also held talks with other far-right European parties, such as Vlaams Belang and Jobbik. The BNP maintains ties with Roberto Fiore and fascist groups across Europe. Griffin criticised Gordon Brown's Labour government for its attitude towards the BNP, accusing it of treating elected representatives of the BNP as "second-class citizens". Following his election, in a press conference held at a public house in Manchester, he criticised the privatisation of national industries, such as the railway network, and accused MPs generally of being involved in this "... giant looting of Britain". He accused private corporations and the "ruling elite" in Britain of building a "Eurocratic state", a process he called "Mussolini fascism ... under Gordon Brown." He supported the Gurkhas, stating that the BNP would allow them and their families entry to the country for medical treatment "for as long as they needed treatment, or for as long as they lived." He also suggested the removal of 100,000 Muslims "disloyal to Britain" and their replacement with the Gurkhas.
After assuming control of the party, Griffin sought to move it away from its historic identity, although on the BBC's Newsnight on 26 June 2001 he stated that Hindus and whites had both been targeted in the "Muslim" riots of 2001, and in the August 2001 issue of Identity (a BNP publication) he said that radical Muslim clerics wanted "... militant Muslims to take over British cities with AK-47 rifles". On The Politics Show on 9 March 2003, he appeared to accept ethnic minorities who were already legally living in the country, and, on 6 March 2008, he was again interviewed on Newsnight; when told of a poll that demonstrated that most working-class Britons were more concerned about drugs and alcohol than immigration, he linked the UK's drug problem with Islam, specifically Pakistani immigrants. His inclusion on the programme was criticised by contributor and radio presenter Jon Gaunt, who branded the decision as "pathetic". When asked by The Times about concerns that his recent success was presaged in Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech, Griffin replied:
> The divisions are already there. They were created by that monstrous experiment: the multi-cultural destruction of old Britain. There is no clash between the indigenous population and, for instance, settled West Indians, Sikhs and Hindus. There is, however, an enormous correlation between high BNP votes and nearby Islamic populations. The reason for that is nothing to do with Islamophobia; it is issues such as the grooming of young English girls for sex by a criminal minority of the Muslim population ... I am now there to give political articulation to the concerns of the mainly indigenous population. The ethnic populations have always had Labour to speak up for them. Finally their neighbours have got someone who speaks up for them.
In a June 2009 interview with Channel 4 News, Griffin claimed that "There's no such thing as a black Welshman", which was criticised by Vaughan Gething, the first black president of the Welsh NUS and the Welsh TUC, and the first black candidate for the National Assembly for Wales. Commenting on Griffin's claim, he said "on that basis, most white people wouldn't qualify. It's quite clear that Nick Griffin just doesn't accept that black British people or black Welsh people are entitled to call themselves proper, full citizens of the country." Griffin's interview with Channel 4 News was in response to a decision by the Equality and Human Rights Commission to investigate the BNP's membership criteria, which, it stated, "appeared to discriminate on the grounds of race and colour, contrary to the Race Relations Act." He rejected claims that the BNP was "acting unlawfully" and said "... because we are here, as it was pointed out, for specific ethnic groups—it's nothing to do with colour, your reporter there said that we'll only lift a finger for white people—that's a simple lie."
Following the Admiral Duncan pub bombing by former BNP member David Copeland, Griffin stated "The TV footage of dozens of 'gay' demonstrators flaunting their perversion in front of the world's journalists showed just why so many ordinary people find these creatures so repulsive." The BNP states that, privately, homosexuality should be tolerated, but that it "should not be promoted or encouraged". It opposed the introduction of civil partnerships and wishes to ban what it perceives as the promotion of homosexuality in schools and the media. A series of messages he posted in October 2012 on the social network Twitter, regarding a discrimination claim won by a gay couple, sparked widespread opprobrium. Cambridgeshire police investigated the tweets, which included the couple's address and a suggestion that a "British Justice team" would give them "a bit of drama", but took no further action.
In 2012, although he denied being "anti-gay", he said that civil partnerships undermined "the institution of marriage, and as a result of that, children will die over the next few years, because they'll be brought up in homes which aren't married". In 2009, he also said that "a lot of people find the sight of two grown men kissing in public really creepy. I understand that homosexuals don't understand that but that's how a lot of us feel." He also suggests that gay pride marches "[verge] on heterophobia which, like its twin Christianophobia, is on the rise."
Writing for The Rune, Griffin praised the wartime Waffen SS and criticised the Royal Air Force for its bombing of Nazi Germany. At Coventry Cathedral, he distributed leaflets that referred to "mass murder" during the Second World War bombing of Dresden.
### Fourteen Words
In the 1990s Griffin stated his political ideology could be summed up by the Fourteen Words, which are usually quoted as: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children". During a police interview in 1998, he said that "everything I do is related to building a nationalist movement through which [...] those 14 words can be carried out".
### Global warming
In a BBC interview on 8 June 2009, Griffin said that "global warming is essentially a hoax" and that it "is being exploited by the liberal elite as a means of taxing and controlling us and the real crisis is peak oil". He was a representative of the European Parliament at the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference, where he repeated his claim that global warming is a hoax, and called advocates of action on climate change such as Al Gore "mass murderers" by supporting biofuels, claiming that their use would lead to the "third and the greatest famine of the modern era". A Greenpeace spokesman said, "In reality the environmental and development groups he has been disparaging have been in the forefront of concerns about biofuels. Griffin's claims that climate change is a hoax is one of many curious things going on between his ears."
### Holocaust and Zionism
His comments on the Holocaust (which he once referred to as "the Holohoax") made as an editor of The Rune demonstrate negationism. He criticised Holocaust denier David Irving for admitting that up to four million Jews might have died in the Holocaust; he wrote "True Revisionists will not be fooled by this new twist to the sorry tale of The Hoax of the Twentieth Century." In 1997, he told an undercover journalist that he had updated Richard Verrall's booklet Did Six Million Really Die? and, in the same year, he wrote Who are the Mindbenders?, about a perceived domination of the media by Jewish figures. Despite this, the BNP had a Jewish councillor, Patricia Richardson, and spokesman Phil Edwards has stated that the party also has Jewish members. The BNP has stated that it does not deny the Holocaust, and that "Dredging up quotes from 10, 15, 20 years ago is really pathetic and, in a sense, rather fascist." In an interview with the BNP deputy leader Simon Darby, Griffin said that the English Defence League was a "Zionist false flag operation", and added that the organisation is "a neo-con operation".
### Migrant crisis
In an interview with the BBC on 8 July 2009, during a discussion on European immigration, he proposed that the EU should sink boats carrying illegal immigrants, to prevent them from entering Europe. Although the interviewer, BBC correspondent Shirin Wheeler, implied that Griffin may have wished the EU to "murder people at sea", he quickly corrected her by saying: "I didn't say anyone should be murdered at sea—I say boats should be sunk, they can throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya" (a staging post for migrants from Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa).
## Family and personal life
### Parents
Griffin's father, Edgar Griffin (born 1921, Brighton, East Sussex) was previously a long-standing Conservative Party member, and from 1959 to 1965 a councillor for the Metropolitan Borough of St Marylebone. He was also a councillor on Waveney District Council during the 1980s. Griffin's mother, Jean (née Thomas), whom Edgar married in 1950, was an unsuccessful BNP candidate for Enfield North in the 1997 general election, in Chingford & Woodford Green for the 2001 general election and for London in the 1999 European elections. Nick Griffin has one sister.
### Personal life
Griffin lives with his family in Shropshire. He is married to Jackie Griffin, a former nurse who also acts as his assistant; the couple have four children, some of whom have been actively involved with the party. He was declared bankrupt in January 2014. In March 2017, Griffin expressed a desire to emigrate to Hungary within six months. In May 2017, Griffin was banned from Hungary as he was perceived to be a "national security threat", according to security sources cited in the Hungarian weekly newspaper Magyar Narancs.
## Elections contested
UK Parliament elections
Welsh Assembly elections (Additional members region; party list)
European Parliament elections (Multi-member constituency; party list) |
37,878,503 | Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS | 1,159,504,382 | null | [
"2013 British television episodes",
"Eleventh Doctor episodes",
"Television episodes written by Stephen Thompson (writer)"
]
| "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" is the tenth episode of the seventh series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on 27 April 2013 on BBC One and was written by Stephen Thompson and directed by Mat King.
In the episode, the alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) forces a salvage crew (played by Ashley Walters, Mark Oliver, and Jahvel Hall) to rescue the Doctor's companion Clara Oswald (Jenna-Louise Coleman). Clara is lost in the depths of the sentient spaceship and time machine the TARDIS after its engines become damaged by the salvage crew's beam.
The story was based on showrunner Steven Moffat's frustrations with the 1978 story The Invasion of Time which intended to explore the interior of the TARDIS but due to budgetary issues, had to be reduced in scale. The episode was filmed almost entirely at Roath Lock studios. The episode was watched by 6.5 million viewers and received mixed to positive reviews.
## Plot
### Synopsis
The TARDIS is caught by the magnetic tractor beam of a space salvage ship, damaging it. Clara pleads with the Eleventh Doctor to fix it, but he claims there is no "big friendly button" that can fix everything. Clara spots a strange egg-like device roll across the floor and tries to grab it but burns her hand. The ship jolts and the two are thrown into darkness.
The Doctor awakes to find himself on the salvage ship, manned by the Van Baalen brothers: Gregor, Bram, and Tricky. The Doctor forces the brothers to cooperate with him to rescue Clara. Gregor orders Bram to start salvaging the console, during which he is killed by an ossified humanoid creature. The TARDIS traps Gregor, Tricky, and the Doctor in a loop of corridors to prevent the theft of its systems. The Doctor recovers Clara and finds the TARDIS engines are damaged due to the leakage of time caused by the incident, and they must go to the engine room to prevent it from exploding.
The Doctor confesses that the ossified creatures which killed Bram and chased Clara are themselves from the future and tries to prevent that future from happening. However, Gregor and Tricky contact themselves and become a conjoined ossified creature seen earlier. The Doctor and Clara flee towards the engine. The Doctor, thinking they are going to die, asks Clara to explain who she is and how she could have died twice before. Clara does not understand, and the Doctor realises that she has no knowledge of their previous encounters and is simply a young woman.
Reaching the engine room, they find the engine has exploded but the TARDIS has placed the room in time stasis as a safety measure. Clara looks at her hand, the burn marks formed into words: "big friendly button". The Doctor realises that they need to go back to the point of the disaster and activate the remote control for the tractor beam – the device Clara picked up – to stop the tractor beam and prevent the disaster. The Doctor crosses through a time rift and gives the remote to his younger self, with a button marked "big friendly button" for him to press. Time resets to before the events of the episode. The TARDIS vanishes from the Van Baalens' scanner, and the Doctor and Clara continue their journey, with Clara not remembering her conversation with the Doctor.
## Production
Lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat gave the concept of an episode discovering the centre of the TARDIS to writer Stephen Thompson. Thompson explained that this was because Moffat was "haunted" by the 1978 story The Invasion of Time, which was set on the TARDIS but had no new sets built in the studios, with the story, instead, having to film in a disused hospital. Thompson was also interested in mathematics and remarked, "anything involving multi-dimensional geometry gets me excited". Moffat left the rest of the story to be developed by Thompson. Thompson initially intended for the TARDIS to become disturbed by adolescents during a school trip but Thompson changed the encounter to a salvage crew when Moffat objected. The title is in reference to Jules Verne's science fiction novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth. It is the first Doctor Who episode to be broadcast with "TARDIS" in the title. Ashley Walters's character Gregor van Baalen was originally intended to be a cyborg and Jahvel Hall's character was originally called Sander rather than Tricky. Also changed was a scene in which Clara explores a room of discarded possessions from earlier companions; this was simplified to her discovering Amy Pond's toy TARDIS and the Doctor's cot. The episode was originally supposed to be the eleventh episode in place of "The Crimson Horror".
A preliminary script for the episode was finished in June 2012. It had its read-through on 29 August 2012 at Roath Lock studios, following the day's filming for "The Snowmen". "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" was produced alone as the seventh filming block of the production schedule. Filming took place from 4 to 24 September, mostly on studio sets at Roath Lock studios. The scenes involving the Hornet ship were shot on 4 September at a warehouse on Celtic Way in Newport with footage of the TARDIS being caught by the magnetic tractor beam also being filmed at Roath Lock on 4 and 5 September. The majority of TARDIS scenes were filmed 6–11 September. Filming of Cardiff Castle substituting for the TARDIS library also took place on 11 September. Material featuring the Eye of Harmony was filmed on 12–14 September. Filming was interrupted as actor Jenna Coleman, who plays the doctor's companion, was ill on 17 September: effects and insert shots were filmed that day. Regular filming with Coleman resumed, with more shots of the engine room and console room taking place 18–19 September. The final shots of the console room were filmed on 24 September. Insert shots then took place on 18 October and 27 November. The final shot was the scene where the Doctor and Clara enter the defensive front of the TARDIS's engine room, which was filmed on 28 November at the Argoed Isha Quarry in the Vale of Glamorgan.
Guest star Ashley Walters came into conflict with the producers on his first day of filming when he tweeted a picture of himself in his costume in his trailer with the word "space". The picture was immediately removed.
## Broadcast and reception
### Broadcast and ratings
The episode first aired in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 27 April 2013. Overnight ratings showed that 4.9 million viewers watched the episode live. When final ratings were calculated, the figure rose to 6.5 million, the seventh most-watched programme of the week on BBC One. In addition, "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" received 1.19 million requests on the online BBC iPlayer for the four days it was available in the month of April, making it the tenth most-watched programme on the service for the month. It received an Appreciation Index of 85.
### Critical reception
"Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" received mixed to positive reviews. Dan Martin of The Guardian felt that the ending would upset fans for "audaciously" mocking them and that the episode "frustratingly ... advances the arc before striding right back to square one". He praised the "creepy" side of the episode and wrote that the guest acting saved the underdeveloped plot of the three brothers. Digital Spy's Morgan Jeffery gave the episode five out of five stars, describing it as "an absolute treat for Doctor Who fans" as well as casual viewers, and said that the resolution was "not just a running gag but a timey-wimey, reset twist that actually works on a logical and a dramatic level, and doesn't feel like a cheat". He also praised the production values as an improvement from past episodes. However, he felt that the nature of the plot did not allow Clara to do much besides run and scream.
IGN's Mark Snow gave "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" a score of 8.5 out of 10. He was disappointed by the amount of time spent in corridors, but was positive towards the monster. He praised the "showdown" between the Doctor and Clara, though criticised how it was erased by a "no doubt polarising deus ex machina ending". Radio Times reviewer Patrick Mulkern described the episode as "a reasonably entertaining, playfully timey-wimey adventure, with lots of nice touches". While he praised the set design and the performance of Coleman, he wished for a more consistent style of the TARDIS as seen in the classic series and called the three brothers "a singularly inept bunch of clods". Neela Debnath of The Independent wrote that the episode was "fun" but mostly "an excuse to explore the [TARDIS]", with an insubstantial plot and three supporting characters who were difficult to care about. She wrote that "the aesthetics do add value to this adventure, in particular the Doctor's library".
Writing for SFX, Dave Golder gave "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" three out of five stars. He particularly criticised the plot for being "average" and "a reasonable, bog-standard, sci-fi corridor run-around complete with handy-dandy reset button ending". He felt that the episode had a lot of missed opportunities, and called the three brothers "bland and forgettable". Gavin Fuller of The Daily Telegraph gave the episode one and a half stars, also finding "wasted opportunities" and that it seemed "like a rehash of old Who". Fuller wrote that "the only redeeming feature was the spiky development of the Doctor/Clara relationship" but felt that this "was nowhere near enough to save this deadly dull episode".
Graham Kibble-White gave it a mostly negative review in Doctor Who Magazine. He described the episode as being "all about thrills". However, he complained that the episode lacked nuance or subtlety, and described the Van Baalens as "the show's most poorly acted siblings since the Sylvest twins" and the revelation of Tricky not being an android as one of the "all-time stupid Doctor Who plot points". Additionally, he complained that the Doctor's fake threat to destroy the TARDIS felt out of character. However, he admitted "Murray Gold's superlative soundtrack holds it together", and later described the story as "big, loud, dumb fun". |
54,027,590 | Dead Cells | 1,169,439,770 | 2018 video game | [
"2018 video games",
"Android (operating system) games",
"Early access video games",
"IOS games",
"Indie games",
"Linux games",
"MacOS games",
"Metroidvania games",
"Motion Twin games",
"Nintendo Switch games",
"PlayStation 4 games",
"PlayStation 5 games",
"Playdigious games",
"Roguelike video games",
"Single-player video games",
"Soulslike video games",
"The Game Awards winners",
"Video games about viral outbreaks",
"Video games about zombies",
"Video games developed in France",
"Video games set on fictional islands",
"Windows games",
"Xbox Cloud Gaming games",
"Xbox One games"
]
| Dead Cells is a 2018 roguelike-Metroidvania game developed and published by Motion Twin. The game was released for Linux, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on August 7, 2018. A mobile port for iOS was released on August 28, 2019, and an Android port was released on June 3, 2020. A PlayStation 5 port was released on June 29, 2023.
In the game, the player takes the role of an amorphous creature called the Prisoner. As the Prisoner, the player must fight their way out of a diseased island in order to slay the island's King. The player gains weapons, treasure and other tools through exploration of the procedurally-generated levels, using them to fight various mutated creatures. Dead Cells features a permadeath system, causing the player to lose all items and other currencies upon dying.
Production of Dead Cells began after Motion Twin planned development for a follow-up to their previous browser game Die2Nite. After release, Motion Twin supported the game with several updates and expansions. The game received positive reviews from critics, who praised its combat style and level design, with specific praise being directed towards the randomized levels and weapons. By March 2021, the game had sold 5 million copies.
## Gameplay
Dead Cells is a 2D side-scrolling "roguevania", a combination of procedurally-generated roguelike games and action-exploration-based Metroidvania games. The player controls the Prisoner, an amorphous creature that can possess human corpses. The Prisoner explores a fictional island infested with mutated monsters, which must be traversed so the Prisoner can kill the island's King. When the player dies, they lose all weapons and upgrades obtained in a playthrough, excluding a few permanent items. Weapons primarily include swords, bows, shields, and placeable traps that harm enemies that come near them. In combat, the Prisoner can dodge across the ground to avoid the attacks of enemies, or jump over the attacks. Dodging into an enemy's space allows the Prisoner to move through them and attack from behind. When falling from a height, the Prisoner can slam into the ground, allowing them to stun enemies, or allow the Prisoner to fall from heights without getting stunned themselves.
The game's combat is comparable to the Dark Souls series, with difficult enemies possessing certain behaviors the player can learn, and where frequent player-character death is a fundamental part of the game. As they explore a series of dungeon levels and fight the creatures within, the player can collect an in-game currency called Cells from defeated foes. Cells can be used to purchase permanent upgrades, such as potions that restore hit points or additional weapons that may be randomly obtained during a playthrough. These Cells can only be spent at the end of a dungeon section; if the player dies before then, they lose all collected Cells. New upgrade options can be found by locating blueprints inside dungeons, which must be taken out of the level to be collected.
Levels are procedurally generated by the merging of predesigned sections in a random configuration, creating dungeons with many different placements of enemies and items. Between dungeons, the player can obtain a limited number of mutations, benefits which grant unique bonuses to the Prisoner's capabilities that last until they die. The player can reforge weapons during this time, giving the reforged weapons new effects during combat. Inside the dungeons, the player can find hidden Power Scrolls, which increase the Prisoner's hit points and increase the damage of weapons depending upon the tool's classification of Brutality, Tactics, or Survival. The player can also find multiple permanent upgrades called Runes, which allow for new methods of travel in the game's levels. Runes can be obtained by defeating powerful Elite enemies, which are located inside the game's levels. Each upgrade requires the previous Rune in order to obtain the next one.
## Plot
### Premise
Taking place on an unnamed island, the player character is the Prisoner, an amorphous creature capable of possessing dead bodies located in the depths of the island. While the "head" of the Prisoner is immortal, the bodies it possesses are not, and "dying" will force the Prisoner to return back to the Prisoners' Quarters to find another corpse. The Prisoner itself does not speak, limiting its interactions with non-player characters (NPCs) to gestures and body language alone. The player is occasionally shown the thoughts of the Prisoner through dialogue boxes.
### Story
The Prisoner awakens in the depths of the island's prison, suffering from amnesia. A soldier encounters the Prisoner, and mentions that they can no longer die. The Prisoner tries to escape the prison, but their head is forced back to the depths as soon as its body is destroyed. Between subsequent escape attempts, the Prisoner learns that the island was once a mighty kingdom that fell when a plague known as "The Malaise" transformed most of the kingdom's citizens into mutated monsters.
After escaping the Prisoners' Quarters, the Prisoner decides to kill the island's reclusive King, believing that his death will cause something on the island to "change". While leaving the Quarters, the Prisoner meets with the Collector, a hooded figure that trades Cells in exchange for items and weaponry. After fighting through the island's Malaise-infected locales, the Prisoner reaches the King's throne room and succeeds in slaying the comatose monarch. However, the King's corpse violently explodes in the process, destroying the Prisoner's host body. The Prisoners' head crawls out from the burning fragments of the destroyed throne, where it exits the throne room through a fountain's drain. The drain leads back to the Prisoners' Quarters, where the resurrected Prisoner ponders the consequences of the King's death.
### Rise of the Giant
The Rise of the Giant downloadable content expands the plot of Dead Cells, providing the game with alternative endings. The Prisoner gains access to a new area of the island, the Cavern, which houses a titanic undead Giant. Upon his defeat, the Giant reveals that the Prisoner is actually the King himself, and blames him for the destruction of the kingdom. After defeating the final boss, the Prisoner can collect Boss Cells, in-game modifiers that are used to increase the difficulty of the game. If the player collects all five Boss Cells and reaches the throne room, they are able to gain access to an additional level called the Astrolab. At the top of the Astrolab, the Prisoner meets the Collector; he tells the Prisoner that he has been trading for Cells in order to create the Panacea, the ultimate cure for the Malaise. Upon producing the Panacea and drinking it, the Collector goes mad and attacks the Prisoner. The Prisoner manages to ingest some of the Panacea before the Collector's defeat, which causes their host body to disappear. Disappointed with the Panacea, the head returns to the Quarters to possess another corpse.
When the Prisoner reaches the throne room again, they discover that the King's body has reappeared undamaged. The head of the Prisoner abandons its host body and attaches to the King's, restoring the Prisoner's memories and allowing him to speak. However, the King's body is infected with the Malaise, and he continues to the Astrolab to face the Collector. This time, upon the Collector's defeat, the Panacea cures the King and "binds his body and soul". The King returns to his throne, where he is confronted by a look-alike of the Prisoner intent on slaying him. The King and the look-alike battle each other in a duel.
### The Queen and the Sea
The Queen and the Sea downloadable content adds three additional levels to the game, as well as an alternative ending. The Prisoner finds a letter inviting them to a meeting in the sewers beneath the prison. When the Prisoner arrives, they meet an aquatic creature called the Fisherman, who offers them a way to escape the island through the kingdom's lighthouse. After the Prisoner finds the Lighthouse Key and meets the Fisherman again at the King's castle, the latter uses his boat to take the Prisoner to the lighthouse. Inside, the Prisoner accidentally knocks over a flaming chandelier, alerting three hostile warriors named Calliope, Euterpe, and Kleio, who are the servants of the island’s Queen. The three chase the Prisoner to the top of the now-burning lighthouse, where the Prisoner defeats them in combat. The Prisoner enters the upper chambers of the lighthouse to light its beacon, but the Queen reveals herself and challenges them to a duel. The Prisoner defeats the Queen before throwing her off the lighthouse's balcony, causing a catastrophic explosion that activates the structure's beacon. The Prisoner uses the beacon to attract a ship passing by the island.
## Development
Dead Cells' developer Motion Twin had been developing games for the browser and mobile gaming market since 2001. The studio found that competition in the mobile market required more investment to make profitable games, and decided to switch focus to develop what they considered their "passion project", a game that was "something hardcore, ultra-niche, with pixel art and ridiculous difficulty" that they thought would be a potential risk for gaining player interest.
Initially, Motion Twin had set out to make a follow-up to their browser game Die2Nite, which was a cooperative tower defense game for up to forty players released in 2008; for most of the game, players would work together to form defenses around a town, and then during the game's night phase, wait to see if the town survived waves of attacks by zombies. Motion Twin wanted to have improve the sequel by allowing players to take actions and fight during the night phase, while implementing free to play mechanics. While this version worked well with large number of players, Motion Twin found it was not very exciting for single players. In 2014, they stripped down the game to a single-player experience between preparation and combat, and took it to an event called the Big Indie Pitch, where the idea came in second place in a contest. Motion Twin decided to remove the preparation phase and focus the game around constant action. The process of figuring out how to keep and work with combat elements took a year up through the end of 2015.
To tighten the gameplay, Motion Twin took inspiration of the Engineer character class from Team Fortress 2, where the use of turrets and other buildable items helps to strengthen the character's abilities, and remade Dead Cells into an action platform game where the player used weapons along with a variety of skills (including some elements they had developed for the tower defense approach). They did not want players to get used to having a single weapon/skill combination that they used indefinitely, and arranged the roguelike elements to require the player to try out new combinations of weapons and skills as they progressed. Motion Twin's producer Steve Filby cited The Binding of Isaac as a significant influence, highlighting its player-determined and item-driven gameplay. To give the player enough options, the developers crafted about 50 different weapons, avoiding having too much duplication in how each weapon worked so that there would be unique gameplay possibilities with each. The team used an iterative process in gameplay, graphics, and art so that each of these weapons exhibited unique animations or behavior.
Motion Twin opted to use Steam's early access approach to both gauge player interest and to obtain feedback on game features and the balance from procedural generation. The team feared the stigma around indie games at the time, fueled by industry speculation of an "indiepocalypse" where too many indie games would have caused a collapse of the video game market around 2015, an event which never occurred. Motion Twin did not want to release too early within early access, and made sure the first version available, while only about 30 to 40% complete, had tight combat and gameplay controls that players would appreciate. This allowed the team to address balance issues, as the developers did not want to punish players for a specific style of play, and used feedback to address this. This allowed them to design short combat encounters, and assure that maneuvering within the game's levels itself was not a challenge to the player. Motion Twin planned for the game to spend about a year in early access before its full release, during which time the content was created and incorporated after player feedback on both bug reports and feature suggestions. Lead designer Sébastien Bénard estimated that 40 to 50% of the features in the final game were drawn from feedback during early access.
The plot of Dead Cells was not intended from the beginning. Motion Twin felt that the addition of a story would take away from the action, and wanted to include the most basic narrative possible. As the game progressed through early access, the developers decided to include a minor story after players found their world compelling. Over time, the plot was compiled into a half-French half-English document, and became more and more complex. Although the levels have a number of hints towards the story, Motion Twin withheld some of the details and utilized the nonlinear gameplay to keep the narrative vague, hoping players would piece together the story for themselves.
## Release
The early access period was launched on May 10, 2017, with support for Windows, and released macOS and Linux versions in early access on June 26, 2018. In November 2017, the game was released on GOG.com as part of their drive to provide an alternate way to purchase games that are in development. In January 2018, Motion Twin announced their plans on console development for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, with a release predicted in August 2018 to correspond with the Windows' version leaving early access. Motion Twin does not anticipate creating a sequel, and instead focused on adding a robust modding system for the PC versions to allow players to expand the game following release. Dead Cells was released on August 7, 2018, for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. Retail editions were released in August 2018. The base game included Twitch integration at launch, allowing viewers, via the stream's chat, to influence the game, such as voting for which Power Scroll weapon class option the player should take.
Motion Twin released a free downloadable content update to the game called Dead Cells: Rise of the Giant in mid-2019. The developers announced plans to port Dead Cells to mobile devices running iOS and Android, modifying the game's interface to support touch controls as well as remote controllers. The iOS version was released on August 28, 2019, and the Android version was released on June 3, 2020. The game's first paid expansion, Dead Cells: The Bad Seed, was released on February 11, 2020, adding two new biomes, as well as a boss for early game content. The new content included weapons, enemies and game mechanics. On the same day, a new physical special edition of the game, the Prisoner's Edition, was announced for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, which in addition to the game and DLC, includes the soundtrack, an art book, and a figurine of the player-character. A second paid DLC expansion, Dead Cells: Fatal Falls, was released on January 26, 2021, which added new levels, weapons, and a boss.
Around January 2019, Motion Twin started work on their next title while still developing Dead Cells. When they expanded by hiring more developers, Motion Twin wanted to keep the Dead Cells development team to between eight and ten people in order to stay a manageable worker cooperative. The team then spun-off a new studio called Evil Empire to help co-develop the game. Motion Twin released a free update on September 16, 2021, titled "Practice Makes Perfect" which added a training room, world map and many other quality of life changes. A free Everyone Is Here update released on November 22, 2021, which introduced character skins and mechanics based on characters from other indie games as "guest characters". These games included Hyper Light Drifter, Guacamelee!, Curse of the Dead Gods, Blasphemous, Skul: The Hero Slayer, and Hollow Knight. Celebrating the 20th anniversary of Motion Twin, the developers revealed the third paid expansion titled Dead Cells: The Queen and the Sea, which released on January 7, 2022. Another free content update, Break the Bank, released in March 2022. The update added a new level that can be randomly encountered while playing, which grants the player an opportunity to earn significant sums of gold. On October 26, 2022, Motion Twin released a free boss rush update, which allows the Prisoner to fight the bosses of the game one after another in a new game mode. A free Everyone is Here Vol. 2 update in November 2022 added more homages to other indie games, including Terraria, Hotline Miami, Slay the Spire, Shovel Knight, Risk of Rain, and Katana Zero.
A fourth paid expansion, Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania, was released on March 6, 2023. It features characters, weapons, and enemies from the Castlevania series, under license from Konami. This expansion includes a secret level inspired by Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and allows the player to play as Richter Belmont with a move set more akin to the Castlevania series.
## Reception
Dead Cells received positive reviews from critics. The Xbox One version received "universal acclaim", and the PlayStation 4, PC, Nintendo Switch, and iOS versions received "generally favorable" reviews according to review aggregator website Metacritic. Brandin Tyrrel of IGN praised the game for its engaging gameplay premise, and randomized layout declaring "The placement and order of its levels are Dead Cells' skeletal frame, but the ever-changing layouts and enemy and item placements are the blood that pumps through its heart." The action and combat of Dead Cells received acclaim as "distinct", "fluid", and "agile". Reviewers compared the game to the Dark Souls, Diablo, and Castlevania series due to its difficulty and constantly changing levels, while giving specific praise to the visuals and sound design.
The plot of Dead Cells was criticized, with critics calling it lacking and vague. Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku found the story disappointing, stating "Aside from some sparse worldbuilding, the only story here is the story of moving forward, killing things, and gradually getting better at it". Some commentators considered progression beyond the first few hours as "nebulous", and the game's difficulty "callous". Chris Carter of Destructoid noted the game's difficulty, stating "There's those moments where you have a perfect run with all of the items you prefer. Then you get to a boss you've never seen before and bam – he smashes you to a pulp."
Other critics drew attention to the permadeath feature as a rewarding system, as it provided the player with permanent upgrades, the opportunity to experience all of the game's content, and gain full knowledge of its systems. Neal Ronaghan of Nintendo World Report enjoyed the permadeath feature, saying "Every run is engrossing and fun and when I die, the only thought rushing through my brain is to start over and try again, pushing as far past my previous run as I can."
### Sales
About a year from its early access release, Dead Cells sold over 730,000 units, and exceeded 850,000 units just prior to its full release. By May 2019, within ten months of its full release, Dead Cells had accumulated sales of two million units. In March 2021, Dead Cells had sold 5 million copies during the announcement of their last DLC.
### Awards and accolades
## Legacy
In June 2023, developer Motion Twin announced that an animated series of the same name in the works by French animation studio Bobbypills, the studio that has made its animated trailers, and is set for release in 2024. |
18,086,991 | No Ha Parado de Llover | 1,170,216,308 | null | [
"1990s ballads",
"1995 singles",
"1995 songs",
"2019 singles",
"Maná songs",
"Rock ballads",
"Sebastián Yatra songs",
"Songs written by Alex González (musician)",
"Songs written by Fher Olvera",
"Spanish-language songs",
"Warner Music Latina singles"
]
| "No Ha Parado de Llover" (English: "It Has Not Stopped Raining") is a song from Mexican band Maná's fourth studio album Cuando los Ángeles Lloran (1995). The song was written by band members Fher Olvera and Alex González, who handled production alongside Jose L. Quintana. It was released as the second single from the album in 1995. A Latin rock ballad, its lyrics deal with the singer unable to move on from his former lover. Commercially, the song peaked at number eight on the Hot Latin Songs chart and number one on the Latin Pop Airplay chart in the United States. A music video was directed by Gustavo Garzón and features the band performing the song shirtless. It was a recipient at the ASCAP Latin Awards in 1996.
In 2019, Maná re-recorded "No Ha Parado de Llover" with Colombian singer Sebastián Yatra with new musical arrangements. The collaboration came about when the band heard Yatra perform the song live in 2018. At the 2021 Lo Nuestro Awards, it was nominated in the category of Pop Song of the Year. This version reached the top five on the Monitor Latino pop charts in the Dominican Republic and Mexico and number 23 on the Latin Pop Airplay chart in the US. The video for the new version was directed by Pablo Croce where it narrates two different protagonists going through loss.
## Background and composition
In 1992, Maná released their third studio album ¿Dónde Jugarán los Niños? which led to the band's popularity in the Latin rock music scene. It was followed up with their live album Maná en Vivo in 1994. The band's lineup went through a change when its lead guitarist César "Vampiro" López and keyboardist Iván González left the group due to personal disputes. López was replaced by Sergio Vallín.
In April 1995, Maná released their fourth studio album Cuando los Ángeles Lloran with its pop rock musical style being similar to ¿Dónde Jugarán los Niños?. The tracks in the record were written and produced by lead vocalist Fher Olvera and drummer Alex González including "No Ha Parado de Llover" and both worked on its production alongside Jose L. Quintana. The song is a Latin rock ballad in which the singer deals with "losing a loved one and having many unanswered questions in the process".
## Promotion and reception
"No Ha Parado de Llover" was released as the second single from the album in 1995. The music video for the song was directed by Gustavo Garzón, and features the band shirtless singing under the rain. According to Billboard's Jessica Roiz, other scenes from the video include "an ex-couple reminiscing on their times together, a slithering snake, religious statues crying tears of blood, and Fher breaking a mirror with a phone". On the review of the album, John Lannert of Billboard referred "No Ha Parado de Llover" and "Hundido en un Rincón" as a "pair of doleful narratives of forsaken love". The track was recognized as one of the best-performing songs of the year at the 1996 ASCAP Latin Awards. In the US, "No Ha Parado de Llover" peaked at number eight on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart and reached the top of the Latin Pop Airplay chart. Two live versions of the track were included on the albums MTV Unplugged (1999) and Arde el Cielo (2008).
## 2019 version
In 2019, Maná re-recorded "No Ha Parado de Llover" with Colombian singer Sebastián Yatra. It features a new musical arrangement and according to Roiz, incorporates Yatra's "pop essence" with Maná's "rock melodies". The idea for the collaboration was inspired by Yatra's live rendition of the song during the Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year gala in 2018, where the band was honored with the accolade. At the 33rd Annual Lo Nuestro Awards in 2021, it was nominated for Pop Song of the Year, but lost to "ADMV" by Maluma.
"No Ha Parado de Llover" peaked at number four and two on the Monitor Latino pop charts in the Dominican Republic and Mexico, respectively. On its initial run, the 2019 version reached number 32 and spent ten weeks on the Billboard Latin Pop Airplay chart in the US. On the week ending 15 August 2020, Billboard revised the methodology for the Latin Pop Airplay chart to only track Latin pop songs being played on Latin radio stations in the country. As a result, "No Ha Parado de Llover" re-entered the chart and peaked at number 23.
### Music video
The music video for the 2019 version of "No Ha Parado de Llover" was filmed in Los Angeles, California and directed by Pablo Croce. It narrates two people who are going through loss. The first is a woman who loses her friend in a car crash from texting while driving and the second is a man who discovers his girlfriend cheating on him. This leads the man attempting to commit suicide, but is stopped by the woman who was led by a butterfly, representing her friend's spirit, and both begin to heal together. At the end of the video, a message reads: "The use of cell phones at the wheel is one of the leading causes of death today." Within a week of its release, it received over 3.5 million views on YouTube. The video received a nomination for "Video With a Purpose" at the 2020 Premios Juventud.
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## See also
- List of Billboard Latin Pop Airplay number ones of 1994 and 1995 |
4,259,475 | Keep It Together (song) | 1,165,223,328 | 1990 single by Madonna | [
"1989 songs",
"1990 singles",
"Funk songs",
"Madonna songs",
"Number-one singles in Australia",
"Song recordings produced by Madonna",
"Song recordings produced by Stephen Bray",
"Songs about families",
"Songs written by Madonna",
"Songs written by Stephen Bray"
]
| "Keep It Together" is a song by American singer Madonna from her fourth studio album, Like a Prayer (1989). It was released as the fifth (sixth overall) and final single from the album in the United States, Canada and Japan on January 30, 1990, by Sire Records. Written and produced by Madonna and Stephen Bray, the main inspiration behind "Keep It Together" was Madonna's relationship with her family—whom she dearly missed after her divorce from Sean Penn. The song was dedicated to the American band Sly and the Family Stone. The lyrics deal with the realization of how important Madonna's family has been to her life. A pop, funk and deep funk song consisting of an upbeat rhythm and groove, "Keep It Together" features instrumentation from percussion, banjo and a conga.
In United Kingdom and Europe, "Dear Jessie" served as the final single from Like a Prayer and "Keep It Together" was not released there. Some critics alluded that "Keep It Together" was simply Madonna's version of Sister Sledge's hit song "We Are Family". "Keep It Together" was a commercial success, reaching a peak of number eight on the US Billboard Hot 100 and the Canada chart, while topping the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart. In Australia, the song reached the top of the charts as a double A-side single with "Vogue". "Keep It Together" was performed as the closing song of the 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour. The performances were inspired by the 1971 Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange and during the introduction, Madonna sang a verse from "Family Affair" by Sly and the Family Stone.
## Background and release
When Madonna started work on her fourth studio album, Like a Prayer, she was already in an emotional state of mind, following her divorce with then-husband Sean Penn, her thirtieth birthday, and unfavorable reviews for her acting endeavors. She had certain personal matters on her mind that she thought could be the musical direction of the album. But she understood that as she was growing up, so was her core audience. Feeling the need to try something different, Madonna wanted the sound of her new album to indicate what could be popular in music. However, being raised as a Catholic, Madonna felt guilty about the failure of her marriage. She said, "Because in Catholicism you are a born sinner and you are a sinner all your life. ... I could not escape my past, nor could I relax". Saddened by what was happening with her, Madonna missed her family, her father and her siblings. She confessed to Becky Johnston for Interview magazine:
> I didn't feel close to anybody in my family when I was growing up. [...] I didn't feel close to my older brothers, they were just typical older brothers who tortured me all the time. And I didn't feel close to my sisters. There was a lot of competition in our family, [...] so, I worked really hard in school. I was a straight-A student, and they all hated me for it because I did it more for the position I was going to have in my father's eyes that for whatever I was going to learn by studying. Then when I got a little older—when I was in high school and started dancing really seriously—I'd say I got closer to my brothers. My oldest brother opened my eyes to lots of things [...].
The song was released as the fifth (sixth overall) and final single from the album on January 30, 1990, by Sire Records. "Keep It Together" was one of the first singles to be released in a CD maxi format, accompanied by an assortment of remixes. The radio mix stripped the track of its original instrumentation and added an R&B-House beat with the 12" mixes following this style. In Australia, it was released as a B-side with "Vogue" and charted as so; however it was distributed as a standalone 12" single by WEA Records International and later released as a standalone CD Maxi single in 1993. It was not released in the United Kingdom at all, where "Dear Jessie" served as the album's fourth single instead of "Oh Father" and "Keep It Together" respectively.
## Recording and composition
"Keep It Together" is a pop, funk and deep funk song with an upbeat rhythm and groove. It was produced by Madonna and Bray, and features Paulinho da Costa on percussion, brass playing by David Boruff and Steven Madaio, Bill Bottrell as the audio engineer and guitars by Chester Kamen. Prince also played guitar on the song according to Madonna, though he was not credited.
Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine noted that the song is influenced by the Sly and the Family Stone track "Family Affair" (1971). It starts as the sound of slap bass plays along with sequenced synth bass, as Madonna sings the opening lines, "Keep, keep it together, keep people together forever and ever". As the first verse starts, a guitar comes into play with Madonna's voice being backed by percussion and banjo. After the second chorus comes near the end, Madonna utters the line "Brothers and sisters, They hold the key, To your heart and your soul, Don't forget that your family is gold", the percussion sound is thinned out and a mixture of the sound from a live drummer and conga comes into the picture. The song ends with the main groove sound gradually fading out.
According to Rikky Rooksby, author of The Complete Guide to the Music of Madonna, although "Keep It Together" sonically pays tribute to Sly and the Family Stone, the lyrics talk about the realization of how important Madonna's family has been as a form of stability in her life, especially in the line "Brothers and sisters, They've always been there for me, We have a connection, Home is where the heart should be". The lyrics follow the course of Madonna's rise from figuratively being a "hungry sibling" ("I'm gonna leave this place, So I can forget every single hungry face") to being a superstar ("I hit the big time but I still get the blues, Everyone's a stranger, City life can get to you").
## Critical reception
Mark C. Taylor, author of Nots: Religion and Postmodernism, felt that "Keep It Together" was a "striking instance of her repeated invocation of family values". He believed that Madonna's fascination for family was reflected in the song. Carol Benz, one of the authors of The Madonna Connection, believed that the song was successful in asserting the necessity of family ties. J. Randy Taraborrelli, author of Madonna: An Intimate Biography described the track as "an uptempo romp about the trials and tribulations, and the joys of having a family." Martha Bayles, author of Hole In Our Soul, felt that "Keep It Together" failed to become an anthem for emotional commitment, because of the funk nature of the song. Madonna, Unauthorized's writer Christopher Anderson proclaimed the track as a worthy number-one single, and complimented the song's theme of allegiance to one's family, despite the turmoil and dissensions that occur. Lucy O'Brien, author of Madonna: Like an Icon, described it as an "upbeat meditation on sibling power" and believed that the purpose behind the song was to present a homey image of brothers and sisters happy and together, and Madonna's need to restore bonds and relationships that had become fraught or distant in her life then. Bill Coleman from Billboard stated that "the Material Girl rises above the beat and unveils a most riveting vocal performance." Hadley Freeman from The Guardian described "Keep It Together" as "amazing, purely for being Madonna's take on Sister Sledge's 'We Are Family', a concept no one foresaw, and the fact that she later disowned various members of her family gives it, shall we say, an interesting tinge of irony."
USA Today's Edna Gunderson wrote that "Keep It Together" evoked an "R&B groove" that was successful in adding more variation to Like a Prayer. Conversely, Ian Blair of the Chicago Tribune thought that the different funk tempo of the song distracted from the emotional quotient of the album. Blair added that the song "hits a groove that is one of the funkiest things Madonna has ever done." Scott Benarde from The Palm Beach Post listed the song as one of the album's "downpour" moments. Writing for The Jerusalem Post, Andy Goldberg from the newspaper listed the song as one of the highlights of the album, and complimented the family oriented lyrics. Bruce Britt from Boca Raton News believed that "Keep It Together" was one of the songs from the album, that exemplified the personal approach to songwriting by Madonna.
Spin's Joe Levy named the song the only "great" dance record on Like a Prayer, and also observed that "Keep It Together" was a "girly-disco" song that drew influences from Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" and Madonna's own "Into the Groove". Stephen Holden from The New York Times believed that the song brought the pop-funk style and hippie happiness of Sly and the Family Stone. Journalist J. D. Considine, while reviewing Like a Prayer for Rolling Stone, felt that "Keep It Together" portrayed "an impressive invocation of the importance of family". Considine was concerned that since the confessional nature of the songs on Like a Prayer evoked strong emotions from the listener, "Keep It Together" would probably seem almost trivial by comparison to them. Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic believed that the song constituted of deep funk music. Jose F. Promis from the same website complimented the single mix of the track, calling it one of Madonna's "best and funkiest tunes, and a prime example of late-'80s/early-'90s dance/house/R&B music". Louis Virtel of The Backlot gave the song a positive review, calling it a "rollicking family reunion" that is the "sunny side of “Oh Father’s” grim familial reckoning." Kenneth Partridge from Billboard described the song as a mid-tempo synth-funk tune with a "tense" groove, on which Madonna offers an olive branch to her estranged father and siblings.
## Chart performance
In the United States, "Keep It Together" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 56, on the issue dated February 3, 1990. The next week, "Keep It Together" jumped to number 41, becoming one of the greatest gaining songs. It eventually peaked at number eight on the Hot 100, on the issue dated March 31, 1990. It became Madonna's 18th top-ten hit in the United States, breaking the record previously held by Aretha Franklin as the female solo artist with the most top-ten hits in history. During the next few weeks, the song fell quickly from its peak as Madonna's next single, "Vogue", began to get massive radio airplay. Its final appearance on the Hot 100 was at number 83 on the issue dated April 28, 1990. "Keep It Together" topped the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart, and peaked at number 66 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Three months since its release, it was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipment of 500,000 copies of the single. In Canada, the song debuted at number 85 on the RPM Singles Chart on February 10, 1990, and after eight weeks, it peaked at number eight. "Keep It Together" was present on the chart for 15 weeks and placed at number 86 on the RPM Year-end chart for 1990.
In Australia, "Keep It Together" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart along with "Vogue". It debuted on the chart at number 19 and reached the top the next week, remaining there for five consecutive weeks. The song was present for a total of 35 weeks on the chart and reached number three on the Australian Year-end chart for 1990. It was certified double-platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for shipment of 140,000 copies of the single. After its release in Japan, "Keep It Together" appeared for two weeks on the Oricon Singles Chart, and reached number five. The single was not released in the United Kingdom, where "Dear Jessie" was the final single from Like a Prayer instead.
## Live performance
Madonna has performed the song only on her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour, where it was the closing song of the set list. The staging of the performances was inspired by the 1971 science fiction film, A Clockwork Orange. The shows featured an introductory verse from "Family Affair" by Sly and the Family Stone. Madonna wore an all-black ensemble involving a cage vest, the longline bra, skintight shorts, knee-pads and a bowler hat. Her getup was a nod to actress Liza Minnelli in the film Cabaret. The performance started with her dancers appearing on the stage, with chairs on their back. Madonna appeared in their middle and started doing push-ups on the stage. She started singing "Family Affair", then midway through the song, changed to "Keep It Together". During the intermediate music, Madonna and her dancers performed an intricate choreography with the chairs. At the end, all the musicians, dancers and collaborators came to say good-bye to Madonna. The singer was left alone on stage to finish with a powerful repeat of her line "Keep people together forever and ever".
In an interview with Stephen Holden from The New York Times, Madonna explained the significance of the performance: "Finally, right when you think I'll end [the concert] on a happy note, I come out with my family to do a Bob Fosse-meets-'Clockwork Orange' rendition of 'Keep It Together'. It's the show's ultimate statement about the family, because we're absolutely brutalizing with each other, while there's also no mistaking that we love each other deeply." Author Lynne Layton complimented the performance, saying that "as in her double attitude to materialism, femininity, and everything else, what marks the performance is not that Madonna is in control, but that she is open about the pros and cons of family life and obviously echoes the experience of many." Her thoughts were shared by John LeLand from Newsday, who complimented the aerobics performed onstage by Madonna and her dancers. Conversely, author Allen Metz commented that although the performance was tightly choreographed, the overall feel was marred due to the song's own "shortcomings". Greg Kot from Chicago Tribune felt that the addition of lines from "Family Affair" underlined the "home-is-where-the-heart-is" theme of "Keep It Together". Louis Virtel from The Backlot praised the performance of the song, stating that it served as the "perfect concluding performance." Two different performances were recorded and released on video: the Blond Ambition – Japan Tour 90, filmed in Yokohama, Japan, on April 27, 1990, and the Blond Ambition World Tour Live, filmed in Nice, France, on August 5, 1990. It was also shown on the HBO special titled Madonna Live! – Blond Ambition World Tour, and was added in her 1991 documentary, Truth or Dare.
## Track listings and formats
- US 12" Single
1. "Keep It Together" (12" Remix) – 7:50
2. "Keep It Together" (Dub version) – 7:00
3. "Keep It Together" (12" Extended Mix) – 7:20
4. "Keep It Together" (12" Mix) – 6:50
5. "Keep It Together" (Bonus Beats) – 3:27
6. "Keep It Together" (Instrumental) – 5:52
- US CD Maxi-Single
1. "Keep It Together" (Single Remix) – 4:32
2. "Keep It Together" (12" Remix) – 7:50
3. "Keep It Together" (12" Mix) – 6:50
4. "Keep It Together" (12" Extended Mix) – 7:20
5. "Keep It Together" (Instrumental) – 5:52
- US and Canada cassette single and 7" single
1. "Keep It Together" (Single Remix) – 4:32
2. "Keep It Together" (Instrumental) – 5:52
- Japanese CD Maxi-Single
1. "Cherish" (Extended Version) – 6:21
2. "Keep It Together" (12" Remix) – 7:50
3. "Keep It Together" (Dub version) – 7:00
4. "Keep It Together" (12" Extended Mix) – 7:20
5. "Keep It Together" (12" Mix) – 6:50
6. "Keep It Together" (Bonus Beats) – 3:27
7. "Keep It Together" (Instrumental) – 5:52
## Credits and personnel
- Madonna – songwriter, producer, vocals
- Stephen Bray – songwriter, producer
- Paulinho da Costa – percussion
- David Boruff – brass, strings
- Steven Madaio – brass
- Bill Bottrell – audio engineer, mixing
- Chester Kamen – guitar
- Herb Ritts – photography
- Jeri Heiden – design
Credits and personnel adapted from the Like a Prayer album and 12" single liner notes.
## Charts and certifications
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
### Certifications and sales
## See also
- List of Billboard number-one dance singles of 1990 (US)
- List of number-one singles of 1990 (Australia) |
984,962 | Buenos Aires Underground | 1,171,860,683 | Rapid transit railway in Buenos Aires, Argentina | [
"1500 V DC railway electrification",
"1913 establishments in Argentina",
"750 V DC railway electrification",
"Buenos Aires Underground",
"Rail transport in Buenos Aires",
"Underground rapid transit in Argentina"
]
| The Buenos Aires Underground (Spanish: Subterráneo de Buenos Aires), locally known as Subte (), is a rapid transit system that serves the area of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The first section of this network (Plaza de Mayo–Plaza Miserere) opened in 1913, making it the 13th subway in the world and the first underground railway in Latin America, the Southern Hemisphere, and the Spanish-speaking world, with the Madrid Metro opening five years later, in 1919. As of 2023, Buenos Aires is the only Argentine city with a metro system.
Currently, the underground network's six lines—A, B, C, D, E, and H—comprise 56.7 kilometers (35.2 mi) of routes that serve 90 stations. The network is complemented by the 7.4-kilometre-long (4.6 mi) Premetro line, and the 26-kilometre-long (16 mi) Urquiza suburban line, with 17 more stations in total. Traffic on lines moves on the left because Argentina drove on the left at the time the system opened. Over a million passengers use the network, which also provides connections with the city's extensive commuter rail and bus rapid transport networks.
The network expanded rapidly during the early decades of the 20th century; by 1944, its main routes were completed, with the addition of its newest line occurring as late as 2007. The pace of expansion fell sharply after the Second World War. In the late 1990s, expansion resumed at a quicker pace, and four new lines were planned for the network. Despite this, the network's expansion has been largely exceeded by the transportation needs of the city and is said to be overcrowded. As of 2015, two modernisation plans have been presented: City of Buenos Aires law 670, proposing the creation of 3 new lines (F, G, and I), and the PETERS plan, wherein 2 lines are created and the I line is postponed for future expansion, plus several other route amendments. Since 2019, there are no expansions under construction, for the first time in half a century.
The entire network was nationalised in 1939, remaining in state hands and operation until the mid-1990s, when it entered into a concession model. The previously state-operated lines were offered as 20-year concessions to interested private parties; the two complementary lines were also included in this privatisation, and all have been operated by Metrovías since 1995, though the network and rolling stock remain the property of the City of Buenos Aires.
## History
The Subte opened in 1913, becoming the 13th underground system in the world, as well as the first in Latin America, the Southern Hemisphere and the Hispanophone world, followed by the Madrid Metro in 1919. The network was originally built and operated by three separate private companies and later nationalised in 1939. In 1952 it was absorbed by a unified state administration, in 1963 it became the property of a newly founded company, which changed hands in 1979. The Subte then entered into a concession model in the mid-1990s through which private sector parties were to submit bids to execute investment plans "designed and funded" by the state, while implemented by the concessionaire. All the Underground lines, along with the Urquiza Line and Premetro were offered as 20-year concessions to interested private parties. By 1995, Metrovías took over the Subte under a \$395 million plan.
### Early days
Discussions on the need to build an underground transportation system in Buenos Aires began in the late nineteenth century, alongside the tramway system, which was one of the most extensive in the world at the time. The first trams appeared in 1870, and by about 1900 the system was in a crisis exacerbated by the monopolisation of the lines, which had concentrated under the ownership of fewer companies during the electrification of the system.
In this context, the first proposals for the building of an underground system were made, along with requests for government grants: first, in 1886, and several more in 1889. However, the Ministry of Interior (Ministerio del Interior, in Spanish) denied the city administration the power to license building in the city's subsoil and for this reason, subsequent drafts were submitted directly to this ministry. In 1894, when it was decided to construct the Congress building in its present location, the underground idea was revived, since it would shorten the travel time between the Casa Rosada and the Congress. In 1896 Miguel Cané, former Mayor of Buenos Aires (1892–1893), expressed the need to build an underground railway similar to the one in London
There were numerous proposals at the time to build an electric aerial tramway, with one such line to go down the Avenida de Mayo. One proposal was the 1889 Le Tellier proposal, which envisioned multiple lines running along the city's wider avenues with the trams moved using cables and would hang from steel rails fixed to 6-metre-high (20 ft) steel and iron posts positioned in 10-to-15-metre (33 to 49 ft) intervals. The lines would take 24 months to build, and construction would commence 3 months after their approval by the Argentine National Congress, a decision which was ultimately not taken, favouring instead an underground tramway.
The first Underground line was opened on 1 December 1913 and was built by the Anglo-Argentine Tramways Company (AATC), which had been given permission to build in 1909. That line was made up of one of the existing sections of Line A, linking the stations of Plaza de Mayo and Plaza Miserere. 170,000 passengers took part in the line's first trip. On 1 April 1914 the line was to expand to Río de Janeiro station and on 1 July was extended to Primera Junta Station.
In 1912 the Lacroze Hermanos company won a concession to build another Underground line. The company was a competitor to the Anglo-Argentine company, operating tramways in Buenos Aires as well as the Buenos Aires Central Railway, which later became part of the Urquiza Line. Construction began in 1927, and this line became Line B when it was inaugurated on 17 October 1930. During 17–18 December 380,000 passengers travelled on the line's then 32 cars. The line was originally intended to continue above ground, with the current Federico Lacroze station to be the central terminal of the Buenos Aires Central Railway (today the General Urquiza Railway), however nowadays the overground service forms part of the Urquiza Line instead.
By the 1920s, the Argentine government was dissatisfied with the lack of progress the AATC (which enjoyed a near-monopoly on the city's tramways by this point) had made in expanding the rest of the network and thus revoked its right to build any more lines in 1930, seeking instead another company to do so. By this point, the AATC had only built 48 metres of what is today Line C, a line which would link two of the city's most important rail terminals (Constitución and Retiro) together. In 1933 a third company, the Hispano-Argentina Company of Public Works and Finances (Compañía Hispano–Argentina de Obras Públicas y Finanzas (CHADOPyF), in Spanish) began construction of the other Underground lines. Line C's first section, Constitución railway station-Diagonal Norte, was inaugurated on 9 November 1934 by Agustín P. Justo, then President of Argentina.
CHADOPyF opened Line D in 1937, from Catedral through Tribunales; with Line E following later in 1944, from Constitución to San Juan y Urquiza, later joining with Boedo station. By this point the advent of the Second World War had slowed expansion significantly, but the network was 29 km (18 mi) in length with each of the three companies – unusually for an underground network – continuing to run their respective lines, which were financed entirely with private capital, unlike the country's railways which had been largely dependent on subsidies.
### Nationalisation
The entire network was centralised and nationalised in 1939 under the management of the Transport Corporation of Buenos Aires (CTCBA) and the lines were given their current lettered naming scheme, from A to D in the order in which the lines were opened. In 1952, the CTCBA was absorbed by the Buenos Aires Transport General Administration (AGTBA), and in 1963, the administration was dissolved and the underground network became the property of the Subterráneos de Buenos Aires company (SBA).
In the early years of nationalisation, interchanges were provided between the lines previously belonging to the three different companies that built them (AATC, CHADOPyF and Lacroze) since previously only the CHADOPyF lines (C, D and E) had formal connections between them. However, the rate of expansion of the network during this period had slowed considerably and only one station was opened during the 1970s.
Four different long-term expansion proposals were put forward between 1964 and 1991 which all proposed adding numerous lines to the network as well as extending the existing ones. Given the political instability characteristic of Argentina during this time, none of these proposals came to fruition, though aspects of them have been incorporated into contemporary expansion plans. One additional proposal put forward in 1973 saw the unification of the city's commuter rail lines through tunnels and incorporated into the Buenos Aires Underground, and while this was also shelved, it was included in the Red de Expresos Regionales proposal.
During the 1960s and 70s, efforts were primarily concentrated on Line E, which was re-routed from its terminus at Constitución to the centre of the city at the Plaza de Mayo in an attempt to boost passenger figures, something which proved to be successful. The segment was opened by president Arturo Illia in 1966 and Spain offered CAF-General Eléctrica Española trains in order to cancel part of the debt it had accrued with Argentina; trains which continue to serve on the line today. The line was extended westward to José María Moreno in 1973, in what would be the only expansion of the decade.
In 1979, SBA became Subterráneos de Buenos Aires Sociedad del Estado (SBASE) under Buenos Aires mayor Osvaldo Cacciatore of the National Reorganisation Process military junta. After a long period of stagnation, the Underground began to be expanded again with Lines B and E within the scope of these plans, though only the extension of Line E was commenced and completed before the transition to democracy where expansion was once again stalled. During this time, four Premetro feeder lines were planned leading out from the western termini of Lines D and E as well as one in Puerto Madero, however only Line E2 was completed in 1987 and these plans were scrapped in 1994 when operation of the Underground changed hands.
### Privatisation
In 1994 the operation of the network was privatised, along with the country's railways, and is now managed by Metrovías. SBASE (as part of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires) maintained ownership of the network, its rolling stock, and infrastructure, and administers its expansion and budget. One cosmetic change carried out in the 1990s under private operation was the re-assignation of the colours of the lines, with Lines B and D switching colours, Line C changing from purple to blue and Line E changing from yellow to purple. The change of colours was also accompanied by a standardisation of the network's signage to match the new schemes.
In 2012, the role of Metrovías was lessened to simply operating the lines, while maintenance of infrastructure became the responsibility of SBASE. The relationship between Mauricio Macri's mayoral administration and Metrovías became increasingly strained, with the Government of Buenos Aires issuing multiple fines to the operator. The relationship was further strained in 2013 when Metrovías' 20-year concession ended and has since been renewed on a year-by-year basis, leaving the door open for a state-run or mixed operation. Among the public, privatisation has proved unpopular, with a survey carried out in 2015 indicating that 82% of passengers would like the Underground to be operated by the state instead of a private company.
In more recent years, Line A and Line B have been extended westwards, adding a total of 4 stations to each line between 2003 and 2013. During the same period, Line H was opened 2007, making it the first completely new line on the underground since Line E, excluding the Premetro. There have also been significant modernisations of infrastructure, signalling systems, stations and the network's rolling stock.
The current contract expired on 31 December 2019 with bids put forward by:
- Keolis in partnership with Transport for London and Eduardo Eurnekian's Corporación América
- Metrovías in partnership with Deutsche Bahn
- RATP Group
## Network and services
The network comprises six underground lines, labelled "A" to "E" and "H" and which are further identified by different colours, covering a total route length of 56.7 kilometers (35.2 mi) and serving 87 stations. There is also one surface 7.4-kilometer (4.6 mi) Premetro line with an additional 17 stations. Daily ridership was approximately 1.11 million in 2015. With the current usage patterns, the entire system is overstretched, and during weekdays overcrowded and with insufficient services. An expansion programme is underway, and it is expected to enlarge the network to 97 kilometers (60 mi) in the future. Similarly, new rolling stock has been incorporated across lines since 2013 to improve capacity and the last of the current orders are set to arrive in 2016 and followed by further orders of new rolling stock, which is expected to increase ridership figures to 1.8 million by 2019.
Annual ridership in 2019: 321 296 964.
Annual ridership in 2020: 73 650 077.
### Fares and operating times
Fares are AR\$78 per trip on the Subte, regardless of travelled distance, though these can be as low as AR\$35 depending on how many trips are made per month, while the Premetro has a flat rate of AR\$15. Fares have been increased multiple times due to devaluation of the Argentine Peso. While tokens have been used in the past, at present riders use contactless cards called SUBE, which are rechargeable with multiple forms of payment. Previously, single or multi-use paper cards with a magnetic strip (called Subtepass) were used, however, these were phased out of the system in May 2016, opting instead only to use the digital cards, with the exception of some retired, disabled and student cards.
Trains run from 05:00 until 23:00, every 3–4 minutes, for all lines except Line H which has a frequency of around 6 minutes. Under modernisation plans commenced in 2013, service frequencies increased to an average of one train every 2 minutes 20 seconds by 2019.
Trains originally ran until 01:00 am, but following the privatisation of the service through concession to Metrovías, the company established an earlier closing time of 23:00 in 1994 to carry out works on the lines. This change was only meant to be temporary, but was never reverted even after the works were completed. There have been numerous petitions as well as a campaign by the City Ombudsman to extend services to 1:30 am on weekdays and 3:00 am on Fridays and Saturdays. These proposals have been rejected by Subterráneos de Buenos Aires, which stated in 2015 that the reduced schedule is needed in order to carry out infrastructure modernisation works across all the lines while they are closed.
The Subte operations are radio-controlled and monitored remotely from the Metrovías Central Operations Post (PCO in Spanish). There 24 operators have been monitoring four of the six subway lines (lines C and H have separate monitoring) since 2001. As of 2015, last formations arrive at their respective terminals at approximately 11:30 pm, where maintenance and cleaning operations take place until about 4:00 am.
### Premetro
The PreMetro line E2 is a 7.4-kilometer (4.6 mi) tramway feeding Line E. The Premetro line opened in 1987. It carries approximately 2,300 passengers daily and is also run by Metrovías. In 2015, SBASE began making plans to refurbish and rebuild many of the stations, including a brand-new central terminal, as part of a plan to modernise the network, with the intent of increasing the amount of rolling stock in circulation. By the end of 2015, the Intendente Saguier terminal had been refurbished, though other works on the line were delayed.
The Premetro was originally intended to include a number of feeder lines to the Underground network, including a second one to Line E and ones on lines C and D. The Premetro project was largely abandoned since it occurred in Argentina's transition to democracy from the military junta and then the privatisation of the railways, which was a difficult time economically for the country, and only Line E2 was built. New Premetro feeder lines have been proposed in recent years, however, the role of the network has given way to the new Metrobus network which covers many of the same routes originally intended for the Premetro.
### Urquiza Line
Línea Urquiza (in English: Urquiza Line) is a 26-kilometer (16 mi) suburban electric commuter rail line originally designed to be part of the Underground system as part of Line B and operated by the Underground operator Metrovías. As a result, it has similar characteristics to Line B, using third rail electrification and standard gauge as opposed to the broad gauge used in the Buenos Aires commuter rail network. It runs from the Federico Lacroze terminus in the barrio of Chacarita, to General Lemos terminus, Campo de Mayo in Greater Buenos Aires. The line is completely at grade (ground-level) and uses third rail current collection. It operates 20 hours a day, 7 days a week at 8-to-30-minute intervals. The Urquiza Line transported 15 million passengers in 2013.
Originally the line was planned to run into the centre of Buenos Aires through a long tunnel. But when the tunnel was finally built in 1930, it ended up as Line B. The access ramp still exists and is in use today, but for maintenance and storage purposes rather than for passenger services. The Urquiza Line itself opened in 1948, so suburban passengers travelling on the Underground's Line B have to transfer to the Urquiza Line at Federico Lacroze station, named after its builder, about 6 km (3.7 mi) from the city centre.
## Stations and connections
Stations are listed from East to West or North to South. Stations in gray have yet to open. Stations in bold are the current termini. Small interchange icons indicate interchanges under construction
### Ghost stations
There are four ghost stations on the Buenos Aires Underground, two on Line A and two on Line E. The Line A stations – Pasco Sur and Alberti Norte – were closed in 1953 since stations in that part of the line were grouped very closely together and having fewer stops improved the line's frequency. Pasco Sur remains in very good condition, while Alberti Norte was converted into an electrical substation.
The Line E stations were closed in 1966, after the line was re-routed from Constitución railway station (where it connected with Line C) closer to the centre of the city, leaving the San José vieja and Constitución stations out of the network, a move which tripled traffic on the line. The two stations have subsequently been used as workshops and storage areas.
At one point it was considered that the two former Line E stations and tunnels should be used for Line F since the line's southern terminus would be there and that part of the route would be roughly similar to the old Line E. However, it was eventually decided that the line should use new tunnels in that section due to its sharp curves.
## Expansion plans
There have been several plans to expand the Underground system as a whole. The Underground's routes are said to spread out like "branches of a tree" from the Plaza de Mayo, something Miguel Delibes described as "restrictive". Current expansion efforts seek to address those restrictions by creating more north–south lines and moving termini away from the city centre. The current expansion plan was approved in the year 2000 under Law 670 and has seen the creation of Line H, as well as the extensions of Line A and Line B westwards. However, in 2015 an alternative plan has been proposed which would make numerous amendments to the Law 670 plan.
### Works in progress
`Line H's extensions to the north from Corrientes to Plaza Francia, serving intermediate stations at Córdoba, Santa Fe and Las Heras, and south from Hospitales with stations at Nueva Pompeya and Sáenz, were initiated with ground-breaking ceremonies on 17 January 2012. Since then, following concerns that the construction of Plaza Francia station would damage the natural beauty of the area surrounding the Recoleta Cemetery, the station was relocated to Facultad de Derecho next to the University of Buenos Aires's faculty of law, with the change delaying the opening of the station until 2018. Cordoba and Las Heras were opened in December 2015, while Santa Fe opened in mid-2016, providing the line with a connection to Line D. The 20 new Alstom trains to serve the expected increase in passenger numbers as a result of the connection with Line D began arriving in the country in 2015.`
### Planned lines
The future expansion outlined in Law 670 would see the addition of three new lines. These lines' routes have already been approved by the Legislature of the City in Law 670. 39.3 km will be added to the network, expanding it to about 97 km in total length and providing several stations with various interchanges. This will also create new north–south routes, resulting in an appropriate network to avoid the city centre. The new lines will mean that more than two million inhabitants of Buenos Aires (accounting for about 70% of the city centre's population) will live within 400 metres of a metro station. The new lines will run between 56 new stations.
`Line F will run from Barracas to Plaza Italia in Palermo and will include 16 new stations. The planned route length of this line is 10.8 km. Construction was due to begin in 2020, once the northern extension of Line H is complete, and as originally planned, the line would have automatic trains and platform screen doors.`
`Line G will connect Retiro and Caballito/Villa Crespo; 12.5 km long with 15 new stations. Originally, construction was due to start in 2012–2013, however city legislators opposed the turnkey construction proposed by Chinese firms since the total cost would have been 30% higherthan if it was done with local companies. After this, it was decided to prioritise the other construction projects in the network.`
`Line I will run Parque Chacabuco to Ciudad Universitaria with 18 new stations. The route length is 12.6 km. The future of this line (which had the lowest priority in the expansion plans) is currently uncertain since it has been proposed that a Metrobus line be built instead, which would follow the same trajectory as the line.`
### PETERS plan
In October 2015, the city of Buenos Aires together with the Inter-American Development Bank presented a 150-page plan for the Underground called the Strategic and Technical Plan for the Expansion of the Subterranean Network (Plan Estratégico y Técnico para la Expansión de la Red de Subtes, or PETERS), highlighting past expansion efforts and the need to adapt plans to the current needs of the city. In this version of the Underground, Line I is cancelled while Line G takes a different route through the centre of the city terminating at Constitucion railway station after going through the neighbourhood of San Telmo, rather than through Retiro railway station. Other changes include a Retiro Norte node where lines F and H terminate, rather than at Plaza Italia and Retiro respectively, while Line E is extended to Plaza Italia from Retiro – a segment which in the original plan was part of Line F. In these plans, Line C is extended both northwards in a loop to Retiro bus station and southwards to the Buenos Aires Belgrano Sur Line railway station minor terminal.
Such plans are subject to approval by the Buenos Aires City Legislature and would mean the annulment of many of the existing expansion plans outlined in Law 670. Some criticisms include the failure of the PETERS plan to account for the extension of the Belgrano Sur Line to Constitucion railway station, meaning that Line C's extension to the minor Buenos Aires terminal would be redundant, and that the Retiro Norte node would also be made redundant by the planned Red de Expresos Regionales commuter rail tunnels which are to link the three major railway terminals of the city.
## Modernisation of existing lines
Much of the modernisation in recent years has centred around the Underground's rolling stock, with large scale renewals and refurbishments of existing fleets, in particular on Lines A and H. Along with this came the construction of new underground workshops and storage areas on lines A, H and E, as well as the expansion of the existing facilities on Lines B and D.
In September 2015, the president of SBASE highlighted plans for the 2015–2019 period for the Underground at a conference with other South American mass transit operators in Brazil. One of the largest changes to be made during this period was the upgrading of signalling systems on all lines, with the exception of Line E. Lines A and B were to receive Automatic Train Operation systems, replacing their ATS and ATP systems respectively, whilst lines C, D and H were to receive Communications Based Train Control systems. The implementation of these systems was already under way on Lines C and H as of September 2015, and was due to be completed on other lines before 2019. Line D was also to receive platform screen doors along with the CBTC system.
Other works to be carried out during this period include the improvement of disabled access in older stations, new ventilation systems on lines B, C and D, improvements in electrification (such as replacing overhead lines and substations) on lines A, B, C and D and the replacement of 14 km of track on Lines C and E. The total investment in this period for these new projects was set at US\$1.34 billion.
### Stations
Starting in 2007, the network's stations began to receive technological updates ranging from Wi-Fi to interactive terminals. Through BA-WIFI (the citywide free internet service), passengers can use internet free of charge across all stations and aboard trains, though this has been delayed on Line A due to complications surrounding the line's age. There are also several "digital spaces" across the network and in its commercial galleries where seating areas are provided, along with recharging stations for mobile devices.
There has also been widespread cosmetic changes to stations, including the restoration of historical murals, the incorporation of new artwork and improving the lighting. The renovations on Line B have been met with criticism for destroying parts of the line's historic heritage, which dates back to the 1930s. The appearance of the network's signs has also been changed and the new signs have been gradually replacing the old ones since November 2014.
## Rolling stock
The Buenos Aires Underground has had among the longest serving and most varied rolling stock in the world, in part due to the network having been originally built and operated by three different companies in its early years, causing incompatibilities between the lines. The network began with uniform rolling stock, with the Anglo-Argentine Tramways Company Anglo-Argentine Line A using La Brugeoise cars (with the exception of a few UEC Preston cars), the three CHADOPyF lines (C, D and E) using Siemens-Schuckert Orenstein & Koppel stock and Lacroze's Line B using Metro-Cammell cars. However, as the lines were expanded and passenger numbers increased, more rolling stock was needed, which made the network less uniform, particularly with regard to the problematic Line B, which used a different electrification system and measurements from the other lines. Line B also became the first line of the network to receive second-hand rolling stock in 1995.
### Current fleets
Since then there have been moves towards greater modernisation and standardisation, with large purchases of new rolling stock from companies such as Alstom and China CNR Corporation, as well as smaller orders of second hand rolling stock, which the government of the City of Buenos Aires claims are temporary measures while those lines are modernised to be able to incorporate more modern rolling stock. Such stock has been acquired from Tokyo, Nagoya, and Madrid. From 2013 to 2019, 468 new cars arrived while 232 received refurbishment, bringing the average age of the fleet to 22 years in 2016, down from 34 in 2014.
The network's oldest cars – the La Brugeoise cars – were retired in 2013, while its historically most widely used cars – the Siemens-Schuckert Orenstein & Koppel cars – were to be retired in 2015, though this was pushed back to June 2016 following delays on the opening of Santa Fe station on Line H. While there has been much movement of rolling stock, often in a "hand-me-down" manner from higher frequency lines to less used lines (the primary recipient being Line E), the transition to newer models has gone fairly smoothly, despite shortfalls in some lines following extensions. The Fiat-Materfer cars have been the primary stand-ins while the new trains arrive, though this role has also been filled by the Siemens-Schuckert Orenstein & Koppel cars, delaying their retirement.
Though Line A ran on a different voltage to the rest of the network, it was converted to the 1500 V used on the rest of the network when the 200 Series trains began to arrive. On the other hand, Line B has traditionally been the most troublesome of the network given its different voltage and the fact that it uses third rail electrification as opposed to the overhead lines used on the rest of the network, making it in effect a separate entity not capable of sharing its stock with other lines. Presently this line uses 1950s rolling stock acquired from Tokyo's Eidan 300/400/500/900 series Marunouchi Line, along with CAF 5000 and CAF 6000 stock acquired from Madrid which are to replace the aging Eidan stock. The line, along with its remaining third rail stock, is being converted to overhead lines at 1500 V, after which the entire network will be standardised.
## Culture and heritage
The Buenos Aires Underground has historically been characterised by murals and other artistic works in its stations, making it a kind of museum throughout the system. These works, and a number of complete stations, are considered part of the cultural heritage of the city and several of them were declared National Historic Landmarks in 1997.
### National patrimony
Line A is renowned for having kept its original 1913 rolling stock running on the line up until 2013, making them the oldest underground carriages in commercial service in the world at the time. They were built by La Brugeoise, et Nicaise et Delcuve, a Belgian rolling stock manufacturer established in the city of Bruges, between 1913 and 1919. Entirely made of wood, they were originally designed to run as underground as well as tramway cars, but they were adapted in 1927 to their current style for underground service only.
In March 2013, La Brugeoise subway carriages were replaced by new Chinese 200 Series rolling stock, just 11 months prior to their 100th anniversary on the line. The original rolling stock has since been maintained, some in exhibition and some being converted to 1500 V to run tourist services on the line. During the festivities of the 100th anniversary of the underground on 1 December 2013, many restored La Brugeoise trains circulated Line A and there was a symphonic orchestra at Plaza de Mayo station as well as free rides for the entire city in order to mark the event. Throughout the week that followed, there were also numerous displays and events across the different lines of the Underground.How ever the cars were retired in 2016.
Currently, the Polvorín Workshop – originally inaugurated along with Line A – is being transformed into a museum to display artefacts and the former rolling stock of the Underground. The workshop also serves as the headquarters for the Association of Friends of the Tramway and many of the Underground's historical artefacts are stored there, such as the wooden UEC Preston "palace cars", which also make appearances on Line A during special occasions such as anniversaries and even the inauguration of president Raúl Alfonsín in 1983, where he and other officials were transported from the National Congress to the Casa Rosada using these cars.
### Artwork and exhibits
The network has over 390 artworks by over 170 artists across its stations, ranging from historic murals to modern art. Styles also vary, from mosaic to fileteado, sculpture and installation pieces. Many stations are decorated with intricate ceramic tile work, some of which date back to 1913 when the Underground first opened its doors. Featured artists include painters and reproductions by Quino, Molina Campos, Raúl Soldi, Rodolfo Medina and Jorge Schwarz. In addition, they provide spaces for music and theatre events, including an underground iteration of the Pepsi Music Festival on Line H.
#### Line A
The oldest line on the network has maintained its original appearance from 1913 and 1914 on the Plaza de Mayo – Primera Junta segment following restoration works in 1988 for the 75th anniversary of the line and again in 2007. These older stations feature no advertisements, but instead have recreations of original advertisements from the early 20th century. The Line's newest segment, which runs from Puán to San Pedrito, displays more modern artworks, such as those by Uruguayan artist Guillermo Roux at San José de Flores station.
#### Line B
In Tronador – Villa Ortúzar station there are 18 stained glasses that refer to the history of the Villa Ortúzar neighbourhood, where the station is located. In Los Incas – Parque Chas station there are murals related with different Pre-Columbian era civilisations are exhibited. In 2015, SBASE faced criticism for its incorporation of new artworks in multiple stations on the line. Many of these artworks were painted directly over tiles dating back to the 1930s when the line was opened by the Lacroze company, while others were completely removed and destroyed.
#### Line C
From Constitución to Diagonal Norte, the line features murals of Iberian landscapes created by Spanish artists such as Ignacio Zuloaga and Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor y Zaragoza, which date back to the time of the line's opening by CHADOPyF. General San Martín station includes photographic reproductions of the Museo de la Ciudad (City Museum) activities, photographic reproductions and images of the Plaza San Martín and photographic reproductions of streets and building of the South zone of the city.
#### Line D
The line's murals on its original Catedral – Palermo route date back to 1937 and 1940, and began to be restored in 2013. These include murals by Argentine artists Benito Quinquela Martín in Plaza Italia station. There are also numerous showcase exhibits in its newer stations, with a series of ceramic reproductions by Raúl and Daniel De Francisco in Juramento station, ceramic reproductions of four murals made by Raúl Soldi in José Hernández station and showcases exposing works made in the Ceramic School No.1 in Olleros station Congreso de Tucumán station was the network's first "museum station" and holds numerous exhibits, among them busts of key political and cultural figures in Argentine culture and history such as Jorge Luis Borges and Manuel Belgrano displayed in glass enclosures in its platform walls.
#### Line E
Some modern murals on the line include an homage to the 1996 Argentine film Moebius at San José station. The film used the line for its primary filming locations and the murals depict scenes from it. Recently opened Correo Central station has received an award from the Association of Structural Engineers in Argentina for the quality and creativity of the work.
#### Line H
The newest line on the Underground has many Hermenegildo Sábat mural reproductions related to tango in all stations. Its numerous stations depict different tango singers and poets relating to the neighbourhoods in which they are situated. Santa Fe station was renamed to Santa Fe - Carlos Jáuregui in 2017, in honour of LGBT rights activist Carlos Jáuregui.
### Graffiti
Graffiti on the Buenos Aires Underground became particularly prevalent in the late 2000s and early 2010s, and by 2013, four out of every five cars on the network had some degree of graffiti. By January 2015, all the painted cars had been cleaned by night-time cleaning teams using a product specially developed for SBASE that allowed the removal of graffiti without damaging the livery of the cars. Cleaning the 410 vandalised cars had cost the City of Buenos Aires AR\$ 10.25 million pesos, while a coat of anti-graffiti paint has been applied to the cars to make future cleaning easier using alcohol.
SBASE, along with the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Police, has adopted a zero tolerance policy on graffiti in the Buenos Aires Underground, imposing fines ranging from AR\$400–6000 and up to 30 days community service, the culprits often being made to clean the cars they vandalised. Increased vigilance from over 500 police officers, as well as close to 300 CCTV cameras, have aided in decreasing new acts of vandalism by 85% in 2014, with a further decrease of 50% in 2015 after security was intensified.
Painted cars were often worked on by organised groups in a "whole car" (graffiti jargon for covering the entire visible surface of the vehicle) manner, severely reducing visibility from inside the cars. Numerous arrests have been made on these groups which often consist of foreign nationals from countries such as Chile, Germany and France; two German nationals and a Chilean national were arrested in January 2016. One high-profile arrest of such a group saw four Argentines detained in 2015 after vandalising a 200 Series train on Line A. Their houses were subsequently raided, uncovering a vast collection of stolen Subte paraphernalia as well as documented evidence of their activities in the form of videos and photographs.
According to Clarín, people from across the world have visited Buenos Aires with the sole purpose of "bombing" (painting cars in a clandestine manner), while competition among different groups exists in the form of greater points being earned for painting newer cars or the level of danger experienced. In most cases, the people involved are university educated and with stable employment. In January 2016, a group called Soketes Calcetines was discovered to be offering tourists graffiti tours of the Underground, giving them a chance to paint cars for a fee. The group documented their activities and uploaded them to YouTube in order to promote the business, which has been subsequently shut down with its members arrested.
### In popular culture
The Buenos Aires Underground is featured in the 1996 science-fiction film Moebius, directed by Gustavo Mosquera. In the film, the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of an underground train are investigated by a topologist. The film is based on the short story "A Subway Named Möbius", which takes place in the Boston Subway.
Other films with scenes shot in the Underground include Highlander II: The Quickening, Focus and The Official Story.
In Ricardo Piglia's 1997 novel Plata Quemada, the bank robber protagonists enjoy riding the underground regularly. In Ernesto Sabato's novel On Heroes and Tombs, Fernando, one of its main characters, develops a paranoia with blind people in the underground.
One of Jorge Luis Borges' earlier editorial jobs was for Urbe, a promotional magazine for the underground system, which was privately owned at that time. In the magazine, he wrote several articles on sci-fi topics under various pseudonyms.
Line B and some of its stations feature heavily in the 2013 Argentine point-and-click adventure game Reversion: The Meeting.
El Eternauta is a science fiction comic book created by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López in 1957. The story is about an alien invasion in Buenos Aires. Part of the action takes place at the Plaza Italia station, as the heroes try to use the tunnel to escape from the aliens, and successfully exploit the weakness of the alien leader to kill him. The comic book, published in the 1950s, made reference to the "Canning" station, a former name of the Scalabrini Ortiz station.
## Network map
## See also
- List of Buenos Aires Underground stations
- List of Latin American rail transit systems by ridership
- List of metro systems
- Rail transport in Argentina
- Trams in Buenos Aires
- Transport in Argentina |
33,779,421 | Typhoon Alex (1987) | 1,139,468,631 | Pacific typhoon in 1987 | [
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"Typhoons in Taiwan"
]
| Typhoon Alex, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Etang, affected the Taiwan, China, and South Korea during July 1987. Typhoon Alex developed from the monsoon trough that spawned a tropical disturbance late on July 21 southwest of Guam which organized into a tropical depression shortly thereafter. The system steadily became better organized, and the next day, a tropical depression had developed. Satellite intensity estimates gradually increased, and on July 23, the depression intensified into Tropical Storm Alex. After initially tracking west-northwest, Tropical Storm Alex started tracking northwest. An eye developed on July 24, and on the next day, Alex was classified as a typhoon, when Alex attained its peak intensity of 120 km/h (75 mph) and a minimum barometric pressure of 970 mbar (29 inHg). Alex weakened while tracking more northward, though interaction with Taiwan resulted in a more westward track starting on July 27. The storm struck near Shanghai as a tropical storm, and weakened over land, although it remained identifiable through August 2.
Across Taiwan, the storm inflicted minor damage and one person was killed. In the province of Zhejiang, Alex damaged or destroyed over 200 fishing boats, wiped out 22 bridges, snapped 32 power lines, and flooded four reservoirs. Damage there exceeded US\$1.8 million. In Jiaxing, at least 121,405 hectares (300,000 acres) of farmland were flooded. Nation-wide, 125 people were killed and roughly 200 were wounded. Close to 700 homes were demolished while roughly 200 fishing boats were damaged. Across South Korea, the storm dumped heavy rainfall, with daily totals of 300 mm (12 in) in some places, triggering flooding and landslides.
## Meteorological history
Typhoon Alex developed in the western edge of the Western Pacific monsoon trough which stretched 2,500 km (1,555 mi) near the 10th parallel north from the Carolina Islands to the International Date Line. Late on July 21, satellite imagery first detected a tropical disturbance 370 km (230 mi) to the southwest of Guam, which prompted the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) to upgrade the system to a tropical depression. At 06:00 UTC on the next day, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) began to follow the system as the disturbance had developed curved banding features. A rapid increase in both convection and organization followed, and at 18:00 UTC on July 22, satellite imagery showed the development of a central dense overcast, with Dvorak intensity estimates supporting an intensity of 50 km/h (30 mph). At 19:30 UTC, the JTWC issued a Tropical Cyclone Formation Alert despite satellite imagery only detecting a broad, ill-defined low-level circulation, with a minimum barometric pressure of 1005 mbar (29.68 inHg). By 00:00 UTC on July 23, Dvorak intensity estimates reached T2.5/65 km/h (40 mph) and a ship to the north of the system reported winds of 55 km/h (35 mph), which resulted in the JTWC declaring the system a tropical depression.
Initially, the depression was tracking west and was forecast by the JTWC to track across the Philippine Islands. This was in agreement with most tropical cyclone forecast models showing the storm track across the archipelago and the turning northward in the general direction of China, although the JTWC eventually shifted the track further north into the Luzon Straits. At 06:00 UTC on July 23, the JTWC upgraded the depression into Tropical Storm Alex, with the JMA doing the same six hours later. Late the next evening, the JMA upgraded Alex to a severe tropical storm as satellite images showed the center of the storm moving under the deep convection after previously being exposed to its northeast. Continuing to slowly intensify, Alex turned northwest. It developed an eye between 15:00 UTC and 18:00 UTC on July 24. The next morning the JTWC declared Alex a typhoon while also estimating that the storm attained its peak intensity of 120 km/h (75 mph).
Upon becoming a typhoon, Alex was located 220 km (135 mi) east of the northern tip of Luzon. By this time, most forecast models showed a northward movement east of Taiwan due to a weakness in a subtropical ridge south of Japan and the presence of a surface front across the east coast of Asia. On the evening of July 25, the JMA classified Alex as a typhoon while also reporting that Alex obtained its peak intensity of 120 km/h (75 mph) and a minimum pressure of 970 mbar (29 inHg). Although satellite images continued to depict a warm spot, suggesting the presence of an eye, both the JMA and JTWC estimated that Alex fell below typhoon intensity on July 26; however, according to the JMA, Alex briefly re-intensified back to a typhoon that evening. Alex turned north in response to the aforementioned front, passing 55 km (34 mi) east of Taipei. Interaction with the high terrain of Taiwan caused Alex to deflect west, striking Wenzhou as a weakening tropical storm on the evening of July 27. The storm rapidly dissipated over land according to the JTWC, although the JMA continued to track Alex as a minimal tropical storm when it moved back over open water in the Sea of Japan on the evening of July 28. Even though Alex failed to regenerate according to the JTWC, the JMA continued to track the system as a tropical depression through August 2.
## Impact and aftermath
The typhoon first caused slight damage in Taiwan, becoming the second typhoon to affect the country in 1987. A 35-year-old man was crushed to death by a falling wall in Keelung due to strong winds. Air and train services were also disrupted.
Typhoon Alex lashed the Chinese province of Zhejiang for fourteen hours. The storm damaged or demolished more than 200 fishing boats, wiped out 22 bridges, snapped 32 power lines, and flooded four reservoirs. The cities of Wenzhou and Jiaxing were the hardest hit, with as much as 290 mm (11.4 in) of rain falling. Damage in the area exceeded US\$1.8 million. In the former, 34 people were killed. In Jiaxing, a minimum of 121,405 ha (300,000 acres) of farmland were flooded. Throughout the suburbs of Shanghai, north of where the storm moved ashore 32 individuals sustained injuries and 400 homes were damaged or destroyed. More than 100 pigs were killed there. One person was killed in a tornado spawned by the typhoon in Shanghai. Overall, 125 people were killed and roughly 200 were wounded. Approximately 700 homes were destroyed along with 27,000 ha (66,720 acres) of crops. Around 200 fishing boats were damaged. Following the storm, local army troops and civilians assisted in rescue work in Zhejiang.
Under the anticipation that Alex would directly strike South Korea, typhoon warnings were posted for the coastline. After forecasts shifted west, the warning was lowered to a high wind warning. Affecting a country inundated by a series of systems that started with Typhoon Thelma, the storm deluged the country with up to 300 mm (12 in) of rainfall in a single day. This resulted in serious flooding, landslides, and loss of life.
## See also
- Typhoon Mamie (1985)
- Typhoon Nelson (1985) |
240,602 | Taunton | 1,173,339,871 | County town of Somerset, England | [
"Civil parishes in Somerset",
"County towns in England",
"Market towns in Somerset",
"Taunton",
"Towns in Taunton Deane"
]
| Taunton (/ˈtɔːntən/) is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the Bishops of Winchester. Parts of the inner ward house were turned into the Museum of Somerset and Somerset Military Museum. For the Second Cornish uprising of 1497, Perkin Warbeck brought an army of 6,000; most surrendered to Henry VII on 4 October 1497. On 20 June 1685 in Taunton the Duke of Monmouth crowned himself King of England in a rebellion, defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor. Judge Jeffreys led the Bloody Assizes in the Castle's Great Hall.
The Grand Western Canal reached Taunton in 1839 and the Bristol and Exeter Railway in 1842. Today it hosts Musgrove Park Hospital, Somerset County Cricket Club, is the base of 40 Commando, Royal Marines, and is home to the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office on Admiralty Way. The popular Taunton flower show has been held in Vivary Park since 1866, and on 13 March 2022, St Mary Magdalene parish church was elevated to the status of Taunton Minster.
## History
The town name derives from "Town on the River Tone or Tone Town. Cambria Farm, which now hosts a park and ride close to the M5 motorway Junction 25, was the site of Bronze and Iron Age settlement and a Roman farm. There was a Romano-British village near the suburb of Holway. Taunton was important in Anglo-Saxon times as a burh with a mint. King Ine of Wessex threw up an earthen castle about 700, but it was levelled in 722 by his queen, Æthelburg of Wessex, to prevent seizure by rebels.
A monastery was founded before 904. The bishops of Winchester owned the manor, and obtained the first charter for their "men of Taunton" from King Edward in 904, freeing them from all royal and county tribute. Some time before Domesday, Taunton became a borough with privileges and a population of some 1,500, including 64 burgesses governed by a portreeve appointed by the bishops. Somerton took over from Ilchester as county town in the late 13th century, but declined; the county-town status passed to Taunton about 1366. Between 1209 and 1311 the Bishop of Winchester's manor of Taunton expanded two-and-a-half times. The parishes of Staplegrove, Wilton and Taunton were part of Taunton Deane hundred.
In 1451, during the Wars of the Roses, Taunton saw a skirmish between the Earl of Devon, and Baron Bonville. Queen Margaret and her troops passed through in 1471 to defeat at the Battle of Tewkesbury. In the Second Cornish uprising of 1497 most Cornish gentry supported Perkin Warbeck's cause and on 17 September a Cornish army some 6,000 strong entered Exeter before advancing on Taunton. Henry VII sent his chief general, Giles, Lord Daubeney, to attack the Cornish. When Warbeck heard that the King's scouts were at Glastonbury he panicked and deserted his army. On 4 October 1497, Henry VII reached Taunton, where he received the surrender of the remaining Cornish army. Ringleaders were executed and others fined a total of £13,000.
Taunton Castle changed hands several times in the Civil War of 1642–1645, as did the town. During the Siege of Taunton it was defended by Robert Blake from July 1644 to July 1645, and suffered destruction of many medieval and Tudor buildings. On 20 June 1685, the Duke of Monmouth crowned himself King of England at Taunton during the Monmouth Rebellion. In the autumn of that year Judge Jeffreys lived in the town during the Bloody Assizes that followed the Battle of Sedgemoor.
The town lacked a charter of incorporation until 1627. This was renewed in 1677, but lapsed in 1792 due to vacancies in the corporate body, and was not reincorporated until 1877. The medieval fairs and markets (a weekly market remains) were celebrated for the sale of woollen cloth called "Tauntons" made in the town. On the decline of the woollen industry in the west of England, silk-weaving was introduced at the end of the 18th century.
In 1839 the Grand Western Canal reached Taunton, aiding southward trade, which was enhanced by the arrival of the railway in 1842.
A permanent military presence came to Jellalabad Barracks in 1881.
In the Second World War, the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal formed part of the Taunton Stop Line, set to curb any advance of a German invasion. Pillboxes can still be seen along its length.
A fire aboard a Penzance to London sleeping car train approaching Taunton in 1978 killed 12 passengers and injured 15 others.
### Regeneration
Taunton was rated "strategically important" in the government's Regional Spatial Strategy, allowing Somerset County Council to receive funding for large-scale regeneration projects. In 2006, the council revealed plans dubbed "Project Taunton". This would see regeneration of the areas of Firepool, Tangier, the retail town centre, the cultural quarter, and the River Tone, to sustain Taunton as business hub in the South West.
The Firepool area, just north of the town centre by the main railway station, includes vacant or undeveloped land. The council is promoting sustainable, high-quality, employment-led mixed-use development to attract 3,000 new jobs and 500 new homes.
In Tangier, a brownfield area between Bridgwater and Taunton College and the bus station, the project proposed to build small offices and more riverside housing.
The "Cultural Quarter" is the area along the river between Firepool and Tangier. The plans are to extend riverside retail and attract smaller, boutique businesses such as those found at Riverside.
Plans for the town centre include more pedestrianisation and greater sizes and numbers of retail units.
Several sites along the River Tone are set for renovation. Firepool Weir lock, long silted up, was to be dredged in 2011 to allow boats to pass from the navigable section of the Tone through Taunton to the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal. Goodland Gardens received a makeover and a new café, The Shed, opened. Projects to develop Somerset Square (a paved area next to the Brewhouse Theatre) and Longrun Meadow (a country park near Bridgwater & Taunton College) have been put forward.
Traffic congestion was identified as an obstacle to further economic growth. Part of the strategy was a new road infrastructure consisting of a £7.5 million link road to ease traffic in the town centre (Taunton's "Third Way"), completed in 2011, and a Northern Inner Distributor Road linking Staplegrove Road, the station and Priory Avenue at a planned cost of £21 million, opened in 2017.
## Governance
Taunton is governed by a parish/town council and the unitary authority of Somerset Council.
### Parish / Town Council
A large part of the town was unparished from the 1974 local government reorganisation until 1 April 2023, when a new Parish Council came into being following a Community Governance Review held by Somerset West and Taunton Council.
While the town was unparished, Charter Trustees made up of the district councillors representing wards in the unparished area elected a Mayor and Deputy Mayor.
The first elections to the new parish council were held on 4 May 2023 with 19 Liberal Democrat councillors and one Conservative councillor being elected to represent 14 wards. The council is expected to formally resolve to adopt the style of a Town Council at its first meeting.
### Borough Council
Taunton was the main settlement and centre of the local government district of Taunton Deane. The district, formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, by merging the municipal borough of Taunton, Wellington urban district, Taunton Rural District, and Wellington Rural District, was granted borough status in 1975, perpetuating the mayoralty of Taunton. The district was named as an alternate form of the Taunton hundred. Taunton Deane Council, once based at the Municipal Buildings in Corporation Street, moved to modern facilities at Deane House on Belvedere Road in spring 1987.
Taunton Deane merged with West Somerset to form Somerset West and Taunton in 2019, and was abolished on 1 April 2023 when Somerset Council took over.
### County Council
Somerset County Council, which was based at County Hall in Taunton, consisted of 55 councillors. The town has broadly six electoral divisions, each of which had a single county councillor: Taunton North; Taunton East; Taunton South; Bishop’s Hull & Taunton West; Comeytrowe & Trull, Monkton & North Curry (which includes rural areas).
On 18 March 2022, the Government confirmed that Somerset's county council and four district councils was be replaced by a single unitary authority from 1 April 2023 with elections for the new authority's 110 councillors (two per electoral division) taking place on 5 May 2022. The new unitary authority is called Somerset Council.
### Parliament
Taunton Deane is a county constituency of the House of Commons. It is based on the town, but extends to Wellington and small villages and parts of Exmoor. The current MP is Rebecca Pow of the Conservative Party.
## Geography
Taunton lies on the River Tone between the Quantock, Blackdown and Brendon hills. The area is known as the Vale of Taunton. It is surrounded by many other large towns and cities seen on this directional compass:
Taunton is 38 miles (61 km) south-west of Bristol, 28 miles (45 km) north-east of Exeter, 63 miles (101 km) north-east of Plymouth and 40 miles (64 km) north-west of Weymouth.
### Geology
The Taunton area has Permian red sandstones and breccia outcrop 295–250 million years old. Rocks of Triassic age (248–204 million years ago) underlie much of Somerset's moors and levels.
### Nature reserves
The several local nature reserves in and around Taunton are protected under Section 21 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. South Taunton Streams is an urban wetland. The northern suburbs include the Children's Wood riverside reserve, a movement corridor for animals such as otters along the banks of the Tone. Birds include the kingfisher, dipper, grey wagtail, mute swan, grey heron and reed warbler and butterflies the small and large skipper, marbled white, small heath and small copper, along with dragonflies and damselflies.
Weirfield Riverside, a nature reserve along the River Tone, has alder and willow woodland, bramble, scrub and rough grassland. The wetter, flood-prone areas feature hemlock water-dropwort, and yellow flag. Silk Mills Park and Ride offer landscaping and ponds in three areas by the Tone. The woodland and grassland support aquatic and marginal vegetation, with various birds, bats, reptiles and invertebrates. Frieze Hill Community Orchard has turned from allotments to rough grassland and orchard. Among the apples grown are Kingston Black and Yarlington Mill.
### Climate
Like most of South West England, Taunton has a temperate climate, wetter and milder than the rest of the country. The annual mean temperature is about 10 °C (50.0 °F). Seasonal temperature variation is less extreme because of the adjacent sea. The summer months of July and August have mean daily maxima of about 21 °C (69.8 °F). In winter, mean minimum temperatures of 1 °C (33.8 °F) or 2 °C (35.6 °F) are common. In the summer the Azores high pressure affects the south-west of England, but convective cloud sometimes forms inland, reducing the sunshine hours. Annual sunshine rates are slightly under the regional average of 1,600 hours. Most of the rainfall in the south-west is caused by Atlantic depressions or by convection – in autumn and winter by the former, which are then at their most active. In summer, much rainfall results from the sun heating the ground, leading to convection, showers and thunderstorms. Average rainfall is about 700 mm (28 in). Some 8–15 days of snowfall are typical. November to March have the highest mean winds and June to August the lightest. The prevailing wind direction is from the south-west.
## Demography
The town of Taunton (which for population estimates includes the unparished area or former municipal borough plus the neighbouring parishes of Bishop's Hull, Comeytrowe, Norton Fitzwarren, Staplegrove, Trull and West Monkton) had an estimated population of 61,400 in 2001. Taunton includes Holway, once a village in its own right as one of the Five Hundreds of Taunton Deane, the Infaring division or district of three districts that made up Taunton Deane.
Taunton is the largest town in the Somerset shire county and forms part of the larger borough of Taunton Deane, which includes the town of Wellington and surrounding villages. This had an estimated population of 109,883 in 2010.
The figures here are for the Taunton Deane area.
In 2011, Taunton built-up area had a population of 60,479 and the surrounding borough of Taunton Deane one of 110,187. Of Taunton's residents 91.6 per cent were White British in 2011, compared with 93.4 per cent for Taunton Deane. Taunton's ethnic mix resembles that of South West England – 91.8 per cent White British in the same year. It is also matches other major regional centres like Poole and Plymouth. The larger urban area, extending to Monkton Heathfield, Norton Fitzwarren and Bathpool, had a 2011 population of 64,621.
## Economy
Taunton Deane had low unemployment of 4.1 per cent compared with a national average of 5.0 per cent in 2005.
Taunton is home to the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO), a Ministry of Defence body responsible for providing navigational and other hydrographic information for national, civil and defence requirements. The UKHO is located on Admiralty Way and has a workforce of about 1100. At the start of the Second World War, chart printing moved to Taunton, but the main office did not follow until 1968. Taunton holds the head offices of Western Provident Association, Viridor and CANDAC. Other professional services are based at Blackbrook near the motorway junction.
The first store of the multinational New Look clothing retailer opened in Taunton in 1969. Taunton is also famed for cider.
## Landmarks
Gray's Almshouses in East Street, founded by Robert Gray in 1615 for poor single women, are red brick buildings bearing the arms of Robert Gray, dated 1635, and another arms of the Merchant Tailors. A small room used as a chapel has original benches and a painted ceiling. It has been classed by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building.
St Margaret's Almshouses was founded as a leper colony in the 12th century. Glastonbury Abbey acquired patronage of it in the late 13th century and rebuilt it as almshouses in the early 16th. From 1612 to 1938 the building continued as such, cared for by a local parish. In the late 1930s it was converted into a hall of offices for the Rural Community Council and accommodation for the Somerset Guild of Craftsmen. It later fell into disrepair. The Somerset Buildings Preservation Trust with Falcon Rural Housing purchased and restored it for use as four units of social housing. It is a Grade II\* listed building.
The grounds of Taunton Castle include the Somerset County Museum and The Castle Hotel, which incorporates the Castle Bow archway. With the municipal buildings they form a three-sided group just beyond the Castle Bow archway from Fore Street. The centre of the square is a car park, and a plain brick Mecca Bingo hall fills the west side of it.
The frontage of the Fore Street Tudor Tavern, now a Caffè Nero branch, dates from 1578, but the rest is thought to be from the 14th century.
The riverside area north of the centre is edged by Morrisons supermarket, retirement housing and the Brewhouse Theatre. Towards the centre are the Zinc Nightclub, Bridge Street and Goodlands Gardens. A current regeneration programme north of Bridge Street will include redeveloping the County Cricket Ground, which hosted open-air concerts for Elton John in 2006 and 2012 and for Rod Stewart in 2014.
### Shopping
Hankridge Farm, a retail park close to the M5 motorway, has stores that include Currys PC World, Oak Furniture Land, Hobbycraft, Halfords, B&Q, The Range and the town's second Sainsbury's. There is a Venue in the park with restaurants, an Odeon cinema and a Hollywood Bowl bowling alley. It is now known as Riverside Retail Park.
Taunton has three other such parks. Belvedere is near the town centre. St Johns is just off Toneway, towards the motorway, and consists of two units, occupied by DFS, joined by Go Outdoors in April 2014. Taunton's second largest retail park is Priory Fields in Priory Avenue, with eight units and an anchor store, Wickes. It was redeveloped in 2003 to modernise a rather worn-out retail park and increase retail floor space.
The Old Market was a farmers' market in the Parade in front of Market House, but then moved to the Firepool area, although cattle trading on the site ceased only in 2008. A large indoor shopping centre to the east of the Parade covers a site that was once a pig market. Although its official name is now Orchard, and before that the Old Market Centre, locals still call it the Pig Market; one existed there from 1614 to 1882.
County Walk is a small indoor shopping arcade in the town centre with an anchor supermarket, Sainsbury's, and several other large national retailers such as Subway, Costa Coffee, and Savers.
### Public parks
Taunton's public parks include Vivary Park, Goodlands Park and Victoria Park. The most notable is Vivary, on land that was once a medieval fish farm or vivarium for Taunton Priory and Taunton Castle. Fronted by a pair of cast iron gates from the Saracen Foundry of Glasgow, it contains the Sherford Stream, a Tone tributary that flows through the 7.5 hectares (19 acres) park, which is near the town centre. It has two main open spaces and a war memorial dating from 1922, a miniature golf course, tennis courts, two children's playgrounds, a model railway track added in 1979, and an 18-hole, 4620-yard, par-63 golf course. The park includes trees, rose beds and herbaceous borders, with some 56,000 spring and summer bedding plants used each year. The rose garden includes the Royal National Rose Society Provincial Trial Ground. Taunton Flower Show held annually in the park since the 19th century. It has been described as "The Chelsea of the West", and draws some 24,000 visitors over two days. Goodlands Gardens, in the centre of the town, is behind the Debenhams department store and The Castle Hotel.
### Pride Rainbow Path
The Pride Rainbow Path in Goodland Gardens, Taunton town centre, runs alongside the River Tone. Designed by Jenny Keogh and Liz Hutchin of GoCreate, it opened on 28 June 2021 to mark the anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which served as a catalyst for the gay rights movement. It is believed to be the first such path in the UK. The opening coincided with the first Taunton Pride in July 2021 and the Pride inspired Art Trail.
The far end of the 62-metre path includes the chevron of Daniel Quasar's "Progress" flag, which incorporates the transgender flag and ethnic minorities, while the majority of the path uses the traditional LGBT rainbow. The path has been designed not to require maintenance for 15 years. It was funded by Taunton's Emergency Town Centre Recovery Fund and is intended to reflect Taunton's commitment to inclusivity and diversity.
## Transport
### Rail
Taunton railway station is on the Bristol to Exeter line, the Reading to Taunton line, and the Cross Country Route. It is served and operated by Great Western Railway and served by CrossCountry, with services to Manchester Piccadilly, Birmingham New Street, Cardiff Central, Bristol Temple Meads, London Paddington, Exeter St Davids, Plymouth and Penzance. There is generally a fast and a slow train each hour to Bristol Temple Meads and Exeter St Davids and a train an hour to London Paddington.
The old rail route to Minehead is now a heritage West Somerset Railway with services between Bishops Lydeard and Minehead. The Buses of Somerset route 28 links the stations at Taunton and Bishops Lydeard.
In 2009, Project Taunton, the authority responsible for Taunton's regeneration project, revealed proposals for Taunton metro rail, under a transport sustainability plan. They were not implemented.
### Road
Taunton has road links with the M5 motorway junctions 25 (Taunton) and 26 (Wellington) close to the town, and other major roads such as the A38 and A358. The Taunton bypass section of the M5, between the two junctions, opened in April 1974 and relieved the town of heavy holiday traffic on the A38. Taunton Deane services use that motorway section.
A strong economy increases traffic; in 2011 the County Council foresaw a sharp rise from 2001 levels. Two major roads opened: the Third Way (A3807) linking Bridge Street and Castle Street in 2011, and the Northern Inner Distributor Road (A3087) between Staplegrove Road and Priory Avenue in July 2017.
#### 2011 M5 crash
On the evening of 4 November 2011, 34 vehicles met with an accident near junction 25 of the M5 motorway northbound, on the north-eastern edge of the town at West Monkton. Seven people were killed and a further 51 injured.
### Buses and coaches
Many local services are provided by The Buses of Somerset: town services and routes to Minehead, Bridgwater, Weston-Super-Mare and elsewhere. Other services are provided by Hatch Green Coaches. Services were also operated by Webberbus until the firm closed on 12 May 2016. Taunton bus station was in Tower Street from 1953 until 2020. Most services now terminate at stops on The Parade or Castle Way.
A park-and-ride service is run by The Buses of Somerset between the Taunton gateway near the M5 Motorway and Silk Mills on the north-west side of town.
Berrys Coaches, based in Taunton, operates several "Superfast Services" to London. National Express Coaches runs long-distance coach services to many destinations.
### Air
The nearest airports are Exeter and Bristol, both within 40 mi (64 km) of Taunton.
### Trams
Taunton Tramway opened on 21 August 1901. Six double-decker cars operated on a gauge line between the railway station and the depot at East Reach. In 1905 the service was withdrawn for two months while the track was improved; the cars were replaced by six single-decker cars and the old double deckers sold to Leamington Spa. A short extension beyond the station to Rowbarton opened in 1909, making the line 1.66 miles (2.7 km) long. However, the price of its electricity was due to rise in 1928 to a level the firm refused to pay, and it offered to sell out, but this was not accepted. The electricity was cut off on 28 May 1921 and the system closed.
### Canal
The Bridgwater and Taunton Canal is a navigable waterway that links Taunton with Bridgwater, opened in 1827. Having been closed to navigation in 1907, it re-opened after restoration in 1994.
## Education
State secondary schools in Taunton include The Castle School, Heathfield Community School, Bishop Fox's School and The Taunton Academy. Further education is offered by Richard Huish College, The Taunton Academy (sponsored by Richard Huish College) and Bridgwater and Taunton College. Heathfield Community School has a post-16 further education college specialising in performing arts and technical theatre called The SPACE (The Somerset Performing Arts Centre for Education). Heathfield Community School is also a teaching school and the base of Taunton Teaching Alliance. The Taunton campus of Bridgwater and Taunton College is a partner of Plymouth University and includes University Centre Taunton. There are three co-educational private schools: Queen's College, King's College and Taunton School.
In March 2009, it was found that Jim Knight, Minister of State for Schools and Families, had approved the closure of Ladymead Community School and the nearby St Augustine of Canterbury RC/CoE School in the Priorswood area of Taunton. They gave way in September 2010 to the Taunton Academy.
Young people with special educational needs are provided for by two special schools and one complex Pupil Referral Unit (PRU). Sky College caters for boys aged 10–18 who have social, emotional and mental-health difficulties. Selworthy School has pupils of 4–19 who have complex and multiple learning difficulties, while the Taunton Deane Partnership College is a complex PRU for children in Key Stages 2, 3 and 4, with a Medical Tuition Service, Outreach & Advisory Service and an Area Access Team.
## Health services
Taunton is within Somerset Primary Care Trust and home to Musgrove Park Hospital. This is one of two district hospitals in Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, alongside Yeovil Hospital. A Nuffield Hospital also lies in the town, run privately by Nuffield Health. The town has several medical surgeries and a family planning clinic, an occupational health centre and a chiropractic clinic.
## Religious sites
The Taunton Minster Church of St Mary Magdalene, built of sandstone more in the South Somerset style, retains an attractive painted interior, but its prime feature is a 15th and 16th-century tower rebuilt in the mid-19th century. It is one of the country's best examples and a landmark 158 feet (48 m) high. It was termed by Simon Jenkins, "the finest in England. It makes its peace with the sky not just with a coronet but with the entire crown jewels cast in red-brown stone." It holds 12 bells and 3 bells "hung dead" for the clock.
Close by is the parish church of St James near the centre of Taunton close. The oldest parts are early 14th century; there are fragments of 15th-century glass in the west end. Like St Mary's, it has a sandstone tower, but built to a less impressive design. It too was rebuilt in the 19th century, in this case due to building defects in the original. It backs onto the County Ground.
The church of St John the Evangelist was built in 1858 to serve the poor of the town. The church of St Andrew, built 1878, serves the area of Rowbarton.
In the later 17th century, Taunton had two Dissenting places of worship: "Paul's Meeting" and the Baptist Meeting. The former was built at the top of Paul Street soon after 1672 on a bowling green behind the Three Cups Inn, now The County Hotel, and rapidly became one of the largest congregations in the county. After Mayor Timewell sacked both Paul's Meeting and the Baptist Meeting in 1683, the dissenters were driven to worship in private houses on the outskirts of Taunton, where their assemblies were regularly raided by the Justices of the Peace. Paul's Meeting survived attempts to turn it into a workhouse, and with the coming of William III and Mary II, followed by the Toleration Act 1688, it reopened. Hugh Willoughby, 15th Baron Willoughby of Parham, was educated in early life at Taunton Dissenters' Academy. The Baptist Meeting became the Baptist New Meeting, registered in 1691 and rebuilt in 1721 as Mary Street Chapel.
Taunton Unitarian Chapel, dating from 1721, stands in Mary Street. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, while living at Nether Stowey 16 miles (26 km) away, came to the chapel to preach several times. Dr Malachi Blake, who founded the Taunton and Somerset Hospital in East Reach, Taunton, was also a preacher there, attending in 1809 a celebration of the 50th year of George the Third's reign. The chapel retains its original interior, including Flemish oak pillars in Corinthian style. The pews and pulpit are also in oak. There is an early 18th-century candelabra.
St George's, the town's Roman Catholic church, dates from the mid-19th century. It was the second Catholic church built in Taunton since the Reformation, replacing a smaller St George's Chapel. The main building is designated by English Heritage as a Grade II\* listed building, while the clergy house is Grade II listed.
## Culture
Taunton town centre has the Brewhouse Theatre. It closed in February 2013 due to financial difficulties, but reopened in April 2014 under the Taunton Theatre Association (TTA), which was granted the 61-year lease that Taunton Deane Borough Council had bought on the site and its contents from the administrator. Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre is a professional theatre based at Heathfield Community School, hosting touring theatre, dance and comedy, and productions by South West schools and colleges. Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre also runs community classes. The Creative Innovation Centre CIC has an arts and culture venue in the town centre.
Several concerts a year are held at Taunton's largest church, St Mary Magdalene. In recent years The Sixteen, The Tallis Scholars and Gabrieli Consort have all performed to full audiences. Taunton also has several choirs and orchestras that perform in the town's churches and school chapels. Many music and drama groups are members of the Taunton Association of Performing Arts (TAPA), which produces a diary and calendar of performances in and about the town.
Taunton has three radio stations: BBC Somerset, Tone FM and Apple FM.
Since 2001 Taunton has been the base of a domestic violence charity, the ManKind Initiative, to help male victims of domestic abuse.
### Cultural references
Taunton is mentioned in The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré, and Evelyn Waugh's Scoop. It was given the fictitious name "Toneborough" by Thomas Hardy.
## Sport
Taunton Rugby Football Club (RFC), based in Taunton, currently play in National League 1, having achieved back-to-back promotions in 2009 and 2010 and then again in 2020. It played at Priory Park Sports Ground from 1935 to 2001, before moving to the Commsplus Stadium.
The County Ground was originally home to Taunton Cricket Club, formed in 1829. It played at the County Ground until 1977, before moving to Moorfields, Taunton, in conjunction with Taunton Vale Hockey Club, since when the County Ground has been solely used by Somerset County Cricket Club (CCC). Somerset CCC was formed in 1875, but did not achieve first-class status until 1891. The County Ground has a capacity of 8,500; the ends are called the River End and the Marcus Trescothick Pavilion End. It is the current home of the England women's cricket team. The Somerset Cricket Museum is nearby.
Taunton Cricket Club has since 2002 been located at the new Taunton Vale Sports Club Ground in Staplegrove, which features two cricket fields. The Taunton Vale ground is also a regular home venue for Somerset's Second XI. Taunton Deane Cricket Club has a ground adjacent to Vivary Park, while Taunton St Andrews Cricket Club is based at the nearby Wyvern Sports and Social Club. All three clubs play in the West of England Premier League or one of its feeder leagues.
Taunton Town Football Club (FC) plays at Wordsworth Drive. An earlier Taunton Town FC played at Priory Park in the 1930s, however the current team was formed in 1947 by local businessmen as Taunton FC, changing to the current name in 1968, and played its first friendly fixture in 1948. For most of its history, Taunton belonged to the Western League. It spent a six-season spell in the Southern League from 1977, and after a further period in the Western League, returned to the Southern League in 2002, after winning the FA Vase in 2001. The club won the Division One South and West league title in 2017/18 and narrowly missed out on further promotion in 2018/19. The club went on to become the 2021/22 champions of the Southern League Premier Division South, securing promotion to the National League South for the first time in the club's history on 23 April 2022.
Somerset Vikings is a rugby league club formed in 2003 as part of the Rugby Football League's plans to develop the game beyond its traditional north-of-England areas. Initially the side was made up of a mixture of Royal Marines based in Taunton and Exeter with local rugby union players keen to try the 13-man code. It plays at Hyde Park, also home to Taunton RFC.
The Taunton Tigers is a semi-professional basketball team competing in the English Basketball League Men's Division 1. The team plays its home games at Wellsprings Leisure Centre, which seats 500.
Taunton Racecourse is close to the Blackdown Hills, about 2 miles (3 km) from the centre of Taunton. Although racing had been held in the area before, the first race at thi site was held on 21 September 1927. The Orchard Stand and Paddock Stand provide catering facilities and are used for meetings and conferences on days when racing is not taking place. Greyhound racing was held at the Priory Park Sports Ground and County Cricket ground in the past.
## Notable residents
The following were born or have lived in Taunton:
- Colin Addison (born 1940), professional footballer and manager born in Taunton
- Jenny Agutter (born 1952), actress born in Taunton
- Joseph Alleine (1634–1668), Nonconformist pastor and author
- William Larkins Bernard (1843–1922), architect born in Taunton
- Pattie Boyd (born 1944), actress and model; former wife of George Harrison, then Eric Clapton
- Jos Buttler (born 1990), England cricketer
- Carole Cadwalladr (born 1969), author and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist
- Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008), author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, educated at Huish school
- Matt Colton (born 1975), mastering engineer, studied in Taunton
- Deborah Criddle (born 1966), a Taunton-born para-equestrian winner of three golds at the Athens 2004 Summer Paralympics and three medals at the London 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. She currently lives in nearby Trull.
- John Crockford (c. 1823–1865), publisher
- William Crotch (1775–1847), composer and Principal of the Royal Academy of Music, is buried at Bishops Hull Church, Taunton.
- Stephen Daldry (born 1960), three times Academy Award nominee and Tony Award-winning stage and film director and producer
- Samuel Daniel (1562–1619) a poet, playwright and historian, born "near Taunton".
- Charles George Gordon (1833–1885), UK army general known as Gordon of Khartoum, attended the former Fullands School.
- Sir Benjamin Hammet (c. 1736–1800), businessman, banker and Taunton native, served as its MP in 1782–1800, and as High Sheriff of London. He was elected Lord Mayor of London in 1797 but declined to serve
- Antony Hewish (1924-2021), astronomer and Nobel Prize for Physics winner
- Rebecca Huxtable (born 1981), Taunton-born radio personality and producer, formerly co-producing The Scott Mills Show on BBC Radio 1
- Alexander William Kinglake (1809–1891), barrister, travel writer and historian, was born at Wilton House near Taunton.
- Scott Laird (born 1988), footballer with Scunthorpe United
- Jack Leach (born 1991), Somerset County Cricket Club and England cricketer
- Lee Martin (born 1987), Taunton-born footballer with Millwall F.C.
- Deborah Meaden (born 1959), Taunton-born business mogul, philanthropist and star of the TV series Dragons Den
- William Ellis Metford (1824–1899), Taunton-born engineer known for the Metford rifling in the .303 Lee-Metford service rifle of the late 19th century
- Ciara Michel (born 1985), member of Team GB Olympic volleyball squad, the first to play in the Olympic Games
- John Mole (born 1941), poet and jazz musician born in Taunton
- Frank Montague Moore (1877–1967), Taunton-born painter and first director of the Honolulu Museum of Art
- Alfred B. Mullett (1834–1890), architect to Abraham Lincoln, born in Taunton
- James Northcote (born 1987), actor and film producer, was a pupil of King's College, Taunton.
- Justin Pipe (born 1971), professional darts player
- James Purefoy (born 1964), Taunton-born actor, starred in the joint HBO/BBC series Rome.
- Viv Richards (born 1952), Antiguan-born West Indies cricketer resident in Taunton while playing for Somerset, 1974–1986
- Gary Rhodes (1960–2019), celebrated head chef at the Castle Hotel, Taunton, 1986–1990
- Andy Robinson (born 1964), Taunton-born England rugby union international and head coach, now head coach of Scotland
- Ivor Salter (1925-1991), actor, born in Taunton
- Miranda Shearer (born 1982), author born in Taunton, since resident in Spaxton, Over Stowey and Taunton
- Juno Temple (born 1989), actress
- Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard (1873–1956), Taunton-born military officer involved in founding the Royal Air Force
- Marcus Trescothick (born 1975), England cricketer, recipient of the Taunton Deane Citizenship Award in 2005
- Sir Charles Trevelyan, 1st Baronet (1807–1886), Governor of Madras, born in Taunton
- James Turle (1802–1882) an organist and composer.
- Phil Vickery (born 1961), celebrity chef
- Frederick Porter Wensley (1865–1949), chief constable of Scotland Yard CID, born in Taunton
- David Henry Wilson (born 1937), writer known for children's stories such as the Jeremy James'' series
- Jeremy Wright (born 1972), born in Taunton and attending Taunton School, became Attorney General for England and Wales and a Conservative MP
## Twinning
Taunton is twinned with:
- Lisieux, France – since 1951
- Königslutter, Germany – since 1992
- Taunton, Massachusetts, United States
## See also |
44,204,297 | Cutzinas | 1,171,474,601 | null | [
"563 deaths",
"6th-century Berber people",
"Berber monarchs",
"Berber rebels",
"Byzacena",
"Byzantine North Africa",
"Magistri militum",
"Rebellions against the Byzantine Empire",
"Tribal chiefs"
]
| Cutzinas or Koutzinas (Greek: Κουτζίνας) was a Berber tribal leader who played a major role in the wars of the East Roman or Byzantine Empire against the Berber tribes in Africa in the middle of the 6th century, fighting both against and for the Byzantines. A staunch Byzantine ally during the latter stages of the Berber rebellion, he remained an imperial vassal until his murder in 563 by the new Byzantine governor.
## Life
Cutzinas was of mixed stock: his father was a Berber, while his mother came from the Roman population of North Africa. Following the reconquest of North Africa by the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire in the Vandalic War (533–534), several uprisings by the native Berber tribes occurred in the North African provinces. Cutzinas is mentioned by the eyewitness historian Procopius of Caesarea as one of the leaders of the rebellion in the province of Byzacena, alongside Esdilasas, Medisinissas and Iourphouthes. In spring 535, however, the rebels were defeated by the Byzantine military commander Solomon in the battles of Mammes and Mount Bourgaon, and Cutzinas was forced to flee west to Mount Aurasium in Numidia, where he sought the protection of the local Berber ruler, Iaudas.
Cutzinas disappears from the record until 544, by which time, according to the epic poem Iohannis of the Roman African writer Flavius Cresconius Corippus, he was an ally of the Byzantines and a friend of Solomon. In that year, the Berber rebellion, suppressed by Solomon after his pacification of the tribes of Mount Aurasium in 540, flared up again in Tripolitania and quickly spread to Byzacena, where the Berbers rose up under the leadership of Antalas. This time, Cutzinas opposed the revolt, and brought his own people, the "Mastraciani" (the reading of the name is uncertain) on the side of the Byzantine military.
In 544, Solomon was killed in battle, and over the next year the Byzantine position in Africa crumbled before the rebels. In late 545, Cutzinas and Iaudas joined Antalas in a march against Carthage, the capital and main stronghold of the Byzantine government in Africa. Cutzinas secretly agreed with the Byzantine governor, Areobindus, to betray Antalas, when battle was joined; Areobindus, however, revealed this to Guntharis, a Byzantine commander who was in turn in contact with Antalas and planned to betray Areobindus himself. To gain time to prepare, Guntharis advised Areobindus to take Cutzinas' children hostage; in the event Guntharis launched an uprising in Carthage which the thoroughly unwarlike Areobindus failed to suppress, resulting in his execution and the usurpation of the governorship by Guntharis. After his plans were revealed by Guntharis to Antalas, Cutzinas changed sides once more and allied himself with Guntharis, giving his mother and son as hostages. Along with the Armenian commander Artabanes, he was sent to pursue Antalas, scoring a victory over the rebel forces near Hadrumetum.
In winter 546/7, when the new Byzantine governor and commander-in-chief, John Troglita, arrived in Africa, Cutzinas and his followers joined him, and participated in the expedition that saw the defeat and submission of Antalas. Shortly after, Cutzinas received the supreme Roman military rank of magister militum from Troglita. In the summer of 547 Cutzinas accompanied Troglita in his campaign against the Tripolitanian tribes under Carcasan. Before the Battle of Marta he advocated attacking the rebel forces, but the Byzantine army was heavily defeated by Carcasan and Antalas, who had once more risen in revolt. In the same winter, Cutzinas quarreled with another pro-Byzantine Berber leader, Ifisdaias. Their dispute threatened to spill over into open armed conflict, but the intervention of Troglita prevented this and the official John effected a reconciliation between the two.
In spring 548, he participated once more in Troglita's campaign, according to Corippus at the head of no less than 30,000 men, divided into units a thousand strong under a Berber dux each. This number possibly also includes Byzantine troops placed under Cutzinas' command as well. During the campaign, Cutzinas and the other Berber leaders were crucial in suppressing a near-mutiny of the Byzantine troops due to Antalas' scorched earth strategy. The Berbers' steadfast support enabled Troglita to overcome the crisis and lead his army against the forces of Carcasan and Antalas. Cutzinas fought in the ensuing Battle of the Fields of Cato, which was a decisive Byzantine victory: Carcasan fell, and the Berber revolt was crushed as Antalas and the surviving leaders submitted to Troglita.
After this, Cutzinas remained as a vassal chieftain, receiving regular pay from the Byzantine authorities. In January 563, however, the new prefect of Africa, John Rogathinus, refused to hand over the money and had Cutzinas murdered, prompting an uprising from the latter's children.
## See also
- Battle of Mammes
- Moorish wars
- Family tree of Byzantine emperors
- History of the Byzantine Empire |
9,748,709 | Hayrick Butte | 1,150,082,713 | Mountain in United States of America | [
"Buttes of Oregon",
"Cascade Range",
"Cascade Volcanoes",
"Mountains of Linn County, Oregon",
"Mountains of Oregon",
"Pleistocene lava domes",
"Subduction volcanoes",
"Tuyas of the United States",
"Volcanoes of Linn County, Oregon",
"Volcanoes of Oregon",
"Volcanoes of the United States"
]
| Hayrick Butte is a tuya, a type of subglacial volcano, in Linn County, Oregon. Located in the Willamette National Forest near Santiam Pass, it lies adjacent to the cinder cone Hoodoo Butte, which has a ski area. Hayrick Butte likely formed when lava erupted underneath an overlying glacier or ice sheet, producing the flat top with near-vertical walls along the ice-contact margin as the lava cooled and hardened. Hayrick Butte has a nearly flat plateau about 0.5 miles (0.80 km) across and steep walls rising about 700 feet (0.21 km) above its surroundings. A cartographer accidentally switched the names for nearby Hoodoo Butte and Hayrick Butte; the word "hoodoo" usually refers to rock piles and pinnacles like those observed at Hayrick Butte.
Compared to Hoodoo, Hayrick is less popular for recreation, though it can be climbed, and there are hiking, snowshoeing, and snowmobile routes surrounding the butte. Its north-facing slope has subalpine forests with mountain hemlock and fir, which are common in the Cascades.
## Geography
Hayrick Butte is located in Linn County in the U. S. state of Oregon. Close to Santiam Pass, it forms part of the United States Geological Survey topographic map for the Three Fingered Jack volcano. Hayrick Butte lies south of Three Fingered Jack near Hoodoo Butte, Sand Mountain Field, Potato Butte, and Black Butte, with Belknap Crater and Mount Washington further to the south. It is also within the McKenzie Ranger District of the Willamette National Forest. According to the Geographic Names Information System, Hayrick Butte has an elevation of 5,482 feet (1,671 m); in 1980, the Willamette National Forest Gazetteer listed its elevation as 5,575 feet (1,699 m). The butte has a width of about 0.5 miles (0.80 km).
Hayrick Butte is located next to the Hoodoo ski area. In response to a new master plan at the Hoodoo Ski Bowl in 1995, the United States Forest Service released a draft environmental impact statement for the surroundings. The Forest Service argued that development at Hoodoo Butte and Hayrick Butte would require excavating and/or blasting 20,000 to 28,000 cubic yards (15,000 to 21,000 m<sup>3</sup>) of soil and rock on Hayrick Butte, which would potentially exacerbate erosion of local soil. The removal of this soil and rock would also substantially limit future revegetation, further reducing soil productivity in the area. The Forest Service statement also asserted that development of new trails would not lead to significant "scenic resource effects," and that any "landform modification" from a proposed snow play area would only have moderate and short-term effects.
## Ecology
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife determined in the early 1990s that there was potential for peregrine falcon nests at Hayrick Butte, though it was considered low-quality habitat because of its lack of suitable ledges and high amounts of human disturbance. According to a 2003 paper, Hayrick Butte has a rich forest on its steep, north-facing slope with mountain hemlock and mature fir trees at an elevation of 5,090 feet (1,550 m). Oroboreal subalpine forests like these usually occur above elevations of 4,900 feet (1,500 m) in the Cascades, in areas with cool, wet climates. Mean precipitation for these zones ranges from 1,500 to 3,000 millimetres (59 to 118 in), with cool summers and cold, snowy winters. Dense forests are less common at higher elevations, switching to patchy forest stands separated from each other by shrubs or meadows.
## Geology
North Sister (of the Three Sisters volcano complex) and Mount Washington mark isolated volcanic centers among the highly mafic (rich in magnesium and iron) platform of the central High Cascade arc. About 4.5 million years ago, eruption of mafic lava filled a subsiding Pliocene depression, creating the modern, mafic High Cascades. Compared to the eruptive products at and near North Sister, lava deposits at Mount Washington have a greater abundance of incompatible elements (elements unsuitable in size and/or charge to the cation sites of the minerals of which it is included.) The nearby lava dome and tuya (subglacial volcano) Hogg Rock shows more similarity to the basaltic andesite deposits at North Sister, which are poorly enriched in incompatible elements. The part of the High Cascades that extends south from Mount Jefferson to Santiam Pass includes shield volcanoes, lava domes, and cinder cones. The high elevation of Matuyama-aged rocks east of Santiam Pass, coupled with exposure of Brunhes-aged rocks to the west, imply the presence of a northward-trending normal fault.
Hayrick Butte is of late Pleistocene age. Like Hogg Rock, Hayrick Butte is an andesite lava dome with a flat top, suggesting that it is also a tuya, or a subglacial volcano. Both volcanic features have been eroded by glaciation, leaving glassy margins and jointing. Both Hayrick Butte and Hogg Rock produced porphyritic andesite lava with plagioclase and orthopyroxene and trace levels of phenocrysts with olivine. Hayrick Butte also served as a barrier for Hoodoo Butte during the Pleistocene glaciation, blocking the advancement of glacial ice from eroding Hoodoo's summit crater.
Most lava domes in the Cascades occur in clusters or surrounding just a few major volcanic centers. There are roughly 190 known domes in the state of Oregon, with 40 located near Mount Jefferson, 22 near the Tumalo volcanic highland, 28 near the Three Sisters, and close to 60 surrounding Mount Mazama. Hayrick Butte, however, is more isolated from other volcanoes. Hayrick Butte, along with Benchmark Butte, formed more than 12 miles (20 km) from any major stratovolcano. Hildreth (2007) likewise writes that Hayrick is "clearly separated from major clusters or evolved centers."
Hayrick Butte has a normal magnetic polarity. Like Hogg Rock and other andesite lava domes in the area, it has lower incompatible element abundances than surrounding andesitic rock deposits. A 1992 element abundance analysis of Hayrick Butte andesite samples from the margin of the volcano shows a silicon dioxide (silica) level of 60.1 percent, aluminum oxide level of 18.4 percent, calcium oxide level of 6.24 percent, iron(II) oxide level of 5.55 percent, and sodium oxide level of 4.42 percent. Magnesium oxide made up 3.3 percent of the samples, with potassium oxide levels at 1.08 percent and manganese(II) oxide, phosphorus pentoxide, and titanium dioxide all below 1 percent. Additional studies from 1980 and 1983 exhibit similar levels of silica in samples from Hogg Rock and Hayrick Butte at about 59 to 60 percent.
## Human history
According to cartographer Stuart Allen, an early cartographer accidentally switched the names for nearby Hoodoo Butte and Hayrick Butte. The word "hoodoo" refers to rock piles and pinnacles like those observed at Hayrick Butte, while "hayrick" is a synonym for haystack, a more fitting name for Hoodoo Butte, which has a profile that resembles a haystack shape. Whether or not this error actually occurred remains unclear, but the names remain to present day.
## Recreation
The Obsidian Climb School and Eugene Mountain Rescue offer climbing classes and field sessions at Hayrick Butte. A backcountry, snowshoeing trail runs for 4 miles (6.4 km) from the Hoodoo ski area, rising about 200 feet (61 m) in elevation over its course. The route travels between Hayrick and Hoodoo Butte, offering views of Mount Washington. There is an avalanche hazard near Hayrick's base. An old roadbed next to the trail travels up Hoodoo Butte to the Hoodoo Butte Plateau and the butte's summit, where a historic fire cleared many trees. There are snowmobile routes down the old Santiam Pass Wagon Road to the south and Forest Road 2690 to the east, as well as a geocache at Hayrick's summit. Markian Hawryluk of The Bulletin in Bend described Hayrick as "antisocial" compared to the "family-friendly ski area" of Hoodoo Butte, citing its 700-foot (210 m) tall, nearly vertical walls. The tuya is also surrounded by cliffs. William Sullivan of The Register-Guard wrote that Hayrick offered "breathtaking views" of Mount Jefferson, Big Lake, Hoodoo Butte, Mount Washington, and Black Butte. Hayrick Butte is also visible from the 6.9-mile (11.1 km) Patjens Lake Loop trail near Santiam Pass. |
48,727,061 | Clementine cake | 1,143,348,056 | Cake flavored primarily with clementines. | [
"Cakes",
"Citrus dishes",
"Sephardi Jewish cuisine"
]
| Clementine cake is a cake flavored primarily with clementines. It may be topped with a sweet glaze or sauce, powdered sugar, honey and clementines, or candied clementines. It may originate from an orange cake in Sephardic cuisine. In popular culture, the cake played a minor part in the plot of the 2013 film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
## Preparation and variations
Clementine cake is prepared with clementines, ground almonds or almond meal, flour, sugar, butter and eggs. Optional ingredients include orange juice, orange muscat, milk, white dessert wine, or Riesling wine, orange oil or tangerine oil (or both), almond extract and vanilla extract. Some variations exist, such as being prepared without the use of flour. It can also be prepared as an upside-down cake.
The cake can be prepared with clementines and/or clementine zest mixed in the batter, with them atop the cake, such as in slices, and in both ways. The seeds and membrane of the clementine can be removed as part of the preparation process, or seedless clementines can be used. Whole, sliced clementines including the peel, or peeled clementines can be used, and the clementines can be cooked before being used in the cake batter. The fruit can be chopped or blended using a food processor. Candied clementines can be used atop the cake or as a garnish. The almonds used can be toasted or blanched.
Clementine cake can be finished with a sweet topping such as a sugar or chocolate glaze, a fudge or chocolate sauce, powdered sugar or honey. Clementine cake may be dense and moist, and its flavor may improve a day or more after preparation, because the ingredients intermingle and coalesce to enhance its flavor as it ages. After being cooked, the cake may be delicate and can fall if it is wiggled too much. After preparation, it can be frozen to preserve it.
## History
Clementine cake is probably related to a Sephardic orange cake. Sephardic Jews popularized citrus cultivation in the Mediterranean region in the 15th century and popularized the use of orange in baked goods. In addition to its Iberian flavors, the cake also has North African and Spanish roots.
## In popular culture
Clementine cake played a minor part in the plot of the 2013 film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and was included in the opening scene of the film and in a couple of additional scenes.
British celebrity chef Nigella Lawson has devised a recipe for clementine cake.
## See also
- Fruitcake
- List of cakes
- List of desserts
- List of fruit dishes |
58,171,807 | Typhoon Ofelia | 1,145,088,691 | Pacific typhoon in 1990 | [
"1990 Pacific typhoon season",
"1990 disasters in China",
"1990 disasters in the Philippines",
"Typhoons",
"Typhoons in the Philippines"
]
| Typhoon Ofelia, known as Typhoon Bising in the Philippines, was the first of two typhoons in 1990 to directly affect the Philippines within a week. Typhoon Ofelia originated from an area of disturbed weather embedded in the monsoon trough situated near the Caroline Islands. Slowly organizing, the disturbance tracked westward, and was designated a tropical depression on June 15. After an increase in convection, the depression was upgraded into a tropical storm on June 17. On June 19, Ofelia turned northwest and after development of a central dense overcast, Ofelia was upgraded into a typhoon late on June 20. After turning north, Ofelia obtained its maximum intensity following the development of an eye. The typhoon skirted past the northeastern tip of Luzon and near the east coast of Taiwan, commencing a rapid weakening trend. On the evening on June 23, Ofelia struck the southern portion of Zhejiang. The storm then began to track north, recurving towards the Korean Peninsula. The storm tracked through the province of Jiangsu, and at 00:00 UTC on June 24, transitioned into an extratropical cyclone, only to merge with a frontal zone on June 25.
Although the inner core avoided the Philippines, the storm's large size resulted in inundation across the northern Philippines. The province of La Union was the hardest hit by the typhoon, where 22 people were killed and 90 homes were crushed. Three children perished and six others sustained injuries in Pasig. Overall, 56 people were killed and over 85,000 individuals were forced to flee their homes. Taiwan bore a direct landfall from Ofelia, dropping up to 460 mm (18 in) of rain. Hualien City was the hardest hit by the typhoon, where five people were killed. In all, Ofelia was the worst to hit eastern Taiwan in 30 years. More than 200 houses were destroyed or damaged and roughly 8,500 hectares (21,000 acres) of rice paddies and vegetables were flooded. Roads and highways were blocked by landslides and floods. Agricultural losses exceeded NT\$2.55 billion (US\$94.7 million). Seventeen people died and twenty-three were missing due to flooding and mudslides. Although during a weakening phase at the time, the typhoon drenched central China. In Wenzhou, 12 people were killed and monetary damage was estimated at 205 million RMB (US\$42.8 million). In the province of Zhejiang, 15 fatalities were reported and 21 others were injured. In the neighboring province of Fujian, 15 people perished and 9,044 houses were demolished. About 91,000 hectares (220,000 acres) of farmland were inundated and damage was estimated at 338 million RMB (US\$70.5 million). Nationwide, 40 people were killed by Ofelia.
## Meteorological history
Typhoon Ofelia, the third typhoon of the season and first of June, originated from the monsoon trough situated near the Caroline Islands. On the morning of June 15, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) began to track an area of persistent convection with winds of 30 km/h (20 mph). Eighteen hours later the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) upgraded the system into a tropical depression. Initially, the depression tracked westward along the periphery of a subtropical ridge and in an environment of high wind shear that slowed the rate of organization. Following an increase in convection and curved banding features and an improvement in outflow, the JTWC issued a tropical cyclone formation alert for the system on the morning of June 17. An increase in organization warranted the JTWC to classify the system as a tropical depression at noon that day. At the time, the depression was located roughly 390 km (240 mi) west of Yap. At 18:00 UTC on June 17, the JMA opted to upgrade the depression into a tropical storm. Based on a Dvorak intensity estimate of T2.5/65 km/h (40 mph), the JTWC upgraded the depression into a tropical storm at 00:00 UTC on June 18.
Initially, the JTWC forecast Ofelia to move generally westward because many tropical cyclone forecast models showed a strong ridge to its north. Instead Ofelia slowed down and turned northwest on June 19 due to a surge in the southwesterly monsoon trough. Ofelia gradually deepened, and by 00:00 UTC on June 20, the JMA elected to upgrade Ofelia into a severe tropical storm. Following the development of a central dense overcast, Ofelia was upgraded into a typhoon by the JTWC late on June 20, even though satellite intensity estimates from the JMA suggested that Ofelia was a little weaker, with winds of 115 km/h (70 mph). Intensifying at a slower than climatological pace, Ofelia continued northwest as it rounded a subtropical ridge. On June 22, Ofelia began to turn north. At 18:00 UTC on June 22, the JMA upgraded Ofelia into a typhoon, while also estimating that the storm reached its maximum intensity of 120 km/h (75 mph) and a minimum central barometric pressure of 970 mbar (29 inHg). At this time, the JTWC reported that Ofelia reached its peak intensity of 170 km/h (105 mph); the basis for the estimate was a Dvorak classification of T5.0 and the appearance of an eye on weather satellite imagery.
The typhoon skirted past the northeastern tip of Luzon near peak intensity. It then turned northward, striking the east coast of Taiwan. Rapid weakening commenced due to land interaction, and at noon on June 23, the JMA lowered Ofelia to below typhoon strength, with the JTWC doing the same six hours later. Late on June 23, Ofelia struck the southern portion of Zhejiang. The storm then began to turn north and eventually recurve towards the Korean Peninsula. The storm tracked through the province of Jiangsu, and at 00:00 UTC on June 24 the JMA declared Ofelia an extratropical cyclone. According to the JTWC, however, this did not take place until 00:00 UTC on June 25 when the system moved offshore and merged with a frontal zone.
## Preparations, impact, and aftermath
### Philippines
Despite remaining offshore northern Luzon, the storm's broad circulation enhanced the southwest monsoon that inundated much of the northern Philippines. Due to the impeding threat of Ofelia, authorities issued storm warnings for 13 provinces. Offshore, small craft advisories were issued. All storm warnings were discontinued on June 23 as the storm moved away.
The province of La Union was the hardest hit by the typhoon. There, 22 people were killed, including a 60-year-old man and a child that were killed via a landslide in Caba, where 90 homes were destroyed. Throughout the province damage totaled P20 million (US\$833,000). In Pangasinan, west of La Union, two people were electrocuted. Three children died and six others suffered injuries in their homes due to heavy rains in Pasig. A 4-year-old girl died in a landslide in the mountain resort city of Baguio. Philippine Airlines cancelled five domestic flights to and from Manila while schools were closed in the capital and other affected areas. Storm surge toppled a seawall there and much of the city lost power. Offshore Manila, Provider and the Kootenay were stranded and necessitated rescue. Well to the south of Manila, lightning killed two people in Lanao del Sur. In all, 56 people were killed and 14 others were wounded in the country. Moreover, 270 homes were destroyed and over 2,000 were damaged. A total of 85,000 individuals were forced to flee their homes as a result of flooding.
In response to the storm, the Philippine Red Cross ordered its chapters to provide relief to affected areas. Furthermore, the agency provided 200 sacks of goods, 100 cartons of sardines, and 200 cartons of rice. A few days after Ofelia, Typhoon Percy passed through the country.
### Taiwan
Taiwan, on the other hand, took a direct hit from Ofelia, with floodwater levels reaching 1 m (3.3 ft) in some places. According to media reports, the storm was the worst to impact eastern Taiwan in 30 years, dropping up to 46 cm (18 in) of rain in a 24-hour time span, although damage was slight elsewhere. Six people were killed, including five in drownings, and thirty were injured in Hualien City, which was hardest hit by the typhoon. There, a dike was destroyed, causing 500 individuals to be stranded. Much of the area lost electricity, water and telephone service and crop damage amounted to US\$5 million. In nearby villages, four people were deemed missing and eight others were wounded. In the harbor of Hualien, a 10,900-metric-ton (12,000-short-ton) freighter, Cahaya, broke into three sections, though all 24 crewmen were unharmed. In addition, a 7,000-metric-ton (7,700-short-ton) freighter, Juliana, ran aground. All 28 sailors aboard were rescued, but three of them sustained minor injuries. Overall, more than 30 people required rescue during the course of the typhoon. All domestic flights were cancelled in Taiwan during the passage of the typhoon. Nationwide, over 200 houses were destroyed or damaged and about 8,500 ha (21,005 acres) of rice paddies and vegetables were flooded. Roads and highways were blocked by landslides and floods. Agricultural losses exceeded NT\$2.55 billion (US\$94.7 million). Seventeen people died and twenty-three were deemed missing in the ensuing flooding and mudslides.
### China
After battering the Philippines and Taiwan, the typhoon dropped 100 mm (3.9 in) of precipitation in parts of central China. Across Wenzhou, 12 people were killed. There, about 21,000 ha (51,890 acres) of farmland and over 800 ha (1,975 acres) of shrimp ponds were flooded. A total of 215 homes received damage and 220 boats were swamped. Monetary damage was estimated at 205 million RMB (US\$42.8 million). Elsewhere, an elderly woman was crushed under a collapsing wall in Shanghai. In Zhejiang, 1,696 boats were capsized, 3,700 homes were demolished, and 50 mi (80 km) of levees were destroyed. Throughout the province, 15 people were killed and 21 people were injured. In the neighboring province of Fujian, at least 15 people perished and 9,044 houses were demolished. About 91,000 ha (224,865 acres) of farmland were inundated and damage was estimated at 338 million RMB (US\$94.7 million). Overall, 56 people were killed and 148 were injured in the country.
## See also
- Typhoon Irma (1985)
- Typhoon Matmo (2014) |
76,528 | Order of the Arrow | 1,171,617,426 | Boy Scouts of America honor society | [
"Boy Scouts of America",
"Honor societies",
"Native American cultural appropriation",
"Order of the Arrow",
"Youth organizations established in 1915"
]
| The Order of the Arrow (OA) is the honor society of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), composed of Scouts and Scouters who best exemplify the Scout Oath and Law in their daily lives as elected by their peers. The society was created by E. Urner Goodman, with the assistance of Carroll A. Edson, in 1915 as a means of reinforcing the Scout Oath and the Scout Law. It uses imagery commonly associated with American Indian cultures for its self-invented ceremonies. These ceremonies are usually for recognition of leadership qualities, camping skills, and other scouting ideals as exemplified by their elected peers.
Influenced by Scout camp customs, the OA uses "safeguarded" (privy only to members and legitimately interested adults) symbols, handshakes, and private rituals to impart a sense of community. Native Americans have criticized the OA's various symbols and "rituals" as cultural appropriation based on non-Native stereotypes of American Indians.
Inducted members, known as Arrowmen or Brothers (regardless of gender; as BSA and its programs are open to all genders), are organized into local youth-led lodges that harbor fellowship, promote camping, and render service to Boy Scout councils and their communities. Each lodge corresponds to a BSA council in the area. Lodges are further broken down into chapters, which correspond to a district in scouting. Members wear identifying insignia on their uniforms, most notably the OA pocket flap that represents their individual OA lodge and the OA sash worn at official OA functions. The OA program sponsors several events, awards, and training functions.
## History
### Founding and development
In 1915, E. Urner Goodman, a newly hired field executive for the Philadelphia Council, was assigned to serve as director of the council's summer camp at Treasure Island Scout Reservation on the Delaware River. He believed that the summer camp experience should do more than just teach proficiency in Scoutcraft skills; rather, the principles embodied in the Scout Oath and Scout Law should become realities in the lives of Scouts. Along with his assistant camp director, Carroll A. Edson, he started an experimental honor society to acknowledge those campers he felt best exemplified these qualities, calling the program, Wimachtendienk, or "Brotherhood" in one of the Lenape dialects. The full original name for the organization was Wimachtendienk Wingolauchsik Witahemui (Brotherhood of Those Who Serve Cheerfully). It is still referred to via the inclusion of the letters "W W W" on most lodge patches.
Goodman and Edson decided that a "camp fraternity" was the way to improve the summer camp experience and to encourage older Scouts to continue attending Scout summer camp. In developing this program they borrowed from the traditions and practices of several other organizations. Edward Cave's Boy's Camp Book (1914) was consulted for the concept of a camp society that would perpetuate camp traditions. College fraternities were also influential for their concepts of brotherhood and rituals, and the idea of new members pledging themselves to the new organization. Inspired by Ernest Thompson Seton's previous Woodcraft Indians program, American Indian motifs were used to make the organization interesting and appealing to youth. Other influences include the Brotherhood of Andrew and Phillip, a Presbyterian church youth group with which Goodman had been involved as a young man, and Freemasonry.
The traditions and rituals of Freemasonry contributed more to the basic structure of the OA ritual than any other organization. In fact, there appears to be no known fraternal organization more faithful in form to Freemasonry than the OA. Familiar terms such as "lodge" and "obligation" were borrowed from Masonic practice, as were most of the ceremonial structures and ritual formulae. Even the early national meeting was called a "Grand Lodge," a Masonic reference.
Goodman and Edson ultimately devised a program where troops chose, at the summer camp's conclusion, those boys from among their number who they felt best exemplified the ideals of Scouting. Those elected were acknowledged as having displayed, in the eyes of their fellow Scouts, a spirit of unselfish service and brotherhood. Edson and Goodman said they "based the OA's lore and ceremonies on the lore of the Lenni Lenape Indians who had occupied Treasure Island in earlier times" and based the group's structure "on a loose interpretation of Hiawatha and Last of the Mohicans", both popular works of fiction by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Fenimore Cooper, respectively. The Scouts considered this move a success, and went on to repeat this pattern the following summer at Treasure Island. Those Scouts honored at Treasure Island in 1915 and 1916 would become members of what is now Unami Lodge.
By 1921, Goodman had spoken to Scout leaders in surrounding states about their honor society, which resulted in multiple lodges being established by Scout councils in the northeastern United States. The name of the society was then changed to Order of the Arrow, and in October 1921, Goodman convened the first national meeting of what at that time was called the "National Lodge of the Order of the Arrow" in Philadelphia—where Goodman was elected as Grand Chieftain. Committees were organized to formulate a constitution, refine ceremonial rituals, devise insignia, and plan future development.
In the early 1920s, many Scout executives were skeptical of what they called "secret camp fraternities." By September 1922, opposition to the Order of the Arrow was such that a formal resolution opposing "camp fraternities" was proposed at a national meeting of Scout executives. Goodman argued against the motion: "Using the Scout ideals as our great objective", he said, a camp activity that will "further the advancement of those ideals" should not be suppressed. The motion was narrowly defeated, and the fledgling Order continued as an experimental program throughout the 1920s and 1930s. In 1931, there were OA lodges in 7 percent of BSA councils nationwide. By 1948, about two-thirds of the BSA's councils had established OA lodges. That year, the OA was also integrated as an official part of the Scouting program.
### 21st century
Over the century since the Order of the Arrow's founding, more than one million Scouts and Scouters have worn the OA sash on their uniforms, denoting membership in the Brotherhood. The four stated purposes of the Order of the Arrow are: "(1) Recognize those who best exemplify the Scout Oath and Law in their daily lives and through that recognition cause others to conduct themselves in a way that warrants similar recognition; (2) Promote camping, responsible outdoor adventure, and environmental stewardship as essential components of every Scout’s experience, in the unit, year-round, and in summer camp; (3) Develop leaders with the willingness, character, spirit and ability to advance the activities of their units, our Brotherhood, Scouting, and ultimately our nation; and (4) Crystallize the Scout habit of helpfulness into a life purpose of leadership in cheerful service to others.
In a new program of national service conducted from June through August 2008, the OA offered ArrowCorps<sup>5</sup> to both youth and adult Arrowmen. Described as "one of the largest conservation efforts in Scouting's history" by the Boy Scouts of America, approximately 3,500 Arrowmen converged on five national forests to work on various conservation projects such as building new trails and helping preserve nearly extinct species, as well as removing invasive species, in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service. The five national forests are: Mark Twain National Forest, Manti-La Sal National Forest, George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, Shasta-Trinity National Forest and Bridger-Teton National Forest.
With the introduction of the Scouts BSA program on February 1, 2019, unit elections are now permitted in Scouts BSA, Venturing and Sea Scouting units.
## Membership
More than 160,000 youth and adults are members of the Order of the Arrow. Unit elections of the OA are allowed in Scouts BSA, Venturing, and Sea Scout units. To be eligible for induction, a youth must have spent at least 15 days and nights camping within the last two years including one long-term camp consisting of at least five consecutive nights, be under the age of 21, hold the Scouts BSA First Class rank, the Venturing Discovery Award, or the Sea Scout Ordinary rank or higher, be approved by their unit leader and be elected by the youth members of their unit.
Adults age 21 or older may be nominated after meeting the camping requirements and being approved by the lodge adult selection committee.
Honorary membership was once bestowed in special circumstances, as with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower, but this practice was officially discontinued in 1953.
### Ordeal
After being elected or nominated, candidates may participate in a call-out ceremony to recognize those Scouts and Scouters that were selected before they attend their Ordeal. The call-out ceremony may be performed at summer camp, a camporee, a call-out weekend or at a unit meeting. Candidates subsequently participate in an Ordeal, intended to emphasize service and selflessness. During the induction, "candidates maintain complete silence, receive small amounts of food, work on camp improvement projects, and are required to sleep alone, apart from other campers, which teaches significant values." If they succeed in their ordeal the candidates are then welcomed as Ordeal members in a formal Ordeal Ceremony.
### Brotherhood
Ordeal members are entitled to all the same rights and privileges of membership in the Order as Brotherhood and Vigil Honor members—there are no ranks within the Order. However, moving on to Brotherhood membership offers an opportunity to reaffirm one's commitment to the Order. Arrowmen may "seal" their membership after six months by demonstrating their knowledge of the traditions and obligations of the OA. They then participate in an induction ceremony and become Brotherhood members.
While the Ordeal consists primarily of physical impressions, "the Brotherhood ceremony is one of the deeper and quieter mental impressions."
### Vigil Honor
The Vigil Honor is a recognition given to Arrowmen for distinguished contributions beyond the immediate responsibilities of their position or office to their lodge, the Order of the Arrow, Scouting, or their Scout Camp. The Vigil Honor may be conferred upon Arrowmen who have completed a minimum of two years as a Brotherhood member and have performed exceptional service above and beyond their immediate responsibilities through leadership, exemplary efforts, and dedication. However, under no circumstances should tenure in Scouting or the Order of the Arrow be considered as reason enough for a Vigil Honor recommendation. Selection is annual and is limited to one person for every 50 members of the lodge, and members of the Order can be inducted into the Vigil Honor only with the written approval of the National Order of the Arrow Committee.
As a part of the Vigil Honor induction, each new Vigil Honor member is given a Vigil Honor name in the language of the Lenni Lenape or the language of their local Lodge. An English translation of the Vigil Honor name is also provided, and the name often represents a characteristic of the individual.
## Organization
The Order of the Arrow places great emphasis on being a youth-led organization. Only youth under the age 21 are voting members and are eligible to hold elected offices. Professional and volunteer adults are appointed to non-voting advisory positions at the chapter, lodge, and section levels.
The smallest level of organization in the Order of the Arrow is the chapter. The chapter is usually corresponding to a district in the local council. The chapter is led by the elected youth chapter chief, chapter vice chiefs, secretary, and a volunteer adult is appointed as the adviser, the district executive is the professional (staff) adviser. The chapters often hold monthly or weekly meetings together. The next largest unit of the OA is the lodge, which is chartered by a local BSA council. The lodge chief is the elected youth leader, the lodge adviser is a BSA adult volunteer appointed by the Scout Executive, and the lodge staff adviser is the council Scout executive or his designated council professional Scouter. The lodge youth officers, consisting of the lodge chief, one or more vice chiefs, a secretary, and a treasurer are responsible for organizing and leading the various programs and activities of the lodge. Many lodges have standing committees responsible for ceremonies, service projects, publications, unit elections, camp promotions, and dance teams composed of youth members.
Lodges are grouped into sections that are then grouped into regions. The section chief is the elected youth leader, a volunteer adult is appointed as the section adviser, and the area director (or his designate) is the professional (staff) adviser. In addition to the section chief, the section has two additional elected officers. The vice chief and secretary are elected immediately following the election of the section chief at the section's annual business meeting. All sections gather annually at a section conclave held in the late spring or early fall. It is the main duty of the section officers to lead the planning of this weekend with the help of the lodge chiefs in the section.
Like the Boy Scouts of America's Areas, The Order of the Arrow was formerly organized into four regions, Central, Southern, Northeast and Western Region; the boundaries of each OA region correspond with the boundaries of the BSA's regions. As of 2021, following the Boy Scouts of America's restructuring of these areas, the OA changed their region boundaries, now having only two. Each region has an elected region chief, a volunteer adult who is appointed as the region chairman to oversee its region Committee, and an appointed professional (staff) adviser, forming a 'Key Three' much like the Lodge and chapter system described above. Each region chief is elected at the national planning meeting the day after the election of the national chief and vice chief by a caucus of the section chiefs from the given region. The members of the region committee consist of the region chief, the region chair, all national committee members from the region, and other appointed adult volunteers. Each region annually has a gathering of all section officers and advisers. As a region, they are trained in topics relevant to their jobs. Each region also provides opportunities for Order of the Arrow members to go through a National Leadership Seminar. This weekend course is highly rated and a lasting memory for many members.
The national chief and the national vice chief are selected by a caucus of the section chiefs at the outset of the Order of the Arrow's national planning meeting. At the national level, the OA is headed by the National Order of the Arrow committee of which the national chief and national vice chief are voting members.The national adult leadership includes the volunteer national chairman and the OA director, a professional Scouter.
## Symbols
OA membership and Lodge affiliation are indicated by the wearing of the lodge emblem (commonly known as a lodge flap), an embroidered patch is worn on the right pocket flap of the uniform shirt. Each lodge flap has a unique design, generally reflecting the name, geography or history of the lodge. Part of this is a totem that represents the lodge. Special issues of flaps may be created to commemorate anniversaries and other events and are a popular item for those who engage in Scouting memorabilia collecting. At formal events or Order of the Arrow functions, Arrowmen can be readily identified by a white sash bearing a red arrow that is worn over their right shoulder. An Ordeal member wears a sash with a lone arrow. The Brotherhood member wears a sash bearing an arrow with a red bar at each end of the arrow. A Vigil Honor member wears a sash with the same bars of as the Brotherhood sash at each end of the arrow, and a Vigil Honor triangle on the center of the shaft. The OA sash is not worn at the same time as the merit badge sash, nor worn folded in the belt. The sash as a form of recognition dates to the founding of the Order and has a long history of changes in usage and design.
Arrowmen also exchange a special handshake as a token of brotherhood, along with other signs and passwords. A signature acronym, WWW (Wimachtendienk Wingolauchsik Witahemui – Brotherhood of Cheerful Service), is often depicted in publications, regalia, etc.
Additionally, Order members may choose to wear the OA Universal Ribbon suspended from the right uniform shirt pocket button.
## Ceremonies
Order of the Arrow ceremonies were once considered to be secret, and consequently, the OA has been viewed by some as a secret society. With the introduction of Youth Protection program guidelines in 1980s, the BSA has made clear that any concerned parent, guardian, or religious leader may view a video of the ceremonies, attend meetings, or read ceremonial texts upon request to a council, district, lodge, or chapter official to assure themselves that there is nothing objectionable. Such persons are asked to safeguard (conceal) the details relating to ceremonies for the sake of the participants. The intent of the provision for parents and religious leaders to be allowed access to ceremonies is to ensure that there is no religious conflict or violations of youth protection guidelines occurring. Parents have long been discouraged in many Lodges from seizing the opportunity to use the provision for photo opportunities with their sons, and some lodges have instituted bans on photography during the ceremonies. Hazing or demeaning initiation pranks are also prohibited by the OA and the BSA.
The ceremonies utilize symbolic settings, rites, and principles to convey various Scouting ideals to participants. "The values of the Order of the Arrow, 'a brotherhood of cheerful service,' were passed on during a night-time ceremony: an arrowhead outlined with stones on the ground, candles on the stones, a huge bonfire at the base of the arrowhead, and at the point of the arrow a lectern from which was read, and danced, the story of heroic sacrifice for others." Ceremonies also utilize the OA song, commonly referred to by its first line of lyrics as "Firm Bound in Brotherhood", and titled "Order of the Arrow Official Song" and "The Order of the Arrow Song" in the printed music score of official OA publications. It was written in 1921 by OA founder E. Urner Goodman to the Russian hymn tune "God Save the Tsar!", composed by Alexei Lvov in the 19th century.
## Awards
Awards are separate and distinct from the membership levels of Ordeal and Brotherhood. Awards available through the Order of the Arrow include: Vigil Honor, Founder's Award, Distinguished Service Award, Lifetime Achievement Award, Red Arrow Award, E. Urner Goodman Camping Award.
## Events
The national OA committee also sponsors various national service opportunities, the oldest of which is the National OA Service Corps at the national Scout jamborees, at which Arrowmen have helped with many functions including shows and the Outdoor Adventure Program exhibit.
### High Adventure Program
The Order of the Arrow sponsors service groups to the four National High Adventure Bases that focus on conservation. Inspired by three gentlemen, Edward Pease, Eugene "Gene" Schnell and Marty Tschetter who gathered at a leadership summit at Philmont Scout Ranch in 1979, the Order of the Arrow High Adventure program was established. Originally starting with the Order of the Arrow Trail Crew at the Philmont Scout Ranch working to build new trails and repair old ones. This expanded to the Northern Tier National High Adventure Bases with the OA Wilderness Voyage, repairing the portage trails in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and then to Florida National High Adventure Sea Base in 2005 with Ocean Adventure, which works to remove invasive species on some of the Keys and promoting and carrying out of the Bleach watch program in the Florida Keys. After the addition of the third High Adventure Base, the Order of the Arrow implemented the OA Triple Crown Award in the summer of 2009, the OA began the OA Canadian Odyssey program which provided service similar to the OA Wilderness Voyage to the Quetico Provincial Park. In 2014, The Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve began hosting the Order of the Arrow Summit Experience which gives service to the New River Gorge National River.
### National Order of the Arrow Conference
The National Order of the Arrow Conference (NOAC) is a multi-day event which usually takes place on a university campus, bringing together thousands of delegates from OA lodges around the nation for training and activities. NOACs are held every two years, with exceptions made to align the event with significant anniversaries. As a youth-led organization, these national conferences are organized and directed by the elected section and region youth officers, who serve on committees responsible for various conference aspects under the leadership of the conference vice-chief. Events include training for programs, leadership and American Indian culture; competitions in athletics, ceremonies, cooking and American Indian dances; and exhibits on OA history, outdoor activities, and camping. There are also opportunities to talk with national leaders, perform service work and trade patches. Evening shows have different themes, including American Indian culture and recognition of dance competition winners, presentations of awards including the OA Distinguished Service Award and other entertainment.
## Training
In addition to training courses available at a NOAC or section conclave, the OA offers specialized leadership training as weekend events for members: Lodge Leadership Development (LLD), National Leadership Seminars (NLS), and National Lodge Adviser Training Seminar (NLATS). LLD is a one-day or two-day event conducted by a lodge to train their officers and advisers. NLS's are conducted by regions for lodge officers and advisers. Many lodges send key officers to receive training. Typically, each region schedules three or four NLS weekends annually, at geographically dispersed locations within the region. NLATS is a training event for adults, usually held in conjunction with an NLS and conducted by regions, on the role of advisers in the OA.
Largely considered the adult equivalent of the NLS program, NLATS's primary objective was to provide advanced training to adults in each lodge. NLATS and NLS usually happened concurrently on the same weekend. The events were planned and executed by a staff of adults. After successful pilots in 2016, the Developing Youth Leadership Conference curriculum began replacing NLATS in early 2017.
## Use and appropriation of Native American cultures
Goodman and Edson, the founders of the Order of the Arrow, opted to portray what they saw as Native American characteristics "as a sign of scouting excellence," and that the imagery, costuming, titles and imitation rituals "evoked a primitivist exterior Indian Other, vanished from the modern world but still accessible through ritual and its accompanying objects." Goodman and Edson established the OA at Treasure Island Scout Reservation as a Scouting honor society "based on a loose interpretation of" Hiawatha and the novel The Last of the Mohicans. Inductions of new OA members at Treasure Island involved OA members meeting around bonfires in "ritual Indian costume".
In the later twentieth century and beyond, the Order of the Arrow has been protested and criticized for engaging in cultural appropriation and spreading stereotypes of, and racism against, Native Americans. Protester concerns include OA's imitation of Native American ceremonies, regalia, and artwork they consider to be offensive.
The Chief Seattle Council of the BSA has written that modern ceremonies conducted by each OA lodge are "influenced by" the history and traditions of the Native American tribes indigenous to the areas the lodge serves, but use of Native American sacred objects by non-Native groups such as the Boy Scouts has been condemned by Native activists. Mother of former scouts Ozheebeegay Ikwe writes, "While native children in residential schools had their culture and language beaten from them, the Boy Scouts were using the language and their version of 'Indian culture' in their OA ceremony." She called the OA's use of headdresses, face paint, eagle feathers, and dancing with a pipe, "downright offensive". After researching the OA and watching their ceremonies she said, "Use of these items by Boy Scouts indicates that there is very little understanding of the Native people they claim to admire and respect." American anthropologist John H. Moore, an expert on North American Indian ethnology, wrote in an essay published in 1998 that "of all the institutions in American society, the Boy Scouts of America have probably done the most damage in miseducating the public about Native American cultures...[the] Order of the Arrow annually initiates thousands of boys into the martial, romantic version of Indian culture through ceremonies drawn from the writings of Longfellow and James Fenimoore Cooper".
David Prochaska, professor in the University of Illinois History Department states the Order of the Arrow is one element that "exemplifies the much larger phenomenon of 'playing Indian'...Boy Scouts, Eagle Scouts, Order of the Arrow. Order of Red Men. Campfire Girls. Woodcraft. Boston Tea Party. 'White Indians' – white New Agers as Native American 'wannabes.' ... To pursue the argument a step further, what is 'playing Indian,' 'playing Native,' 'playing an Other,' all about? It is about play, for one thing, in the sense of dressing up, masquerade, the Bakhtinian carnivalesque...It is also about appropriation, in the sense of taking on, assuming an other's identity, taking another's identity. The implication here is replacing one with another, silencing another, speaking for another."
On July 23, 2018, the National Order of the Arrow Committee announced that they had received "many complaints surrounding these ceremonies from various American Indian tribes due to the manner in which they are conducted as well as the inconsistent nature in which they are performed." In 2019, the rules were changed: "Scouts will no longer be allowed to dress up as 'Indians' and incorporate Native American motifs into two of the order's more important ceremonies", according to the Voice of America, which noted also that "in spite of complaints from tribes across the country, Scouts continue to dress in 'Redface,' a term some use to describe the wearing of feathers and warpaint by non-Native Americans." In 2023, amid a backlash against stereotypes of Native Americans, the BSA held a survey among its members about whether to eliminate or alter the rituals, including those for the OA.
## Criticism of election procedures
Elections to the Order of the Arrow have sparked controversy as being little more than popularity contests, especially in troops where scouts attend the same schools and are friends outside of the troop. As such, deserving scouts who are not popular among their troop mates frequently remain excluded from the Order of the Arrow. In larger troops, the election of younger scouts almost never occurs since older scouts dominate the troop leadership and will frequently only elect their peers rather than scouts who are several years younger. The Chairman of the Order of the Arrow acknowledged in 2011 that elections were a challenge, and that steps had been taken for adult leaders to make a greater effort to convey the serious nature of Order of the Arrow membership to members of the troop. |
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